20 Best Water Cooled Gaming Pc (2023 Updated)

Had this PC for about a month now, and overall i have really enjoyed it. It is a big upgrade from my last rig, but it still has some problems. In terms of preformance, you get the components you pay for in this build.

The 5800x and 3070ti function at their full potential and you get a really rock solid 2k gaming experience at high settings and a high refresh rate (4k medium settings is also pretty viable). Both components are also unlocked for overclocking (with caveats, more on this later).

The psu is powerful enough to safely run the rig, and its gold rated. 16gb is plenty of ram for 2k gaming in most games, and it ships running at 3200mhz (3600mhz would be ideal, but 3200 is fine). The mobo is not from a brand name, it is a generic one from hp, which is not ideal for reasons ill go over in the software section but it does have cooling fins for the vrms and ssd.

The 1 tb ssd works perfectly fine as a boot drive and a games library with room for more m. 2 ssds or sata ssds or hdds on the mobo and in the case. Build quality is good, and cable management is ok.

All the components seem to be upgradable/swappable for future upgrades (could theoretically upgrade the gpu or add/change ram sticks or storage in future). One common criticism of this rig i often see is cooling.

All things considered, i think it is ok, not great, not terrible. The gpu cooler is pretty beefy, and keeps the temps around 75c at full load, which is well under 83c where it would start to throttle.

The case is ok as well, definitly better than the 25L variant; it has 1 intake fan, and 2 exhaust fans, with one of the exhausts being used for the cpu AIO. More room for fans would be nice, but it produces decent flow through the case as is.

The cpu aio is hp branded as well, but seems to function adequately (from a hardware perspective). While gaming the cpu usually hangs around 75c, but can briefly spike up to above 80c. When it comes to software, things get a little complicated.

It comes with windows 11, which is cool but because it is so new, some peripheral functionalities like bluetooth and also general stability seem to still be works in progress. The BIOs on the hp brand mobo is VERY limited, with just some basic options for hardware diagnostics and settings (can’t change ram speed, or cpu settings from here).

Like all oem prebuilts, this one comes with some pre-installed software that you probably do not want (macafee, and a bunch of hp crap mainly). This can be remedied by reinstalling windows, but there are two I would recommend keeping.

The “HP Support Assistant” app is how you can download new BIOS updates, so I would keep that one. The other one is the “Omen Gaming Hub” app. Oh boy, let’s talk about this thing for a minute. It comes with a program to control the rgb case lighting, but it cannot detect or affect the ram rgb, despite hp specifically stating this would be fixed in a future update to the app.

That and this next reason are the only reasons why I would keep this app installed, but this next point is MY BIGGEST CRITICISM OF THIS ENTIRE RIG: there is NO way to gain manual control of the case and cpu fans, 3rd party control apps don’t work, so it can ONLY be controlled by this stupid app which always runs in the backround as soon as you fire up the rig and comes with a social hub and game overlay that I guarantee you won’t want to use.

No manual fan curves, just three available settings: quiet, normal, and turbo. All three settings are way too slow in my opinion; the first two let the cpu get way too hot before ramping up, and even turbo mode is slow to ramp up when the cpu temps spike.

This makes the rig quite quiet, but leaves virtually no room for overclocking. Even now, I am typically only at 30-50% cpu utilization while gaming, but the temps still hang around 75c while the fan hums away at a low rpm.

It is not dangerous or thermal throttling and you CAN set fan curves for the gpu fans, but even so, given the limited cooling of the case, it leaves basically no room for overclocking, and I dread the results I would see on a fully loaded cpu test.

Overall, like I said, I have been really enjoying my experience with this rig, despite its shortcomings. I believe it will continue to deliver that high framerate, high settings 2k gaming experience for at least the next 5-6 years before I start having to turn the graphics down.

There is a variant of this model with a 3080 instead of a 3070ti, but with the cooling issues i mentioned above, i wouldnt recommend it (i am very happy with the 3070ti personally). I also wouldn’t recommend buying the 25L variant of this case, as the cooling is truly bad on that one.

The problems it does have can be mitigated by you (deleting the bloatware) or could possibly get fixed by hp in the future (fan curves). Keep in mind that to get the performance you are paying for this rig, you will need a high refresh rate 1440p display with gsync; I picked an msi one up for about 280 usd.

It is also worth mentioning that I bought this on sale for $150 off (was $1,930, I got for $1,780 before tax) in April of 2022. With gpu prices coming down and the next gen of cpus and gpus on the horizon, make sure to price out this whole rig as if you were building it yourself from parts off Amazon or Newegg, just to make sure you are not getting completely ripped off, especially since the 3070ti is not a great value card for the money (its basically a base 3070 with a memory overclock, so unless it is on sale i would probably opt for the 3070 non ti variant of this build instead) and you ARE paying over msrp for it at this price point.

The calculus worked out to be a good deal for me, but evaluate the deal you are getting for yourself at time of purchase. Be mindful of what you want out of your rig; I wanted solid 2k gaming, which this model provides, and is why I can live with the lack of cooling options, but your mileage may vary depending on your use case (I only use this for gaming and light web browsing, I have no clue about productivity or crypto mining preformance).

TLDR: get this rig if you want premium, but not top of the line gaming preformance and you don’t mind your components running a bit toasty.

From perspective of a fairly experienced PC builder that decided to try this prebuilt due to the good deal it seemed to be. Pros: – On paper this is a great deal for the price – Decent aesthetics – Compact – Upgradability is decent – Prerouted cables for SSD/HDD installation to make it easier to expand non-M.

2 storage Cons: – In reality performance/parts are not terrific. I can’t seem to get consistent, good performance out of the computer. I tried overclocking the graphics card since it’s been performing poorly but even with that overclock I was just under average performance, according to userbenchmark, and I started having the odd crashes despite not trying an intensive overclock.

It’s not awful performance but the parts in this computer are from HP wherever possible (GPU, motherboard, and HyperX RAM) so the quality isn’t really quite there. – Awful temperatures. I was basically forced to aggressively undervolt the CPU because otherwise the temps hit 80s by default; even with a pretty significant undervolt, the temps get to 70s due to the CPU cooler being about as cheap of a watercooler as you can get (120mm AIO from what I can see).

Pretty poor cooling and it shows with the tiny back exhaust fan, the glass front panel with an ok amount of ventilation on the sides of the front panel, and no easy way to remove the front panel. – Price increased by $100, I bought it for $1999 originally and then a day later it was $100 more.

You can still argue the price for the build is good in the current GPU market but still unfortunate. – I/O is alright but could be better. – Too much bloat from HP. The “OMEN Gaming Hub” is how you can undervolt/overclock straight from Windows but it’s still a background process that ends up taking up system resources even when you’re not using the application.

Overall I am not too happy with the purchase and will be returning the computer in hopes to find a better one or possibly wait to just go from scratch for another new custom build.

I purchased this when it was clearanced at $1,300. I work from home and remote into a work PC for a 3D modelling/draftsman job. My job doesn’t require a higher tier gaming PC but I wanted something that would still be suitable 5-10 years down the road (my previous PC was 7 years old).

I loaded Halo infinite online and COD MW2 remaster beta to test it out. FPS and performance is great but under heavy load the fans run LOUD and my CPU temp. was averaging around 85C. I have since replaced the rear 92mm fan with a Noctua NF-B9 Redux, the front intake fan with a Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM, as well as placed an additional Noctua NF-S12A PWM in the bottom of the case for secondary intake.

It should be noted that the front intake mounting screws are not compatible with the NF-A12x25. HP seems to use maybe M4x0. 7mm? Either way I have lowered temps under heavy loads by 10C and significantly reduced noise from; changing to Noctua fans, the addition of the bottom intake fan and by lifting the case off the ground another few inches with a tower stand.

I am now playing the COD MW2 beta online (Ground War) with average CPU temp at 72C and average FPS around 120. I followed tips from DanKamYouKnow and Jeff the IT Guy on Youtube to make these changes as well as some alterations to the fan curve, CPU and GPU performance.

This PC is a great starting point if you get it for a good price. This case wasn’t designed with the best cooling in mind and some alterations are necessary to get great not good performance out of it.

So this is my second ever prebuilt purchase I made and personally wanted to get a higher end prebuilt then my last tower. I received it two days ago and recently had the time to plug it in and start the new PC process.

Upon first clicking the power button I was welcomed with a beautiful sight of the blue error screen. I thought I would let it restart because this is a brand new prebuilt and it should work itself out.

I was very wrong. The blue screened kept popping up for over 90 minutes. I watched so many videos to help me fix this issue and had to do a factory reset on a NEW computer which seemed to fix the issue until I downloaded Apex and saw that the graphics were choppy and very grainy.

I decided to try a different game with no success. I talked to a very computer whizz had me a run a test which came to a conclusion that my graphics card was not running as it should. Rather running at 40% then 100%.

This might not be true, and I hope it’s not, but they said that its possible they installed a used graphics card instead of a new one and the other person might have damaged it and put it into the tower.

This shows that there is not many tests done before selling it. I am currently in the process of trying to get this one fixed or replace because I would like to give this a fair shot and see what this tower is like when it works because its a very cool looking tower.

I usually build my systems myself but time, availability and budget were important for me this time around. There’s plenty room in this Thermaltake S300 Snow case for upgrades (space for 2 extra 120mm fans, looped cooling and reservoirs, etc.

). If you swap the GPU for something bigger than a dual-fan 3060, you will need to either vertical mount the GPU, or move the AIO to the top. Luckily, the case already comes with a vertical mount in the box, but you will need to provide your own PCI-e x16 gen 3 riser cable.

I picked one up online from Thermaltake for $35. Of course, gen 4 will be more expensive, but you will likely need to configure it in BIOS (which is very easy to use) either way. The power supply is not modular, so cable management is a mess down there in my opinion, and the cables are very brittle.

Even plugging in a 2. 5″ SSD in the front was a challenge without taking things apart. Although, it is still 80+ gold certified (700W). The motherboard is an MSI B550-A Pro[CEC] (MS-7C56). The Ryzen 5600X is all you need for high-end gaming, so don’t waste your money upgrading the CPU unless you’re doing something heavier than gaming.

All around this is the best thing you can get that’s ready out of the box, no advance config required, it just works.

High-quality PC for the price. All RGB can be synced with motherboard control so no need for 3rd party applications. Much better parts than most PC’s at this price range. Coming from an iBuyPower PC, this is a major upgrade in parts, quality, and performance.

I get 500 – 600 FPS on most of my games.

I bought this for sim racing. It might be overkill for iRacing but wanted to have the ability to use three 1080 monitors (which combined have more pixels than one 1440 but less than one 4K). For now, I’m using it with a 4K TV in my rig that I had been using with my PS5 (playing mainly GT Sport).

I’m getting around 75 FPS at 4K in iRacing (the TV is only 60 hz). I’ve seen tests of the 3060ti in iRacing with three 1080 monitors getting over 100 FPS. The two issues I see people complaining about with this PC are heat issues and an inability to recover from sleep mode.

I think these are both overblown. On the first issue, I’m seeing processor temps with iRacing mostly in the mid-70s, with the video card in the 50s. I have seen the processor get into the 80s but the fan kicked up and cooled it off quickly (and the fan isn’t really that loud, yes it got louder but it was still pretty quiet).

And this is what people are missing: the Ryzen 5000 series is apparently intended to run hot with the 5800X having a max temp of 90 according comments by a director of technical marketing from AMD, on Reddit (Google it if you do doubt me).

He also said temps of 70-85 with a “midrange” cooler such as the smaller liquid cooler in this PC are normal, and guess what, that’s what I’m seeing! I think the concerns are driven by the ease of seeing the temps with the Omen software combined with an outdated concept of what is “normal” or “acceptable”.

So stay calm and game on! On the second issue, my computer wakes up fine. Perhaps this was fixed via a software update but I haven’t seen the issue. Finally, in my opinion as an “older” middle-aged gamer, this PC has an attractive design and is not as cheesy as some of the other prebuilts out there.

I’m not looking to create a tecnho club atmosphere with all of the RGB lights in my gaming rig… So overall, I’m very happy with this PC for my use at least.

As a longtime PC gamer, it has been difficult to build my own PC from scratch with the components shorage going on. I decided to try This CyberPower PC, and was not disappointed in my purchase. I have had it for almost a month now, and below are my brief thoughts on it.

It has a a super fast 1TB NVMe drive, extremely powerful GPU and CPU, great ventilation and plenty of USB 3. 0 ports. I had previously only been an Intel CPU owner, so I was a bit nervous about switching to AMD.

My worries were unfounded though, with this PC zipping through all of the tasks I need it for. I play a lot of newer, next generation games – and so far almost all of them have run perfectly at Ultra settings.

Cyberpunk, Borderlands 3, The Ascent, Red Dead Redemption and more all run at the highest settings on my 1080p AMD Freesync monitor. I also have it connected to my LG 4k 120hz tv, and at 4k all the previously mentioned games (and every newer game I have tried) can easily run at 4k and high settings.

I am incredibly happy with the stability and power of this system, and and can honestly say I am a CyberPower owner. There is plenty of room in the large tower to upgrade to any video card out there, but what it comes with works terrific for most peoples needs.

I do plan on upgrading the ram eventually to 32GB, as I use Adobe editing software for work, but other than that this PC is a beast. I have had Alienware and HP Omen desktops in the past and have always been disappointed in both stability and performance.

I think CyberPower has nailed a perfect price point to performance ratio here – and would highly recommend this PC to anyone looking for a high-tier gaming device that has all the ingredients needed for both gaming and productivity!.

System booted with immediate red light post to video card on motherboard indicating the video card was dead on arrival. I tried to get the system working on a few monitors, checked the connections were all secure, and tried using all of the connections on the video card in hopes it may have posted incorrectly, but that was all an exercise in futility.

To compound the issue further, although I could not confirm it since the system could not be set up without a video signal, the Intel sticker on the outside of the computer case was for an i7. This is supposed to be an i9-12900KF, a major reason why I bought this particular computer along with its 3080 video card.

Of course after returning the computer I could not order another one because they are now, “sold out” – probably a good thing as you know what they say, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”.

Other than my experience, the computer appears to have solid reviews, again something I took into consideration when purchasing this computer myself. If you do order this computer, confirm you are actually getting an i9 – like you paid for – not an i7.

Major difference! The only other issue I experienced at Best Buy only compounded the frustration, at least at first. I brought the computer to Geek Squad to inquire over its return (within a day of delivery) and after waiting 20 minutes in line holding the computer in my arms, I asked to put it down on the counter.

I was then greeted by an impatient, short fused, abrasive, Geek Squad member who tells me I need to have an appointment, and “maybe” they will get to me after all of the appointments that day – as I look at the monitor noticing a laundry list of people on the screen, and the Geek Squad close to 2 hours behind.

Yet, barely a soul in the line behind me, and I was two people deep in line. Luckily, another Geek Squad Team member, who I believe is the manager, helped me shortly thereafter. I showed him the video card was dead on arrival and he confirmed.

Ultimately, I was told in order to even return the product, Geek Squad would have to confirm it was defective. Therefore, essentially, by explanation of the first less than cordial, direct, and abrupt Geek Squad member, I should have had an appointment scheduled just to return a 3000 dollar computer I bought that was dead on arrival.

Not that the experience was frustrating enough. Thankfully, another Geek Squad member was very nice and accommodating enabling me to return the product without an appointment. Quite the disappointing experience since I had also purchased this to surprise my son, but hey, not all experiences can be “rainbows and sunshine”, right? The moral of the story is, at least in my case, this product is a “buyer beware”.

Sending a computer with a video card that boots, but does not work, clearly indicates these computers are not tested after they are put together by the manufacturer and can therefore be shipped with defective parts.

Also, as stated, there was an i7 sticker on the computer case that should house a high end 12th gen i9. Obviously, someone could have just put the wrong sticker on the case, after all, they shipped a defective video card.

However, the on the other side of that coin, the system may not have had the i9 as advertised and confirmed in the product’s description online. Then of course, if you get the wrong Best Buy Geek Squad Team member, you may be told to schedule an appointment just to return a 3000 dollar computer that was shipped to you broken and not working.

So much for that “Elite Plus” Member status. Thanks for your time.

I was so lucky to be able to get the very last one Microcenter had. I got it open-box cause it was a floor-model so I know it never got any significant use. I can’t explain just how powerful this beast truly is.

I mainly use it for 2 reasons: 1) I am a 3D animator and 2) to play War-Zone. First, as an animator, I’ve never seen programs such as MAYA and Adobe After-Effects run so smooth! As far as Warzone, I play on a 1440 144 FPS monitor.

I run it on basically max settings and it never falls under 160 fps. I’m not sure if it’s a placebo effect from knowing on playing on such a beast or if I’m really seeing the true advantage of having all my movements happen immediately but I’m playing MUCH better.

I’m averaging about 8-10 more kills a game. Everything is just so snappy and SUPER clear! I can’t tell you how satisfied I am with the R14 and at the price I got it for but it will serve me very, very well for years to come! I will definitely be upgrading the RAM to max and adding an additional 2TB SSD! If you get a chance to get it, do yourself the favor and do it! Also, it runs pretty quiet considering the fact that it runs a Ryzen 9 500x and a RTX 3080ti!.

Looking at game systems for over a year. Finally decided I wanted this one and I am not at all disappointed. Comes up in 30 secs. Runs games like a game platform. Purfect and in some cases more than I need.

Love it.

The kind of deal you ONLY find at Microcenter. Delivers on power and performance without compromise. Love it. Also 1bay he’d and 3bay ssd expandable.

First off the specs are gnarly in this computer and it’s for sure one of the better options. I typically build my own PC but due to the frustration of constantly messing up putting in my AIO and having it cooled improperly or just unstable performance I decided to go with one of the “gucci” builds Graphics- This came with an ASUS TUF 3080 which is one of the higher tier GPUs, I don’t have much to say on it because I swapped it out for a 3080ti.

CPU- i9 12900kf with no designated graphics(who really cares) is an overkill monster, arguably the best CPU you get can get right now. DDR5 5200mhz RAM, Honestly kind of underwhelming, I don’t think the upgrade from DDR4 to 5 is really worth it yet, but to each their own.

Liquid cooling- This is built by a company that is literally renowned for their liquid cooling, it’s definitely solid. My RGB on this came DOA, kind of frustrating because if this case wasn’t even RGB compatible I guarantee the overall price would drop by a couple hundred bucks.

I’ve contacted the company but really don’t wanna deal with an RMA and be without a PC for an indefinite amount of time. Overall I think the grab is worth it, just be mindful of some hiccups along the way, if you can build one I would certainly recommend doing so, to that note grab some thermal take parts.

So far this is the best prebuilt I’ve had. Also the highest fps I’ve gotten in Warzone. The case is a little different and prob the only downfall as there’s a lot of work if your looking to upgrade parts.

I’ve had a 3 different prebuilt pc’s and the parts seem to be the best quality. If your looking to upgrade parts soon prob not the best fit. If your looking to get a great prebuilt that has basically everything you need.

This is perfect.

Using this primarily for freelance game creation on Unreal 5 and Unity. Overall performance has been as expected. Am running Unreal editor at peak quality settings with fairly detailed scenes. Computer does overheat on really complex scenes – but this is to be expected.

Internal (especially drive bays) feel a bit flimsy though.

I was hesitant to buy this system as it was more expensive than some comparable models, however after looking at manufacturer’s official website I became more confident in their abilities. I’m so glad I did too, as this system from CLX is remarkable.

It was ready to go right out of the box and came with operating system and Nvidia Control Panel pre-installed. Speaking of the box, this thing came packaged so well that it could have dropped on my porch from a helicopter and would have likely survived intact.

Just be sure to open up the case and remove the padding that they use to support the video card before you try to start it up. It also came with multiple printed pages verifying that a tech at their company checked and tested every component in the system, as well as photos of what that component was.

The cable management is phenomenal, the LEDs are gorgeous, and the system itself is lightning fast. I’m playing Cyberpunk with Ultra Ray Tracing settings in 1080p and it’s smooth as butter. It runs my Valve Index VR like a champ at 144hz.

Quality all around. My only complaint, which is nothing CLX did wrong, is that the specifications on Newegg did not tell me what style/ manufacturer of motherboard or GPU was installed (just stated it was an RTX 3060ti).

Anyone who has built a computer knows that the manufacturer makes a HUGE difference, so I was rolling the dice a little in this regard. Looking at CLX’s website again gave me comfort as they seem to mainly use MSI products in their Intel/Nvidia builds.

This particular one ended up coming with an MSI Z490A-Pro and MSI Ventus GPU, both of which I am happy with especially at this price point. For a pre-built mid level gaming system, you can’t go wrong with this one.

You won’t be playing with Ultra Ray Tracing in 4k at 120hz or anything, but you’ll easily part two times or more for that kind of capability. This system will obliterate 1080p and 1440 though, which is exactly what I was wanting.

If you want total control over the components, go to the CLX website where you can pick literally everything. If you don’t want that level of complexity and just want a gaming computer that works amazingly well out of the box with no hassle or tech knowledge required, buy this one.

Five stars!.

The box is wonderful. I’ve built computers since 1995. It is every component I would use and costs less. On to the mouse and keyboard. Both are programmable. Problem is, no software, no documentation.

On to the next item. My mouse has a problem. The button function of the scroll wheel is intermittant, it works around 80% of the time. The LED lights work around 5% of the time. I created a service ticket two weeks ago with the manufacturer.

They promptly sent an email with trouble shooting procedures. I tried them, nothing happened. I relayed that on to them. Their solution? They sent me a mouse pad. I decided F that and bought a EVGA X17 mouse.

The box is great, but as I’ve seen, their support is virtually non existent. As far as geek squad support, they were great in their effort, but they came to the point of “thats all the info I have, you’ll have to contact the manufacturer.

” I will put I would not recommend to buy.

Oh dang, if your looking for speed, look no further. 12th generation cpu really blows your socks off. This is the lowest-priced 12 generation you can find under 2k. Equipped with an RTX 3060 and 16 gigs of ram, its nice.

Only recommendations, add an external SSD Drive for games or files. You gonna want to install everything on this baby. SSD drives are cheap now, save some money. Why external vs internal? You dont want to void the warranty, unless you get Geek Squad to install it for you.

Just more money.

We recently purchased two of these systems at work and I got the fun job of setting them up. I work with a lot of not good computers so getting to work with these was a treat. It was easy to unpack with plenty of packing material to make sure it stays safe in shipping.

The first set of accessories you pull out of the box has some very clear instructions with mostly pictures showing you how to take the shipping foam out and get you started. In addition to the printed instructions there is a sticker covering up most of the rear ports just leaving the GPU with the HDMI port open (the 3 other display ports have nice covers) just to make sure you plug into the GPU and not any motherboard display out ports.

Once we got plugged into one of the DisplayPorts and powered up the system started up with no issues at all. This system seems to have two large dust filters covering all of the intake fans a personal must have of mine.

I am not the biggest fan of RGB lighting but I must say the RGB here is done tastefully and I was impressed. At this price range the specs are fairly expensive you are probably paying a small premium for being prebuilt but in this case I would say any premium is probably justified for all of the small quality of life advances you get here.

They even got a proper PSU gold rated. The fans were nearly silent when just running updates and installing programs. The keyboard and mouse were even decent. I would say they both look impressive and mouse even feels fine but the keypresses on the keyboard do not feel good but not bad.

Very minimal / basically no boat was found just as good as a clean install of windows to me. The choice of a good i7 12th gen and a 30 series GPU means you can keep this system running for a long time.

This system includes a 500GB m. 2 ssd which I think should be the minimum for any serious PC and helps keep this system running better in the long tern even as is.

People usually buy prebuilds to either save themselves the hassle of assembling their own or because they lack the knowledge on how to do it and don’t want to ruin thousands of dollars worth of parts.

Therefor, professionals are paid to do it when ordering prebuilts. You would expect them to do an outstanding job but after having extreme problems with the CPU overheating under low load, I knew I had to do something.

The pc would often shut down mid game in League of Legends which is definitely one of the easier games to run out there. The temps would be around 99C throughout the whole match and the pc would run close to 70C under minimal load.

I ordered an AIO thinking the stock cooler that comes with the pc was the problem but after removing the old cooler, I found a piece of paper in the thermal paste creating a barrier between the CPU and cooler.

This is absolutely outrageous, almost seems like it was purposefully done. Their was thermal paste on both sides of the paper which means to me that someone had to apply thermal paste to both surfaces which is very unusual and suspicious.

I swapped out that cooler anyway because I had ordered the AIO and the temps went from 99/100C while playing league of legends to 35C. I do believe the stock cooler would have done a good job if it was not for the piece of paper isolating the CPU from the cooler but I will not be testing it.

I strongly recommend anyone stay away from these prebuilds, their are many stories of how these pc’s are cheaply assembled. I would have put in a picture of the piece of paper in question but I don’t think attaching images is possible.

The PC itself out the box was pretty good. The set up and installing was very easy anyone can really do it with no problems. Only problems I found in the PC was with the fans. I had to flip them for better air flow but the fans themselves felt pretty cheap.

So I would recommend buying fans to replace the original. With the cooling I would recommend upgrading the CPU cooler, it can get a little hot to fast sometimes. Also would recommend upgrading SSD but 500GB is alright but it would be better to have more.

As for Cable Management, when you open the back part of the PC case the cables seem very clustered. As if someone just didn’t want to put in the time to organize cables but it isn’t that hard to fix yourself to make things a little more organized.

But as for performance, with games like Warzone and open world games it runs pretty smooth. A little fps drops here and there but doesn’t happen to often but you can get pretty good gameplay out of any game you want to play.

I would recommend this PC but to those who are willing to pay a little extra for upgrades such as fans, coolers, etc. Overall this PC is actually pretty good for what it is and would recommend it, but again to those who are willing to pay extra for upgrades.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for a new modern PC at a moderate cost without the effort/research/experience needed to build their own. If you don’t want to have to tweak with anything, I think this system is pretty close to as good as you’re going to get at this price minus the horrific chassis fan installed on the back.

If there is one thing I would want ASUS to change on this, it’s that. The chassis fan, and maybe add at least 1 intake fan. Would I buy it again? I guess this has been a new experience for me since I have built almost every PC I’ve owned in my life up until now (first one in 2005, a new one every 5-6 years).

There were many points where I was like “ah this is nice to not have to worry about this,” and then other points where I was clearly like “:| why is this case/motherboard so limited”. YMMV 2 Week edit: I got a new fan in and changing it has been such a game changer.

I didn’t realize just how bad the rear exhaust fan was bothering me until I put in a much quieter on. Asus: look at the reviews on this product. Almost ever reviewer mentions noise. The rear fan is horrible, put in something better.

It really does turn this product use experience from a 5 star experience to a 2-3 star experience on its own, for something I swapped out and fixed for a mere $10.

What I Like: The design – this computer is awesome! The way it lights up as it turns on is super fun and the use of RGB throughout it is striking. I also enjoy the clear side with “ROG” on it. It’s fun being able to see inside the PC.

Performance is really great too and the fans remain quiet even when gaming. The mouse and keyboard it came with look great also. And I love the ROG logo stickers it came with too. What I Don’t Like: The clear side of the computer came with noticeable scuffs on it that won’t come off.

They didn’t even put a clear peel off coating to protect it from getting scuffed. When it lights up, the scuffs are even more noticeable. The headphone hanger is a super nice idea, but it seems so cheap that I’m not even going to try to put my ROG Delta S headset on it because I’m afraid it’ll break.

The lighting on the PC will go out for a split second at pure random – probably software related. While I haven’t had this happen since restarting the PC, the keyboard’s right arrow key was occasionally sending input as if I was holding it down while I was gaming.

It’s not fun when your character suddenly goes to the right into a wall until you press the key to make it stop. While the keyboard was included, it should work without issue. It’s not cheap when sold separately either.

I’m hoping that’s also software related and not a hardware issue.

I got this computer last year and it’s still running amazing, I love how clean and organized the internals are and especially when it first came to my doorstep. When I first initially received my computer, after some confusion I realized my GPU was defective and was artifacting during bootup, however after calling customer support they walked me through the process of an RMA request (Sending the GPU back for a replacement), they were really direct and immediately knew what to do.

During an RMA request, they send you an email with all of the details discussed in the call so you can use when you’re mailing it or to remember what steps you need to take which I found really helpful.

I loved that they gave you equipment (mouse and keyboard), I didn’t know they gave a free mouse and keyboard until I got it so it was a really pleasant surprise, I still use the mouse to this day as I love it and I’ve gotten used to it during games.

I personally love that the mouse has two buttons to interchange between sensitivities instead of one to sift through sensitivities where you’d have to continue clicking it if you missed the sensitivity you wanted (like most mouses), and I love the four sidebuttons it comes with, the lower one decreases your sensitivity to about 1/3 or 1/2 of the sensitivity you’re currently on, I could tell this would be really useful if you’re drawing something and need precision, in games this would help a ton if you need lower DPI for ranged fights, the middle one clicks twice for you which I love having that feature in hand, and I use the extra sidebuttons as hotkeys like for Medal or Outplayed.

The mouse also has counter-weights on the bottom of the mouse shaped like pillars that you can take out to make it either lighter or heavier, I love this feature, cause I can practically set the way the mouse feels when moving it.

Overall, the customer service was amazing when I called them to address my initial issue, the computer runs amazing to this day, and to top it all off the mouse they gave me is my favorite mouse out of all the ones I’ve tried so far.

I have had this PC for a few months now, and I had some issues. First thing I did was upgraded my mem to 32GB. With the Liquid Cooling hoses in in the position they were, The slot for the closest mem stick would not fit.

So I had to rotate the liquid cooling hoses 90 degrees up to get the clearance. Second issue is now I am having random crashes with the graphics card to where it will shut off. At first I thought it was a heating issue, then a power issue.

Not sure really what is going on. I have all drivers up to date. I had to under volt the graphics card as well go into debug mode on the Geforce driver settings. I am not sure if these computers come overclocked or not.

but with these settings its seems stable so far with no issues. Other than that, I get good performance otherwise.

I have had 2 other cyberpower gaming pc’s in the past and have had great success with them. Bought this model for a replacement of 2015 model and plugged it in like all the others and pretty soon it shut off, I thought know way did it get hot with the cooling system it has.

Started back up in BIOS and sure enough temp just kept going up. Took back and got another one and it did the same thing, got on chat with cyberpower tech which suggested I re-seat the AIO. I did this with new thermal paste and still the same, just watched the temp climb steadily.

Bios showed pump and fans all running, So this one is going back as well and I will go elsewhere.

I purchased one and during setup it would randomly shut down after 5-10 minutes. I returned that one and exchanged it for another, which did the same thing. Ended up going with the Ryzen CPU version, as it uses a different power supply.

I called CyberPowerPC tech support and they admitted that they had a batch of bad PSUs and they would ship me one. I still stuck with the brand, but purchased a different model that uses a different power supply.

This is a great gaming computer. If you’re looking for a gaming computer that can handle games like Cyberpunk 2077 Dying Light 2 and many others on max settings look no further. Works great and looks great.

I’ve had no overheating issues and I find the fan noise to be minimal considering the amount of power this machine has.

Purchased this about a month ago and i love it. Comes with everything you could ask for. The 3080 ti combined with the ryzen 9 5900x makes any task you throw at it a breeze. I stream gameplay so with this machine i never have any hiccups.

Bought it on a sale also so i am more than satisfied with my purchase.

Looks sleek, and performance has been excellent so far! Got it at a great price and have not regretted the purchase! I saw some reviews before getting it saying it could be loud sometimes, but I haven’t noticed too much noise, although I do usually wear headphones when using the pc.

I was hesitant to purchase this one, as last generation I tried out a few of Cyberpower’s 3080 Intel builds and found them to run extremely hot and thermal throttle. Knowing that the 13900kf runs about as hot as them come, I wasn’t sure what to expect with a 240mm cooler.

Well, my fears have subsided, this thing runs surprisingly cool for what it is. Cinebench r23 easily hit the thermal throttling 100 F temp quickly, but that was to be expected. In gameplay, this PC maintains temps between 65-80 F, depending on the game.

The 4090 is cool as well, and whisper quiet. Playing on a 4k 165hz screen, I can actual hit the frame cap of my monitor in many games, which is pretty crazy. This PC has delivered on everything I have thrown at it thus far.

Components have been pretty well described in other reviews, however if you order this at a later date, don’t be surprised if the build is slightly different; Cyberpower works with the components that they have on hand at the time, but nothing will be too different.

I upgraded the single stick of RAM to 32gb DDR5 5600, however the motherboard doesn’t seem to like to boot with anything higher than 5400, fyi. All in all, for the price you get a beast of a machine, currently some of the top spec hardware available.

Assuming no Nvidia power cable fiascos, I would highly recommend this unit for anyone looking for a high end gaming PC.

I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. The only thing that is not great is the ram stick and it’s still DDR5. Who cares if it’s one stick you’re gonna want to upgrade and throw it out…. I don’t even know if you need to.

I’m running everything on full max RT ultra 8k 60hz locked all games. wow MW2 frag beast of a box. The motherboard I got is actually outstanding for gaming performance. Maybe it lacks some features, but it actually has the realtek 7.

1 surround. It also has great latency and bus speeds blah blah…on par with 700$ ones — great work CYberPower. I don’t know maybe it’s missing some socket that you’ll never use… I’m pretty much an enthusiast, so I don’t know what I would possibly needing the next three years.

The power supplies 1000 W to that should I come at 8 to 4090 T. I. I hope. overall just Amazing performance to pair with the 13th GEN Intel and 4090. This was a fantastic value and I could not be happier.

Once again, I commend cyber power for putting together something that you can’t complain about and is an instant buy conpared to the market. I bought a cyber power a couple of years ago and it was also a great value and they pick great parts and everything is a namebrand l.

they They also have very good support. I have no affiliation with them.

The Alienware Aurora R13 is a unique device for me to use and review, as I have not purchased a gaming desktop in about 25 years, preferring to build my own. Little about it serves to sway me away from that approach, but I do certainly appreciate the idea of a ready-to-go out of the box gaming machine and how appealing that is to many.

Out of the (very large) box, the Alienware Aurora R13 possesses a distinctive, space-y aesthetic. The case color scheme is called Lunar Light. Whether you like it or not may well depend upon your age: me, a middle-aged man, didn’t love it or hate it, but I found myself growing to like it as there was something of a 1990s feel to it that tickled my sense of nostalgia.

My teenage son, upon first look, thought it was amazing and the coolest thing he’d seen. This chassis represents an update to the design and as such features a transparent side to allow viewing of the components inside.

The spec sheet is eye-popping: a liquid-cooled Intel Core i9-12900KF CPU, a Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card, 32GB RAM, and a 1TB PCIe SSD. The case is absolutely awash in USB ports, including Type C ports up to 20Gbps, and there are literally endless lighting customization options with the case.

Sounds like PC paradise, but alas there are a few problems in paradise. Let’s start with the CPU. The i9-12900KF is near the very top of the Intel CPU heap, only outclassed by the slightly faster special edition 12900KS.

As a K-series chip, it is fully unlocked for overclocking. The F-suffix indicates it does not have onboard graphics, so it will require a discrete graphics card, which is typical for a CPU this high-end.

The i9 is Intel’s Alder Lake design, which has a heterogeneous architecture: 8 “performance” cores that are capable of handling two threads per core for intensive applications, along with 8 “efficiency” cores (one thread/core) for handling more mundane tasks.

This gives the chip the capability to handle 24 total threads, and it’s this architecture, with Intel’s new thread scheduler to properly allocate tasks to the correct cores, that makes this require Windows 11 for maximum performance.

Here’s the problem: with the 12th gen Core series, Intel has changed how these chips operate. The old TDP (thermal design power) measurements don’t mean as much, and these chips are meant to clock as high as they want, and draw as much power as they want (up to 241W in this case for a K-series chip), so long as the thermals allow them.

This chip, with top clocks over 5Ghz and 8+8 cores, draws a lot of power and generates a lot of heat. And it’s cooled by just a liquid cooler with a single radiator and a 120mm fan. It’s just not enough–a 360mm AIO cooler is not overkill for this chip.

The problem is that there just doesn’t seem to be room anywhere in a custom case like this to fit a liquid cooler that robust, so they stuck with a 120mm liquid cooling solution (that appears to be proprietary by the way, so don’t think you can change it).

There are plenty of other case fans that attempt to mitigate–keep in mind there is a huge and very power hungry GPU in the case as well–by pulling in air through the front, over the RAM and CPU cooler and another one lower for airflow over the GPU, all trying to exhaust the air out the back.

The net result is that under heavy load–Cinebench R23 benchmarking, for example, which engages all cores at 100%–the system can both be surprisingly loud and yet the CPU still appears to throttle, at least from what I can tell from HWMonitor.

Will this matter for gaming? Frankly, no, apart from lesser but still increased fan noise. Games do not engage the CPU to that extent, and probably won’t for the expected lifespan of this machine. And unless you are gaming at a very low resolution (for super high frame rates in competitive shooters), you will be GPU bound far before this CPU limits you.

What this does mean is that if you have ambitions to make this a dual-purpose gaming and production workstation, rendering for hours at 100% CPU usage is perhaps not this device’s strong suit. This is probably my number one issue with the device.

The CPU is seated in a (sadly) proprietary motherboard, which is in turn powered by a (sadly) proprietary 750W power supply. Alder Lake CPUs can be run with either older DDR4 RAM or new DDR5 RAM, depending upon the motherboard configuration.

DDR4 is still quite competitive with all but the fastest DDR5 due the latter’s latency penalty, a phenomenon that has arisen in the past during other memory standard transitions. This motherboard, based upon the top end Intel Z690 chipset, looks forward to the future by using DDR5, but it’s not particularly fast RAM and appears to be underclocked: CPU-Z reports it as 32GB (2x16GB) SK Hynix DDR5-4800, but it’s being run at 4400Mhz.

I’m a little puzzled at the decision, but Dell, in my experience, can be pretty conservative with things like memory timings, perhaps to prize stability over performance or to regulate thermals. The slower RAM speeds probably serve to hold back the chip somewhat in certain memory-sensitive scenarios, but the 32GB amount is more than sufficient for just about any mainstream usage.

Also curious for a gaming machine that has a window on the side to look in: no flashy RGB or heatsinks on the RAM. Just two plain green sticks. For a gaming desktop, the real star of the show is the GPU, and here there’s no disappointment.

The Nvidia RTX 3080, which debuted in 2020, is still near the top of the Nvidia product line, only eclipsed by the RTX 3090 and some refresh variants of the 3080. With 10GB of speedy GDDR6X VRAM and support for the latest Nvidia features like ray-tracing and (more importantly) DLSS 2.

0, there’s little that you can throw at this card that it can’t handle. In benchmarking, I focused on 4K gaming at the highest possible details, since my preference is always for maximum eye-candy. I tested in 4 different games, all visually stunning AAA titles that feature built-in benchmarking tools: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Forza Horizon 5.

All were tested fully updated and with the latest Nvidia driver. In AC: Odyssey, at 3840×2160 resolution and every graphical detail maximized, the system achieved an average of 64fps, with a low of 40 and a maximum of 104.

In Horizon Zero Dawn, using the Ultimate Quality preset at 2160p, it was good for 78fps on average, with a low of 48, a high of 124, and a 99% percentile of 66 (meaning 99% of the time frames were at 66fps or above, so very fluid).

For Forza Horizon 5, the latest release of the four, settings were for 2160p and above the highest preset–every setting was put to the maximum (ultra or extreme), ray tracing turned on, TAA enabled. It achieved 66fps with a low of 57 and a high of 79.

1. Shadow of the Tomb Raider launched as a title that supported Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and some limited ray tracing; it’s since been updated to support the even better DLSS 2. 0 of the Nvidia 3xxx series cards.

DLSS is “free performance” and so I always turn it on, usually in Quality mode. Results were good for 81fps on average at 4K with everything set to maximum, including ray tracing. These are great results, but my similar homebuilt system (also a 3080) with a much less powerful CPU (Ryzen 5600X) spits out similar numbers, so the ultra-powerful CPU isn’t completely necessary to generate great gaming performance, though other applications will definitely see a difference.

I’d be very curious to see this machine with an i5-12600K/RTX 3080 configuration as I think it’d still fly in games but run cooler overall. Storage is supplied by a Western Digital SN810 PCIe 4. 0 SSD.

It appears this is largely a model supplied to OEMs. It is rated by WD for up to 6600 MB/s sequential read speed and 5000 MB/s sequential write speeds. I actually found it to outperform those numbers in CrystalDiskMark, with the sequential read speeds just a hair under 7000 MB/s.

This system doesn’t have any additional storage, but it appears there is a second M. 2 slot open on the motherboard, along with a handful of SATA ports for connecting additional storage. Network connectivity is provided either by a Wireless AX connection, or the Killer 2.

5Gbps ethernet port. The rear I/O panel also sports a variety of analog and digital audio out ports in addition to a bevy of USB ports. Included peripherals are a very basic but serviceable keyboard and mouse; they clearly expect you’ll buy your own “gamer-centric” gear.

The included software, Alienware Command Center, made light customization really easy and fun to use through the AlienFX tab, though the “Thermals” button was buggy and refused to load after an update, even after uninstalling and reinstalling the software.

It seems to be a common issue. There are other settings for power configurations and the ability for it to manage your game library. After all that, I’m in a weird position thinking about this device.

On the one hand, it’s a gaming desktop, and in that role, it will do what it’s supposed to do and you’ll be happy with it. You’ll install your games, they’ll run great, and you’ll have fun. It has a cool aesthetic (if it’s your thing) that stands out from the square boxes of other desktops, and there are tons of fun lighting customizations.

You also don’t have to build it yourself and you get a warranty and tech support. It’ll do what it needs to do for a long time to come. However, there are things that I as a DIY gaming PC builder have a hard time overlooking.

The underpowered cooler and resulting noise. The proprietary, non-standard parts. The curiously underclocked RAM. The knowledge that I could build my own machine with similar specs for less money and with fewer compromises.

If you are in this camp, I don’t think this is for you. But if you’re in the first group–someone who just wants to plug it in and game, then it’s worth your consideration.