Exactly what is under the hood of our new test and review PC build?
- Jamie Robinson
- 1 day ago
- 12 min read
There’s a lot to like about this particular PC build, not because every component is simply the most expensive option available, but because the system has been put together with a clear purpose in mind. This is a high-end gaming machine designed primarily around 4K gaming, but with enough processing power, storage and cooling to comfortably handle pretty much anything else we want to throw at it. What stands out after using the system isn't necessarily any one component, but how well everything works together. There are very few obvious weak points, and importantly, we have tried not to build a system where one expensive component is being held back by another.
At the centre of the build is the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, paired with the ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 Hero motherboard. The 270K Plus is a particularly good fit for a machine that needs to do more than just play games. With 24 cores, made up of eight Performance cores and 16 Efficiency cores, there's plenty of processing headroom for gaming alongside Discord, Chrome, recording software, launchers and anything else we might have running in the background. It also gives us the CPU performance we need for more demanding workloads without making the system feel like it's been built solely around gaming benchmarks.
The ROG Maximus Z890 Hero is arguably more motherboard than the CPU strictly requires, but this is an enthusiast build and that's part of the appeal. It gives us a strong foundation with PCIe 5.0 support, substantial power delivery, plenty of connectivity and multiple storage options. More importantly, it means we're able to properly take advantage of the newer hardware elsewhere in the system, including the Samsung 9100 Pro and the PCIe 5.0 connection being used for the graphics card. There is a small consideration for the future, however, as populating certain M.2 slots can result in PCIe lane sharing and potentially reduce the primary GPU slot from x16 to x8. That's not an issue with our current configuration, but it's something we'd keep in mind before filling every available storage slot.
The ASUS Prime RX 9070 XT is where the majority of the gaming performance comes from, and it's a very good match for the rest of the system. With 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM, there's plenty of memory available for modern games, particularly at 4K where higher-resolution textures and increasingly detailed game worlds can put considerably more pressure on the GPU. That 16GB capacity also gives the card some useful breathing room as games become more demanding, which is important for a system we intend to use for several years rather than replace every time a new GPU generation arrives.
It's worth being realistic about what the 9070 XT can deliver, though. It's a very capable 4K GPU, but we're not going to pretend that every modern game will suddenly run at 144FPS with every graphical setting maxed out. Some games are simply extremely demanding, particularly when ray tracing is involved. In most cases, however, the card is capable of delivering a very strong 4K experience, and less demanding titles can push well beyond 100FPS. This is also where technologies such as FSR and frame generation become useful. We're not interested in turning them on simply to make the FPS counter look impressive, but when they're implemented properly, they can provide a meaningful increase in perceived smoothness without requiring the GPU to render every additional frame traditionally.
The balance between the CPU and GPU is one of the strongest aspects of the build. At 4K, the RX 9070 XT will generally be the component that reaches its limit first in demanding games, while the 270K Plus has plenty of CPU headroom available. That's exactly the balance we'd want. At lower resolutions and extremely high frame rates, the CPU becomes more important and there will be games where it becomes the limiting factor, but that's not the primary purpose of this machine. We're building around high-quality 4K gaming, where having the GPU fully utilised while the CPU has room to spare is a much better situation than having an expensive graphics card sitting around waiting for an underpowered processor.
Memory is another area where we've deliberately gone for a fast but sensible configuration given today's extreme prices. We're using Crucial Pro DDR5 running at 6400MT/s with CL32 timings, which gives the CPU plenty of memory bandwidth without getting caught up in chasing extreme memory speeds that offer increasingly small real world gains. There are always faster kits available, but at this level, stability and sensible timings are more important to us than having the biggest number on the specification sheet. We don't see the memory becoming a meaningful limitation in this system.
Storage is where things get slightly ridiculous, although there is a reason for it. The primary drive is a Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD, capable of sequential performance in the region of 14GB/s. Our testing gave us an average of 9,479.96MB/s read and an impressive 10,461.22MB/s write. That's an enormous amount of storage bandwidth, although it's important not to confuse benchmark performance with gaming performance. A PCIe 5.0 SSD isn't going to make normal games load five times faster than they would from a good PCIe 4.0 drive simply because its sequential speeds are several times higher. Game loading depends on much more than the SSD, including the CPU, asset decompression, game engine and how the developer has built the loading system. The 9100 Pro is nevertheless an excellent choice as the primary drive, giving Windows and our applications access to extremely fast storage, while a separate 2TB Crucial SSD provides dedicated space for the game library. Its important to note here that DirectStorage will increasingly become a factor as more games support the technology. If you've never looked into DirectStorage before, the easiest way to explain it is that it allows games to make much better use of modern, high-speed NVMe storage. Traditionally, when a game needs to load assets from your SSD, there is a considerable amount of work happening through the CPU before that data ultimately reaches the GPU. DirectStorage changes the way this process works, allowing game data to be moved more efficiently and reducing some of the CPU overhead involved.
The Corsair PCIe 5.0 riser cable is a slightly less conventional part of the build, allowing us to side mount the RX 9070 XT inside the case. A riser does introduce another connection between the GPU and motherboard, so there's always a little more to consider compared with installing the card directly into the PCIe slot. Using a PCIe 5.0 cable means we're not deliberately limiting the graphics card to an older interface, though, and provided everything is correctly installed and configured, we aren't expecting it to introduce a meaningful performance penalty. It also makes the GPU much more of a feature inside the system, which works particularly well with the rest of the build.
The Corsair 5000D Wood gives us plenty of room to house everything, which is important given the amount of hardware we're dealing with. There's a large motherboard, a substantial graphics card, a 360mm radiator, additional 140mm fans, a 1000W power supply and all the cabling that comes with an enthusiast-level build. Rather than trying to cram everything into a smaller chassis, the 5000D gives the components enough space to breathe and makes building and maintaining the system considerably easier. The part where the Wood 5000D stands out is just how modular it is. For example, the Xeneon edge side panel, the modifiable interior to add and/or remove more case fans, the removable PSU shroud, thew fact that the PCIe IO panel is removable and can be rotated to mount the GPU vertically. There's just so much you can do here to make the case exactly what YOU want it to be.
Cooling is handled by the Corsair Titan 360 RGB CPU cooler, supported by additional 140mm fans throughout the case. The 270K Plus can produce considerable heat under heavy workloads, while the RX 9070 XT is also capable of dumping a significant amount of heat into the chassis. The 360mm radiator gives the CPU plenty of thermal capacity, while the additional airflow helps move that heat out of the case. This isn't an area where we've tried to cut corners. RGB is nice, but when you've got this much hardware in one chassis, airflow and thermal headroom matter considerably more.
The ROG Thor Platinum II 1000W PSU is similarly over-specced, but deliberately so. We don't technically need 1000W to run this system, but having that additional capacity means the power supply isn't being pushed anywhere near its limits and leaves plenty of room for power spikes and future upgrades. It's another example of choosing a component based on the overall system rather than simply buying the smallest specification that happens to work.
Then there's the Corsair Xeneon Edge, which is probably the least necessary component in the entire build and also one of the most fun, and the thing that sets it apart from other PC's the most. Mounted into the side of the case, it provides a dedicated touchscreen that can be used for system monitoring, temperatures, utilisation, widgets and other information. I've currently got a widget set up that lets me change my audio input and output devices and adjust the volume on the fly while I'm in a game, without having to minimise the game or go through the usual Windows sound settings, and it's surprisingly useful once you get used to having those controls right there. There's also a lot more that the Xeneon Edge can do beyond what I'm currently using it for, including a range of customisable widgets and controls, but I haven't had the chance to properly explore everything it offers yet. It doesn't make the PC run faster and it isn't going to improve gaming performance, but that's not really the point. This is an enthusiast PC, and the Xeneon Edge adds something visually interesting to the build while also giving us a genuinely useful secondary display.
The peripherals follow much the same philosophy. The ASUS ROG Azoth 96 HE is a premium keyboard that fits naturally alongside the system, with its 96% layout providing most of the functionality of a full-size keyboard without taking up quite as much space. The ROG Chakram keeps the mouse within the ROG ecosystem, while the Logitech G Pro 2 Wireless headset is a good reminder that we're not particularly interested in forcing everything to carry the same logo. If something works well for what we're actually using it for, we'll use it.
When it comes to potential bottlenecks, there's no obvious hardware weakness in the current configuration. At 4K, the RX 9070 XT is naturally going to be the first component to reach its limits in demanding games, particularly with maximum settings and heavy ray tracing, but that's exactly what we'd expect. The CPU, memory, storage, cooling and power supply all provide enough headroom that the GPU can actually do its job without another component unnecessarily holding it back. At lower resolutions and very high frame rates, the 270K Plus will become more relevant, but that's a perfectly normal shift in where the bottleneck sits.
The one longer-term consideration is the LGA1851 platform itself. We wouldn't build around it with the expectation of continually upgrading the CPU for many years, but that's not really the goal here. This system has been built to deliver a high level of performance now, and there is more than enough power available to make that possible.
Ultimately, this isn't necessarily the most sensible gaming PC we could build if the only goal was maximum FPS per dollar. There are certainly luxury components here. The Z890 Hero is more motherboard than we strictly need, the Samsung 9100 Pro is significantly faster than a gaming PC requires, the 1000W PSU provides more capacity than necessary and the Xeneon Edge is completely optional.
But that's not what this build is about.
The important thing is that the expensive components aren't hiding a weak link somewhere else. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and RX 9070 XT make sense together, the fast DDR5 provides plenty of bandwidth, the Samsung 9100 Pro gives us ridiculous storage performance, the additional 2TB SSD gives us room for a sizeable game library, and the Z890 platform provides a strong foundation for everything sitting on top of it.
More importantly, this isn't a PC we've built simply to chase a benchmark number. It's a system we're going to be using every day, and one that gives Gaming Australia the hardware we need to properly test the next generation of games and PC components.
Gaming Performance and Benchmark Testing
One of the biggest reasons for building this PC was to give Gaming Australia a proper platform for testing modern games and PC hardware. Our previous review and benchmarking machine was built around an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, GeForce RTX 3080 LHR and DDR4 memory. It was a very good gaming PC when we originally built it and served us incredibly well, but five years is a long time in PC hardware. While it could still play modern games, the system was increasingly becoming part of the limitation when we wanted to review high-end games and hardware. The RTX 3080's 10GB of VRAM was becoming increasingly restrictive at 4K, while the older CPU and DDR4 platform were also starting to show their age. We were reaching the point where lowering settings was sometimes necessary just to create a consistent testing environment, which isn't ideal when the whole point is to see what new hardware can actually do.
The new system changes that considerably. For our gaming tests, we ran each title at 3840 x 2160, using the highest available graphical preset where appropriate, with ray tracing enabled in games where it formed a significant part of the workload. We recorded average frame rates across repeatable gameplay sections rather than relying solely on built-in benchmarks, and then repeated the tests with frame generation enabled where supported. We also compare the results against our previous 5700X and RTX 3080 LHR system, giving us a useful real-world reference point for just how much has changed between the two generations of hardware.
The results without frame generation immediately show the difference between the two systems. Call of Duty: Warzone reaches 108FPS on the new Gaming Australia PC compared with 66FPS on our previous system, while Forza Horizon 6 moves from 59FPS to 97FPS. Even something as demanding as Cyberpunk 2077 sees the new system reach 67FPS compared with 40FPS on the old PC. That's a difference that is immediately noticeable when playing at 4K.
Here's a direct comparison to our old build with and without frame gen enabled:
Once frame generation is enabled, the numbers climb considerably higher. Warzone reaches 159FPS, while Forza Horizon 6 hits 148FPS. Cyberpunk 2077 moves from 67FPS to 108FPS, and Resident Evil Requiem jumps from 79FPS to 126FPS. We wouldn't treat those generated frames as being directly equivalent to native rendered frames, but they demonstrate how much additional smoothness modern frame-generation technology can provide when there's already a strong underlying frame rate.
The comparison with the old system is arguably the most interesting part of the testing. The 5700X and RTX 3080 were genuinely excellent hardware when we first started using them for Gaming Australia's PC coverage, but modern games have simply moved beyond what that configuration was designed to handle comfortably at 4K. The difference isn't that the old PC suddenly became unusable. It's that it became increasingly difficult to use as a high-end review platform.
That distinction is important. A PC that can play a game and a PC that can properly benchmark new hardware aren't necessarily the same thing. If the test system is struggling to maintain a reasonable frame rate, it becomes much harder to determine whether a new graphics card, CPU or other component is actually responsible for an improvement. With the new system, we have considerably more headroom before the test platform itself becomes the limiting factor.
The move from 10GB of VRAM on the RTX 3080 to 16GB on the RX 9070 XT is particularly useful at 4K, while the newer CPU platform, faster DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 connectivity give us a much more modern foundation for testing. The result is a machine that isn't just faster in games, but is much better suited to the job we actually need it to do.
And that's ultimately why this PC matters so much for Gaming Australia.
We don't want our hardware reviews to be limited by the hardware we're using to test them. When a new graphics card arrives, we want to be able to install it into a system that can properly demonstrate what it's capable of. When a new CPU comes through, we want enough GPU performance available that we can actually see where the processor makes a difference. When we're testing an SSD, we want a PCIe 5.0 platform capable of taking advantage of it. When we're reviewing high-speed DDR5 memory, we want a modern platform that can properly utilise it.
This new PC gives us that foundation.
It means our PC coverage can become considerably more detailed moving forward, with the ability to look at actual gaming performance, 1% lows, frame-time consistency, storage performance, thermals, power consumption and the practical differences between different hardware configurations.
It also gives us the opportunity to properly explore technologies such as FSR, frame generation and ray tracing, rather than simply mentioning them. We can look at what happens to performance when these technologies are enabled, whether the visual trade-offs are worthwhile and, most importantly, whether they actually improve the experience of playing the game.
That's the direction we want to take Gaming Australia's PC coverage. Not simply throwing benchmark numbers onto a page, but using those numbers to explain what they actually mean for someone playing games or deciding whether it's time to upgrade their hardware.
The old 5700X and RTX 3080 system was an excellent machine and served us extremely well, but it had reached the point where it was making high-end PC testing increasingly difficult. This new system gives us the performance and flexibility to properly test modern games and hardware without the review machine itself getting in the way.
That means more GPU reviews, more CPU reviews, more SSD testing, more memory testing, more motherboard coverage, more PC gaming benchmarks and, importantly, more PC game coverage.
For anyone interested in PC gaming and the hardware behind it, this is really just the beginning. This PC isn't simply our new gaming machine. It's going to become the foundation for a much bigger focus on PC hardware and software here at Gaming Australia, and we're looking forward to putting it through its paces with plenty more hardware and games in the months ahead. If that's the sort of content you're interested in, keep a close eye on Gaming Australia, because there's a lot more PC coverage coming.
