I ordered this system because there is a shortage of parts world wide and I am unable to find all of the components I need to build my own PC, so I have been cornered into purchasing a prebuilt.
I have been "test driving" this pc for several weeks now and I've made several observations. I'm a pc enthusiast and build, modify, and troubleshoot pc's for myself and others so I looked everything over before plugging in and booting up.
The packaging was amazing. There was no damage and it was double boxed and reinforced with high end foam. They went the extra mile to use the expanding and self molding insert to protect the ever so precious GPU.
The GPU is a Zotac 3080 and is rated at 320w and was daisy chained with a single cable for the dual 8 pin connectors. I didn't like that.
I noticed a lack of manuals and extra hardware for anything.
There is a fully modular power supply but NONE of the spare cables that would allow me to expand my hardware or to run the second direct 8 pin to my GPU.
None of the spare hardware or cables for the motherboard or case, nor the manual, even though I know you can look the manual up online, I prefer to have the manual in hand. Especially for that crazy complicated jumble of cables that is the Corsair RGB Fan setup, lol.
I noticed some wiring issues on the motherboard.
First, the sound header was connected with the top row of pins connected to the bottom row of the header leaving it half connected and would have not functioned properly. That didn't happen in shipping, though I bet those builders are super busy. I easily corrected it without issue.
Second, and worse, the USB header connected to the motherboard had two pins coming out of the connector. (Sigh). I couldn't get the pins to set correctly in the connector head so I scalped a connector from another cable and carefully spliced it into place of the old connector. Problem solved but I don't know if the connector was defective upon insertion and wasn't noticed or somehow damaged later.
Third, the USB 3 header was loose. This could have happened in shipping. I just made sure everything was snug from there. I scalped and modified a cable from another power supply to run another 8 pin to my GPU to ensure that I'm not straining one line for all that power from the supply.
All that said, the pc booted and performs exactly as you'd expect this level of hardware to perform. I wish I could have chosen another motherboard, it is something I will consider changing in this pc.
Games are smooth as warm butter and almost as pretty as my momma in her prime. Programs open in a blink and photos and videos render faster than I have ever had the pleasure of working with. It streams while gaming without lag or issues thanks to the 32 gigs of gorgeous Corsair RGB 3200 RAM.
I was surprised to receive the Zotac 3080 with my machine (not to sound ungrateful but was hoping for a better performer) and it did not win the bin lottery when it comes to overclocking. The construction is cheap and the front has big glowing white box lettering [GEFORCE RTX] that I can't change or turn off. Afterburner won't let me oc at all with any stability so I just raised the temp/power levels to max and left it at that. Your results will vary. But the GPU does seem to play games well, it boosts well over 1900mhz, and I haven't had any issues with it, though I didn't use the machine exactly as it was sent to me.
The CPU does overclock well! I'm not going to push it but 5.1 all core was stable on my machine, I suspect 5.2 will as well but I don't really care that much. Was just curious. Your results will vary.
The RGB is beautiful and the cable management is really good, even though I did change a couple of things to better suit my tastes and needs.
The case is great. The airflow from the plentiful and colorful fans is fantastic! The filters are easy to remove so my parts stay cool and the dust (mostly) stays out. It's also just a beautiful case. The cable management and adaptability of this case is awesome, I just wish I'd have received any of the extra components that usually come when you order the case alone. Same wish with the motherboard and power supply.
If you want something that will play and do anything and that's beautiful with a relatively small footprint, this will check those boxes. I would recommend this pc in spite of my gripes. It is a really good pc made with mostly high quality parts. I understand that they needed to cut cost somewhere and the motherboard and GPU are where in this particular case because there were no costs cut anywhere else. Just check your wiring and be careful unpackaging and setting up.
My last gripe is the Corsair Icue software. It is not intuitive though the results are quite awesome.
This is, overall, an amazing machine.
| Processor | 3.4 GHz core_i5_13600k |
|---|---|
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Hard Drive | 1 TB SSD |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 12 GB |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 2 |
