Inside Our New Gaming Rigs for PC Gaming Deep Dives, Benchmarks, AI, and More

Introduction

At TweakTown, we've been providing in-depth and detailed PC hardware reviews, guides, and features for decades. As we head into the 2025 holiday season and 2026, we're looking to expand our PC gaming, hardware, and tech coverage with some exciting new content. With everything from closer looks at in-game real-world performance in titles like Battlefield 6, Borderlands 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and Grand Theft Auto 6 (whenever it makes its PC debut), through to optimization guides, deep dives into AI, neural rendering, ray-tracing, and more.

To ensure accuracy and speed up the process, we've built two identical rigs powered by the popular AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, paired with a high-end X870E motherboard, and equipped with the latest PCIe Gen5 and Gen4 storage, as well as a wide range of GeForce RTX and Radeon RX GPUs. Thanks to our friends and partners at AMD, NVIDIA, Corsair, MSI, Western Digital, Patriot, and Thermal Grizzly, we're finally ready to lift the lid on this new chapter of PC gaming and hardware coverage at TweakTown.

In this article, you'll find a detailed breakdown of everything, from our thought process to the hardware, along with links to some of the content and articles we've already created using these new rigs.

The Mission

When a highly anticipated PC game debuts, how will it run on some of the most popular GPUs on the market? What visual tricks and features does it include, and what does that mean for immersion and the way the game feels to play? What settings offer the best bang for your buck in terms of optimization and performance without significantly affecting the look? In the era of neural rendering and technologies like DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, how do these enhancements boost performance, impact visual fidelity, and help deliver more frames?

Frame Generation may be a controversial tool among hardcore PC gaming enthusiasts, but in what scenarios does it make sense?

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This is just a small sample of the questions we aim to answer or shine a spotlight on that go beyond examining FPS and 1% Low numbers on a chart (which we'll still be offering plenty of). Playing games is all about immersion, no matter if it's Counter-Strike 2 optimized to run at a native 300 FPS on a GeForce RTX 5070 or Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's impressive Path Tracing mode using every RTX and DLSS trick in the book to deliver its cinematic visuals.

Our GPU reviews have included features like DLSS and Frame Generation analysis for some time now. Still, with two brand-new, identical rigs, we can now focus on specific games, technologies, AI rendering, and other areas of interest. In fact, we also plan on taking a broader look at subjects like the arrival of PCIe Gen5 storage and its impact on PC gaming, alongside running local AI models and tools like NVIDIA's Project G-Assist, as well as some of the more popular generative AI models for image generation, and more.

Additionally, we'll be utilizing these rigs for early hands-on looks and preview coverage of games from the perspective of a PC gamer.

The Hardware and Specs

The reason we decided to assemble full desktop PCs instead of lab-style modular testbenches is that we wanted these rigs to serve as a blueprint for anyone looking to build a high-end gaming PC. Whether you're an enthusiast who has been tinkering for several years or a newcomer, the real-world performance data that these rigs will generate comes from a place that is also DIY-Friendly. Being able to build a rig that is easy to assemble without sacrificing thermal performance or overclocking capabilities was key throughout this entire process, as was leveraging the latest hardware technologies across processors, graphics cards, storage, memory, and more.

CPU and GPU

When it comes to building a PC, the first vital choices people look at are the CPU and GPU, as this defines and shape the rest of the build. For the CPU, the choice was easy: AMD's popular and gaming-focused Ryzen 7 9800 X3D. This Zen 5, V-Cache-equipped 8-core and 16-thread processor represents the latest evolution of AMD's X3D processors. Best of all, with its 5.2 GHz Boost Clock speed, it delivers excellent all-around performance, in addition to being the current PC gaming champion.

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As we'll be using a wide range of mainstream, mid-range, and high-end GPUs with these new rigs, our default setup for calibration and enthusiast-class gaming is NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition, an RTX Blackwell beast built for fast 1440p and 4K gaming that also takes full advantage of DLSS 4 for ray-tracing and cinematic gaming. In addition to this, several Radeon RX, Intel Arc, and GeForce RTX GPUs from MSI, GIGABYTE, INNO3D, ASRock, and Sapphire will be included in testing.

• INNO3D GeForce RTX 5070 Twin X2
• INNO3D GeForce RTX 5070 Ti X3
• MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio 16GB OC
• AORUS Radeon RX 9070 XT ELITE

Motherboard

Choosing the right motherboard is crucial, as it serves as the hub that connects all components and facilitates communication between them. As the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is an AM5 processor, we landed on the feature-packed and intuitive MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi board for its performance, in-depth tools, and EZ DIY features. MSI's EZ DIY features mean you've got tool-free and simple installation for M.2 storage, GPUs, and BIOS configuration and debugging.

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The MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi also features a premium VRM design with an 18+2+1 Duet Rail Power System, alongside MSI Memory Boost technology, which enables tapping into the latest DDR5 memory speeds with overclocking peace of mind, thanks to voltage protection built into the hardware. On the cooling side, there are extended heatsinks, MSI's M.2 Shield Frozr to prevent SSD throttling, and high-quality thermal pads.

And finally, on the connectivity side, there's high-speed LAN, WiFi 7, uncompromising PCIe Gen5 support, high-quality audio, and ample USB ports to handle any device, including support for the latest USB4 technology and speeds.

Power Supply

With the arrival of the new ATX 3.1 standard and both GeForce RTX 50 Series and some Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards adopting the new 16 PIN PCIe connector that can handle up to 600W on a single cable, to cover both intensive workloads and day-to-day usage, we chose the MSI MEG Ai1300P PCIE5 power supply for good reason.

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The native 16-pin PCIe connector not only makes it ready for GPUs like the GeForce RTX 5090, but this PSU also sports both 80 PLUS and Cybenetics PLATINUM certifications for efficiency and performance. It's a safety-focused power supply with a large 1300W capacity, with real-time monitoring capabilities, high-quality Japanese capacitors, and a compact modular design with copper alloy terminals.

Memory and Storage

We're now in the era of high-speed DDR5 memory, and when it comes to gaming, stability, and performance on AMD CPUs like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, we chose the AMD EXPO-ready Corsair VENGEANCE RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 DRAM 6000MT/s CL30 memory kit.

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Based on our extensive reviews of DDR5 memory kits in recent times, when it comes to Zen 5 CPUs and gaming, 6000 MT/s with low latency timings of 30-36-36-76 have proven to be a sweet spot for gaming and general performance. No two DDR5-6000 kits are the same, and even though there was a wide range of options to choose from, we settled on Corsair VENGEANCE for its exceptional performance and reliability.

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When it comes to storage for gaming, creative, and AI workloads in 2025, there's only really one choice - a high-speed M.2 SSD that connects directly to the motherboard. With the MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi featuring multiple M.2 slots, including cutting-edge PCIe Gen5 support, we chose the flagship and high-end SSD for our rigs: the new Sandisk WD_Black SN8100 2TB PCIe Gen5 SSD. In our review, you're looking at the "fastest, most powerful, and most efficient SSD on the planet," which earned a rare 100% rating. This absolute beast of an SSD will be used to test the impact of PCIe Gen5 on real-world gaming and other intensive workloads.

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Secondary storage for additional games, apps, and files is always key, and here the choice was also easy - a pair of Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite PCIe Gen4 4TB SSDs. This DRAMless SSD has been one of the best-value and performing gaming SSDs for some time now, and one of the best bang-for-your-buck options for expanding your storage capacity, which in this case has added a nice 8TB for things like capture data, games, media files, and more.

Case, Cooling, and Aesthetics

As mentioned earlier, choosing the right CPU and GPU reveals a great deal about the other choices you make when assembling a new rig. For us, pairing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with high-end GPUs like the GeForce RTX 5080 and Radeon RX 9070 XT meant selecting a mid-tower case with ample cooling and airflow, alongside a capable AIO with a 360mm radiator and various high-performance fans. Thermal performance is critical, however, in 2025, so are aesthetics.

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For the case and cooling, we landed on a suite of Corsair gear. There's the modular, spacious, and versatile Corsair FRAME 4000D case, iCUE LINK TITAN 360 RX CPU Cooler, and iCUE LINK RX120 MAX RGB system fans. Keeping this side of the build within one brand makes a lot of sense for compatibility and aesthetic uniformity. The FRAME 4000D made our shortlist due to its competitive pricing, airflow, and ease of creating a minimal cable-clutter look.

Choosing iCUE LINK for the main CPU cooler and system fans wasn't necessary, but it's one of those things where once you try it (like an OLED display for PC gaming), it's almost impossible to go back. Especially with RGB, as it eliminates nearly all cable clutter and conduction with a simple daisy-chain process of connecting fans and only a couple of cables to an iCUE LINK hub. Not having to deal with ARGB headers and managing cables for individual fans is a godsend in the tempered-glass era of PC building, and the result speaks for itself.

Display

To test a wide range of resolutions and refresh rates across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K for both performance, visual fidelity, and to get immersed in a wide range of games, there's only really one choice for display - OLED. With its third-generation QD-OLED panel, the MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED 4K 240Hz gaming monitor not only caters to all our cinematic gaming needs but also boasts a 0.03ms response time, making it a competitive gaming winner.

The Full TweakTown Gaming and Performance PC Specs

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The Content

Although fresh on the scene, we're already hard at work using our new gaming and performance PCs to create a wide range of content. Here's a taste of some of the articles we've put together so far, with plenty more on the way.

Beauty Shots

In case you needed more, here are a few more shots of the new TweakTown Gaming and Performance PC - and yes, we've got two of them.