New gaming rig, one week in.

My new gaming rig is a radical departure from past gaming set ups that I have in the past. The most major departure is the lack of RBG aesthetics. Gone were the days that I invested quite a bit on RGB fans and peripherals to bling out my gaming rig. There is no more of that. The only RGB that you will see are the RAM, a little bit on the GPU and a tiny bit on the CPU air cooler. Even my current RTX 3080 doesn’t really have a lot of RGB, since the Asus TUF models does not emphasize too much on aesthetics, rather they focus on reliability and toughness.

The next major departure is the complete lack of any water cooled system, either for the GPU or CPU. I used to have an AIO water cooler with a 240mm radiator to keep my Intel 12600k cool. While AIO is pretty much fuss free, since everything is included, I have decided to go back to basics and get a good and beefy air cooler instead. AMD CPUs are generally efficient when it comes to power consumption and that leads to manageable thermals. In addition, I hardly overclock my CPU or pushed them to its limits. Recent air coolers are nicely designed with great aesthetics, like the Deepcool Assassin Air IV that I chose to pair with my new AMD Ryzen 7800X3D CPU. Air coolers have really gone a long way to make it look pleasing. This beefy air cooler with its twin fan set up has just the right height clearance to fit into the Tecware Timber case that I choose for this rig. It’s beefy, blocky, but really unassuming.

If there is one thing I will want to improve on this rig, is that I might want to replace the default static case fans. Right now four were provided as part of the case and they perform really well. However, they are static fans and at full speed, they are quite loud, especially more so now that I position my gaming right on the table top rather than the side bracket beneath the table.

It doesn’t bother me too much right now, since it is giving me a peace of mind that it is working really hard to keep my rig nice and cool. But it will be great if it comes in PWM fans instead, fluctuating the fan speed based on the current temperature of the GPU or CPU instead of just blasting at full speed even when at idle. The fans are definitely audible with the rig just beside me.

The case is great overall, really spacious inside. It will definitely have horizontal space for future gaming GPUs that will be far more beefier than my current unit. This extra space is something I will need to get used to, since I always prefer smaller cases with minimal dead space within the gaming rig. Perhaps that extra space will be less obvious once I upgrade my GPU to the upcoming Nvidia RTX5080, which is definitely be much bigger than my current GPU.