Assembling a gaming PC for 40 thousand hryvnia

The Fractal Design Meshify 2 Mini is a smaller modification of the premium Meshify 2 case, created for miniature micro-ATX format builds. Despite its size, it is aimed at simplifying the installation of a PC, has good ventilation, is well-designed, is well-silenced, and is generally assembled 6 points out of 5. Such a chassis will perfectly cope with the role of a system unit for an advanced gaming PC with flagship components and a liquid cooling system.

As is customary with the Swedish brand, the case turned out to be extremely comfortable. The front door has a dust filter with a rigid plastic frame and opens like a door. Additional dust filters are also located at the top and bottom. Sidewalls with a folding mechanism are secured with easily removable latches. One of the walls is made transparent in case the user wants to place the case in the most visible place. To simplify the installation process, the user can remove the top partition, case panels and cooling system frame, easily reaching where needed. Already out of the box, a pair of cabinet turntables are installed inside the case, which provide good ventilation for all components.

Fractal Design has always stood out for its unconventional approach to case design, and Meshify 2 Mini is no exception: the door-type facade, smooth lines of the case, patterned front panel and transparent walls give it a sophisticated and expensive look that will surely attract streamers and gamers for whom building beautiful PCs is a passion. one of the ways of self-expression. Despite its miniature size, Meshify 2 Mini is able to accommodate a tower cooler up to 167 mm high and a massive GeForce RTX 4070/4080 caliber video card no more than 306 mm long. Plus, you need to highlight a convenient control panel with modern ports, a system for hidden wiring and high-quality soundproofing coating.

It seems that all the harsh criticism against the backdrop of competition with AMD has only benefited Intel - despite the outdated technical process and the virtual funeral that the company is throwing at former fans, Intel has been doing great with mid-range processors lately. For example, the popular 6-core Core i5-12400F, released at the very beginning of 2022, remains one of the most popular mid-range chips in 2023. And almost any mid-range gaming build starts with the question Core i5-12400F or Ryzen 5600?

The reason for the popularity of this model is quite simple: high performance by middle-class standards (almost 20 thousand points in Passmark), 6 physical + 6 virtual cores, low TDP, PCI-E 5.0 interface integration, 18 MB L3 cache, simultaneous support for DDR4 and DDR5 standards and the official cost is only $165. At the same time, the processor does not have energy-efficient Gracemont cores; the existing 6 cores belong to the Performance class and operate at frequencies from 2.5 GHz to 4.4 GHz.

The Core i5-12400F will be an excellent basis for a mid-level Full HD gaming PC with a GeForce RTX 3060/4060 or Radeon RX 5700/6600 video card. As practice shows, modern games are quite sufficient with 6 computing cores, so the i5-12400F and the conventional RTX 4060 will harmoniously complement each other without turning into a bottleneck that slows down the entire system. Well, the icing on the cake is the unexpectedly wide overclocking potential - with a successful motherboard, the cores can be overclocked to 4.9 - 5 GHz, increasing the overall performance by almost a quarter and leveling it to the level of Core i5-12600K.

ASRock B760M Pro RS/D4 is a mid-range motherboard that is part of the 2023 ASRock Pro profile series and is designed to work in tandem with the next generation Intel processors with Alder Lake and Raptor Lake hybrid cores. It is equipped with an Intel LGA 1700 processor socket, is based on the Intel B760 mid-level system logic and belongs to the compact micro-ATX format, which simplifies the installation of components in a small Cube Case and Desktop, but can create problems when installing a system with complex cooling and massive video card.

Despite the ability of Intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake chips to work with DDR5 memory, our test version is tailored for the more common and affordable DDR4 memory with a maximum clock frequency of 5333 MHz. There are a total of 4 slots for RAM, the maximum capacity is 128 GB. In turn, the integration of the PCI-E 4.0 bus frees up the potential owner’s hands when choosing a modern video card and designing a disk subsystem in which reactive M.2 SSD drives will play a major role. The ASRock B760M Pro RS/D4 has a total of 2 such ports, both of which are covered by an additional heatsink, which helps avoid overheating of the control controller, since many modern PCI-E 4.0 class SSDs can overclock to an impressive 7500 MB/s.

In addition, the board is equipped with four SATA3 connectors for classic HDDs and SSD drives. There is also an integrated RAID chip that allows you to combine all installed drives into a single disk array. Thanks to the use of high-quality components and a moderately productive 9-phase power converter, the board will be an excellent basis for a small or standard gaming PC with a Core i5 processor, a massive GeForce RTX 3070 caliber video card, a large amount of memory and several drives.

Despite its two-year age, the GeForce RTX 3060 video card with 12 GB of video memory does not lose its position 2 years after its release, being one of the most attractive video accelerators for games in Full HD resolution. The video card provides a comfortable framerate in popular games from 2020 to 2023 at medium-high graphics settings in Full HD resolution, allowing the player to comfortably play Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, Phantom Liberty and other hits of recent years. Like all its NVIDIA Ampere series brethren, it is equipped with special cores for ray tracing and DLSS 2.0 intelligent scaling, with which the player can increase the sagging FPS without much noticeable impact on image quality.

ZOTAC RTX 3060 version Equipped with a proprietary, quiet dual-fan IceStorm 2.0 cooling system that supports Freeze Fan Stop technology for silent operation when not under load. The card turned out to be quite compact and not too power-hungry, so it can easily fit even into a compact case with a not-so-efficient power supply. Well, the white color of the casing and fans should attract potential owners of snow-white cases from the conventional one a la h Fractal Design Nort.

A good alternative to the RTX 3060 could be the newer RTX 4060 (released in the fall of 2023) costing 340 Euros. It is almost 20% faster than its predecessor and supports the frame generation system built into DLSS 3.0, which can significantly increase the average FPS. However, NVIDIA would not be itself if it had not inserted a new stick in gamers’ wheels by cutting the amount of video memory from the optimal 12 to 8 GB, which many modern games are frankly lacking. Therefore, the final question in choosing between the RTX 3060 and RTX 4060 remains yours.

Crucial P3 Plus is an advanced and at the same time relatively inexpensive SSD drive with support for the high-speed PCI-E 4.0 interface, high-quality flash memory and an excellent hardware platform from Phison. It is designed for enthusiasts who plan to increase system speed using a high-performance NVMe Gen4 SSD drive, but are not willing to overpay for top-end solutions with flagship controllers, designer heatsinks and backlighting.

The drive is made in a compact form factor M.2 2280, thanks to which it can be used even in laptops and ultrabooks with thin bodies. The device is based on 176-layer 3D NAND flash memory from the largest flash memory manufacturer Micron, which also owns the Crucial brand. The same memory is used in many hi-end solutions including the best-selling Crucial P5 Plus. The manufacturer does not go into the technical details of the controller, indicating only sequential read and write speeds of up to 5000 and 3600 MB/s, respectively. As the autopsy showed, the well-known Phison E21T is hidden inside, which is most often chosen for mid-class models with PCI-E 4.0.

Given the insane competition in the mid-price category, Crucial decided to attract potential buyers with a 5-year warranty, while the rewrite capacity is not that impressive - 220 TB for the 1 TB model. Accordingly, this is not the best option for constantly recording and rewriting gigantic volumes of information. As a bonus, the drive comes with the Crucial Storage Executive utility for optimizing performance, data archiving, and disk cloning.

Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2x16Gb is a set of profile RAM from Corsair with impressive factory characteristics, good potential for increasing frequencies and high quality control. Its optimal use case is mid-range gaming systems or a workstation in which the total amount of RAM plays a much more important role than its speed.

The Corsair Vengeance kit has a nominal frequency of 3200 MHz with a standard latency of CL16 for overclocking kits and an operating voltage of 1.35 V. The memory supports Intel XMP technology with pre-selected combinations of RAM settings that make the overclocking process a little easier.

Thanks to selected memory chips, serious quality control and a massive metal heatsink, this RAM is perfectly overclocked by manually searching through the settings, approaching the speed indicators of low-end DDR5 RAM samples. True, to maximize the potential of the Vengeance LPX trims, you will need an overclocking motherboard supporting XMP technology with overclocking profiles already built in.

Overall, this set is best suited for experienced users who want to get the most out of their PC, but don’t like to overpay for the future and are not yet ready to switch to the rather expensive DDR5 standard and next-generation Intel/AMD processors. Especially considering the fact that almost no big-budget games in 2022 - 2023 receive any benefits from the transition from DDR4 to DDR5.

Jonsbo PISA A4 White is a tower cooling system for Intel and AMD computer processors with a massive radiator and a single fan with a diameter of 120 mm. It weighs almost 620 grams, which is explained by thick fins and four heat-conducting copper tubes. Despite the modest cost of around 25 Euros, the manufacturer promises that the cooler is capable of removing up to 250 Watts of heat even from a very hot Ryzen 7/Core i7 processor and fully claims to be a “super cooler”.

The included fan with a diameter of 120 mm rotates at speeds from 800 to 1850 rpm. The bearing is made using FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) technology, that is, the most durable hydrodynamic. PWM adjustment of the blade rotation speed is supported. If you have a moderately hot processor, you can set a constant low rotation speed so as not to force the spinner to work at its limit, producing unnecessary noise. The Jonsbo PISA A4 White tower height is 153 mm, so the cooler will easily fit into most computer cases, including many compact Mini Tower chassis.

Considering that the cooler was released in the spring of 2023, it would be strange if the manufacturer did not equip it with modern processor mounts, including clamps for Intel LGA 1700 and AMD AM5. In our case, the cooler body is completely painted white, which will certainly attract the attention of owners of snow-white components and transparent cases. A couple of years ago, such solutions could be counted on the fingers of one hand and they cost more than most players would like.

Gamemax GX Rampage is an advanced high-power computer power supply (850 W) with a modular removable cable subsystem, serious efficiency of around 90% and a gold quality certificate. It is aimed at experienced gamers who are not in the habit of overpaying for secondary and useless jokes like addressable lighting.

The model belongs to the new generation of ATX 3.0 class power supplies, designed for installation in modern gaming systems equipped with video cards with a single 16-pin PCI-E 5.0 connector. Support for this format is vital to power powerful NVIDIA RTX 40XX graphics cards with maximum power consumption of up to 600 W.

When designing the circuitry, the manufacturer used reliable and heat-resistant Taiwanese capacitors, which ensure a long service life of the device, as well as DC-DC converters and resonant LLC converters to “level” the voltage. Another important aspect is the two-level electromagnetic filter, which helps suppress interference and provide clean power.

The main 12-volt line is capable of providing almost 100% of the total power of the device, delivering 840 watts out of a possible 850 watts. The 135-mm turntable with a hydrodynamic bearing is quite consistent with the Gold level: it makes little noise during active operation and can switch to a silent semi-passive operating mode. Completing the picture is a comprehensive protection system that includes protection against overheating, overloading, short circuit, overvoltage, limited output current and unacceptably low voltage.