The Best Mid Price Gaming PC Build!

First off I want to make it clear this video is sponsored by Lexar, and in it I’m going to take all these parts and build them into a killer gaming PC – of course using Lexar’s Hades RGB RAM and their Professional NM800 PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD. Let me run you through the parts as we get it built.

So first up we have the CPU, the Intel i5-12400F. This is a great value 6 core chip that offers perfectly decent performance, especially at 1440p which is what I’m aiming for here. This is going into an Asus B660 TUF motherboard, which again strikes a good balance between performance and value – plus supports DDR4 which is important for our Lexar Hades RGB DDR4-4000 RAM.

This is a 16GB DDR4-4000 CL18 kit of overclocked, XMP 2.0 enabled RAM with sleek aluminium heat spreaders, topped with RGB lighting you can sync with everything from Asus AURA Sync, Gigabyte’s RGB function 2.0, MSI’s Mystic Light Sync, or ASRock’s Polychrome Sync. Of course, running at 4000MT/s it is above Intel’s spec for these chips which may void your CPU’s warranty, but you can eek out some extra performance so it might just be worth it!

Next is the SSD, this is their Professional series NM800 PCIe Gen 4×4 drive – this is the 1TB model and you can check out the last video to see exactly why a blazing fast Gen 4×4 drive like this might soon be your best friend, but in short it’ll run at up to 7.4GB/s reads, 5.8GB/s writes, offers a 3PBW rating and is going to be a great fit for Microsoft’s Direct Storage API once games start implementing it!

As for a cooler I’m using this ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 with the LGA 1700 mounting kit – this is a bit of a pain and can scratch up your board so do be careful with the standoffs. Still we need to get this on first before sticking the PSU in the case.

Speaking of the PSU, I’m using this Corsair CX750F which I think complements the white Hades RAM nicely, and will be just about enough to handle our GPU! I like to stick the PSU in first as it means I can pre-route the cables which makes installing the motherboard a lot easier later on. The case by the way is the Phanteks P400 Air – I really enjoy building in these, plus they have great cooling and look rather nice too.

Now we can get the motherboard in – this is a bit tedious with all 9 screws so I’ll do you a favour and jump forward once they are done.

Next we need all the cables hooked up – everything from the 24 pin, to the 8 pin up top, and even the fans and front panel connectors down at the bottom. Once that’s all in though it’s time to tackle the cooler. We’ll start with mounting the unit to the top of the case. There are 8 screws to go in up here, so again I’ll save you the time and skip ahead.

Now let’s grab the thermal paste and draw a line down the middle of the chip, hook up the single 4 pin PWM fan header the whole unit needs, then place the block down onto the standoffs and tighten the 4 nuts.

Finally we have the monster of a GPU, a STRIX RTX 3070 Ti. This huge thing needs THREE 8 pin PCIe power connections and barely fits in the case. Now that’s priorities right there. It slots in just fine though, then you can stick the two screws in the back alongside the retaining bracket, connect up the triple 8 pins, then that’s it, the system is built! Let’s get it fired up, play a few games and see how it performs!

Unsurprisingly this system games very well. At 1440p you can expect near-on 400 FPS average in CSGO, over 110 FPS in Cyberpunk, 105 FPS in Microsoft Flight Simulator, 176FPS average in Fortnite, 119 FPS average in Watchdogs Legion and 152 FPS average in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. This is clearly a performant system – and decently future proof especially thanks to the Lexar NM800 Gen 4×4 SSD which will be great for direct storage, and of course the overclocked Hades RGB RAM! Once again thank you to Lexar for sponsoring this video, and to you guys for watching.