AWD MB520 (Ryzen 5600X, 360mm AiO, Palit 3070 Ti) - £1399 AWD Lancool 215 (Ryzen 5600X, MSI 3070 Ti Gaming X Trio) - £1499
There are two systems on offer here, both of which are quite similar as they’re based around a Ryzen 5600X six-core processor on an MSI B550M Bazooka motherboard - a great configuration that should hold you in good stead for years, including support for PCIe 4.0 and much more powerful Ryzen 5000 processors if you fancy an upgrade in a few year’s time. The 5600X is an incredible performer in games, while still having enough cores to handle content creation workloads like video rendering and game streaming. The differences are relatively minor between the two options, which are named after the different cases they use. The Cooler Master MB520 system comes with a 360mm AiO which should keep the 5600X extremely cool even when overclocked and a Palit-made RXT 3070 Ti. The more expensive Lancool 215 system, on the other hand, comes with a more high-end MSI Gaming X Trio graphics card and uses AMD’s standard Wraith Prism cooler, which to be honest is perfectly acceptable for an efficient CPU like the Ryzen 5600X. Both are good value options and the difference in GPU performance from one RTX 3070 Ti to another will be minimal, so don’t sweat the decision too much! The only real downsides to these systems is that, by default, they’re pretty barebones outside of the CPU and GPU. This is good in some respects, as it means you’re not paying a premium for parts you can easily fit yourself with a modicum of PC building guidance, but you may well prefer to bump up the spec slightly and pay a little more. You get 8GB of RAM and a 240GB SSD by default, and we’d generally recommend having 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for a modern gaming system. You can opt to go for higher quality components on the order page, or alternatively just get the default build for now and upgrade down the line. You could even move an SSD, HDD or DDR4 RAM from another PC. You also don’t get a Windows 10 key with the PC, although if you have a legitimate Windows 7 or 8 key you can use this to get a Windows 10 license. If not, you can probably find a legit copy of Windows 10 online for less than the £90 AWD-IT are charging for it. So - there are a few compromises here on the build, but for the money it’s really not bad at all. The RTX 3070 Ti’s recommended price is £529 at the very minimum, so how much are you paying for the rest of the £1400 build? Well, this system includes a Ryzen 5600X (£280), MSI B550 Bazooka motherboard (£120), 360mm AiO (£120), 650W EVGA PSU (£70), 8GB RAM (£40), a 240GB SSD (£25) and Cooler Master MB520 case (£85)… which means that AWD-IT are effectively only charging about £130 for assembly, testing, shipment and three years of after-sales support - and that’s assuming that RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards were actually available to purchase at RRP! It’s a pretty good deal, all thing considered, and I hope you’ll agree. There are also a range of other RTX 30-series prebuilts here, so it’s worth taking a look through there in case you’d prefer a slightly different configuration. You should also check out the RTX 3070 Ti review Katharine wrote, as it may help you to narrow down your desired specs list a little more. If you do find a better prebuilt desktop at AWD-IT or indeed anywhere else on the internet, do share it in the comments below!
