Building a gaming PC for Alan Wake 2

The Pure Base 500 platform is an example of a beautiful, stylish computer case in all respects with a thoughtful internal layout, effective lighting, serious case cooling and effective noise insulation. In particular, the sidewall on the side of the motherboard tray is equipped with internal noise insulation, the HDD cages are lined with vibration-absorbing pads made of soft rubber, and the famous Pure Wings fans are initially set to ninja mode. By the way, out of the box there are 4 fans installed inside the case, so the user does not have to bother with cooling.

The high status of the case is indicated by the thick metal used to create the frame and internal lining, which is why the weight of the case reaches 8 kg. The Pure Base 500 FX platform allows you to build a gaming or work PC of almost any class. A video card up to 37 cm long and tower coolers up to 19 cm high can easily fit inside the case. There are dedicated areas for water pumps of different sizes in the front, back and top of the case. The power supply and storage cages are hidden in the lower closed compartment, as is common in most modern cases.

Compared to the original Pure Base 500 and its sequel, the Pure Base 500DX, the test sample focuses on the backlighting of the case: addressable LEDs cover the external and internal surfaces of the front door, and all 4 coolers are decorated with LED elements supporting 16.8 million colors. The side wall is naturally transparent. The manufacturer specifically emphasizes that the ARGB hub is capable of synchronizing up to six ARGB components and six PWM fans, and the backlight system itself supports many different lighting modes and is compatible with all popular synchronization systems from other brands.

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X is one of the most powerful and cost-effective 8-core processors on the market, in which AMD engineers have perfected all the ideas laid down in the Pinnacle, Picasso, Matisse and Renoir series. It is built on the Zen 3 microarchitecture (Vermeer core, 7 nm) and is compatible with most motherboards equipped with AMD AM4 processor socket. Like most successful Ryzen processors of recent years, it is capable of simultaneously processing up to 16 data streams (SMT technology) and, if necessary, can automatically overclock the clock frequency from 3.4 GHz to 4.6 GHz.

In many reviews, the Ryzen 7 5700X is called a kind of parting gift to owners of systems with the outdated AM4 socket, which was recently replaced by the more progressive AM5 platform. The reason for the popularity of this model is quite simple: high performance by mid-class standards (26,786 points in Passmark tests), relatively low TDP for such power, support for the PCI-E 4.0 interface and a decent amount of cache memory (32 MB L3).

In fact, the performance of the Ryzen 7 5700X lags behind the older version 5800X by a few percentage points, and this gap is easily offset by overclocking, while over the 2 years since the release, prices have stabilized and a similar 8-core processor can be bought at the end of 2023 for just $180. Compare this with the more expensive and advanced Ryzen 7000 series chips, whose weakest 6-core Ryzen 5 will cost at least 20% more. Of course, all other things being equal, new products run faster due to the new architecture, but in our case this leadership is offset by a couple of additional cores, an increased clock frequency and an increased cache memory.

Deepcool AK620 is a dual-tower supercooler, and this is the term commonly used to describe air coolers with a TDP of over 200 watts. In the case of the AK620, the heat dissipation is a little, not a lot, 260 W. That is, it is enough even for long-term PL2 turbocharging of the latest 12th generation Core i7 and Core i9 processors. At first, you need to separately request a mount for the LGA 1700 socket.

The cooler weighs almost one and a half kilograms, fortunately the steel backplate reliably protects the motherboard from bending. There are six heat pipes, contact with the processor through an intermediary plate. Like any other dual-tower cooler, the AK620 covers at least the first RAM slot. Therefore, it is recommended to install RAM modules with low heatsinks or no heatsinks at all.

But you can do something more cunning - install only one fan on the cooler between the towers. For a medium-hot processor, even half the airflow is enough. Two complete turntables with speeds from 500 to 1850 rpm are built on hydraulic bearings. Moreover, this is not a budget hydrostatic, but a premium hydrodynamic.

The noise level, even at maximum speed, does not exceed 28 dB, and the trouble-free operation time is at least 50 thousand hours. The box with the Deepcool AK620 comes with a Y-splitter for connecting two fans to one 4-pin connector on the motherboard, a long screwdriver for the screws hidden between the towers, and a tube of thermal paste.

Gigabyte entered the motherboard market quite successfully, pushing aside competitors with the help of quite interesting models of the Aorus series. One of the main hits was an inexpensive overclocking model for the AMD platform called Aorus Elite. This time we got our hands on the second revision of the board in a larger form factor (note: ATX instead of micro-ATX), a significantly improved power converter and other improvements.

Like the original model, the AORUS ELITE V2 is based on the mid-range AMD B550 system logic, and then the differences begin. Instead of a modest 8-phase converter, the second version installed a much more powerful 14-phase power subsystem, in addition to the built-in HDMI port, DisplayPort was added, the quality of the built-in audio system increased, the built-in LAN port became 2.5 gigabit, plus additional connectors were placed around the perimeter of the board and contacts for LED strips and water pumps.

The slot layout includes three PCI-E x16 slots (one of them operates in PCI-E 4.0 mode), two M.2 connectors for high-speed NVMe SSD drives (both PCI-E 4.0) and four SATA3 ports for classic drives. Four DIMM slots can accommodate up to 128 GB of DDR4-4733 memory. Overall, Gigabyte has created a well-balanced motherboard for AMD processors with the classic AM4 socket, which will cost almost half as much as more modern AM5-class analogues. If you are not eager to overpay for an AM5 + Ryzen 7000 + DDR5 level system, then the Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE V2 will be a reliable foundation for any mid- and high-level gaming build.

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 WINDFORCE OC 12G is a pre-flagship video card of the latest Ada Lovelace architecture, which in terms of raw performance competes almost equally with the flagships of the previous generation represented by the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3090. At the same time, the new architecture turned out to be much more energy efficient, thanks to which a mid-class power supply with a 650-watt power reserve is quite sufficient for the 4070. The amount of fast video memory is a respectable 12 GB by 2023 standards (note: GDDR6X class memory, 192-bit bus).

Among all the high-performance models of NVIDIA's 4000 series, it is the RTX 4070 that has the most optimal dollar-to-FPS ratio, while its performance is sufficient to play in high resolution and admire the beautiful lighting from ray tracing. Well, with a record load, which, for example, is created by the RT Overdrive mode in Cyberpunk 2077, a potential card owner can turn on the frame generation mode in DLSS 3.0 and increase the overall FPS several times. Moreover, without a noticeable increase in input lag and other horror stories that have arisen around frame generation technology using AI.

If we talk about a specific modification, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 WINDFORCE OC 12G has a fairly quiet and efficient Windforce cooling system, which consists of three 80 mm fans with asynchronous blades and a radiator with three copper composite tubes. When the temperature drops below 50 degrees Celsius, the CO switches to a semi-passive, silent operating mode, for which we must especially thank the graphene bearing lubricant. Despite the use of a three-slot cooling system, the length of the accelerator is only 26 cm and the thickness is 2.5 slots.

Kingston Fury Renegade is a dual-channel set of high-speed DDR4 3600 RAM modules, consisting of two peer-to-peer modules with a capacity of 8 GB each. The set starts with timings CL16-20-20 and voltage 1.35V. For successful overclocking, the strips are equipped with large metal radiators that effectively cool both the chips themselves and the memory controller.

After the mass introduction of DDR5 memory, prices for DDR4 sticks decreased slightly, making Fury Renegade memory almost equal in cost to the more affordable Fury Beast sticks. Although both series belong to the “overclocking” class, the Beast brackets have a much smaller capacity for overclocking and in fact belong to mass-market solutions, while the Renegade series, which replaced the HyperX Predator line, is aimed at overclocking enthusiasts.

It is important to note that for the Renegade series, Kingston usually selects more serious memory chips and heatsinks. Well, the cherry on the cake is a starting clock frequency of 3600 MHz with the possibility of serious manual overclocking (note: up to 4266/4600 MHz), at which the bandwidth of this kit will approach more expensive and modern DDR5 RAM modules. And it is for such cases that the Fury Renegade trims are equipped with massive radiators.

The SN770 is an advanced and compact M.2 SSD from the WD Black gaming line. At the same time, the modern hardware platform and high IOPS make it a rather attractive option for professional work. The key factor in the success of this model was the 112-layer BiCS5 memory of our own production and a fundamentally new 4-channel controller of our own production, which instead of buffer SDRAM memory relies on Host Memory Buffer technology, which allows the use of system memory for SSD purposes.

At the winter presentation of the drive, WD company representatives focused on how much the speed and reliability of the drive has increased compared to previous generations. The terabyte model has a linear read speed of up to 5150 MB/s, while the write speed is literally half a block behind - 4900 MB/s. For comparison, WD Black 2020 – 2021 drives worked almost one and a half times slower, while heating up more and consuming more energy. And even having a full buffer didn’t really help them.

In general, WD has created a rather interesting and relatively inexpensive drive that does not overheat even without an additional heatsink, squeezes out all the juice from the PCI-E 4.0 platform, is highly compatible and has no weak points. Advertising slogans in the style of “faster, higher, stronger” did not deceive this time, and the use of bufferless controllers is no longer a death sentence: despite the predictions of skeptics, the SN770 is not subject to speed drops under mixed loads.

be quiet! System Power 10 is a long-awaited update to the junior series of power supplies from the famous German brand. Unlike the company’s rather expensive products, System Power power supplies are designed more for budget-conscious users who are attracted by the reliability and quietness of the German brand, but who are not willing to overpay for AAA models with higher efficiency and a gold quality certificate.

As in the System Power 9 model, which was released back in 2019, the manufacturer used a similar hardware platform with circuitry using the principle of group voltage stabilization. Only if previously HEC and FSP were responsible for it, now the Channel Well Technology (CWT) brand has become a partner. Due to the platform change, the new iteration of the System Power 10 power supply has received a number of pleasant improvements, including higher-quality heat-resistant capacitors from Teapo, a more efficient power line and an increased warranty period from 3 to 5 years.

At the same time, System Power 10 has fixed, rather than modular cables, as in other be quiet power supplies, the efficiency has decreased from 89 to 85%, and the stock turntable has become a little louder, so the “improvement” process can hardly be called ideal. Otherwise, we have before us a typical be quiet! a power supply with top build quality, 80+ Bronze certificate, quiet turntable (especially at loads up to 80%) and all the necessary set of protections. And, what is important, it turned out to be not particularly expensive compared to other “bronze” power supplies with a power of 650 - 700 W.