Home Build Inspiration – Bengal Rig V3
Components
With a system that’s on for every hour I’m awake, whether writing reviews or just escaping from these four walls in a digital world, silence is as big a factor as cooling. We know many people who don’t care how loud it is as long as it’s cool, you do you. With the Masterliquid Mirror ML360 the Ryzen 7 5800X will have all the cooling it needs, and thanks to the Masterfan MF120 Halo fans it will be quiet and gorgeous too. In fact the only negative we have is that with the AMD mounting kit it’s impossible to have the Cooler Master logo the right way round. Thankfully without any text in it we can just about tolerate that, and there is enough to distract you from it with the ARGB pump.
Usually at the bottom of the Cooler Master SL600 there are 200mm fans, but we wanted to have a harmonious look from the top to the bottom, whilst also giving the freedom to go as subtle or outrageous as possible at both ends of the case, which is why the MF120 Halo fans are also installed at the bottom of the case.
The Palit GameRock RTX 3080 is one of those cards which begs to be mounted vertically. With such serious bling on the fan surround it would be a waste to mount it horizontally, and the SL600 is designed to allow for vertical mounting. To make sure the card was running at its peak performance, vital for future-proofing as much as possible, we’ve managed to obtain a PCI Express 4.0 Riser which you can see here. It’s worth noting that if you don’t use a PCI Express 4.0 Riser then the system just won’t POST, unless you downgrade to a non-PCIe4 GPU and turn all the PCI Express 4.0 stuff off, which negates the performance benefits of running a X570 system in the first place. You want it to be as fast as possible, and this allows you to do it. If you’ve been aching to do this with your own setup then you can buy the cable here, and we’re pleased to report it’s one of those products which just works. No minefield of choices or buying the wrong thing. Grab that. Job done.
We know that the GameRock can be a bit too glitzy for some, but we, and indeed I, absolutely love it. Go big or go home. Also with RGB having become the de facto standard element of modern systems it’s the big change between my current system and this new one, so making full use of it was a key factor in the decision to go with this card. The fact we’ve tested it and proven it to be a banzai take on the 3080 formula is just the cherry on top.
If we didn’t know better we’d think that G.Skill and Palit worked together on their design of the Royal DDR4 and GameRock respectively. Both have a crystal effect RGB finish and that means that they blend perfectly and give a beautiful harmony to the whole aesthetic.
In this particular configuration you can see why we love the aesthetics of the Dark Hero version of the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII. It’s perfect for giving us that perfect deep black central view to offset the lurid orange on the outside. That’s without taking in to account that the Crosshair VIII is one of the very best X570 platforms around.
The Cooler Master Masterfan ARGB and PWM hub is a spectacular piece of kit. If you’ve ever felt that having a full RGB fan setup in your system required the kind of cable spaghetti that would give someone with OCD nightmares, then this is the solution for you. It’s extremely easy to use, has a whole host of options, and yet only requires one power cable and one cable going in to the motherboard. We absolutely love it, and the magnets that let you place it anywhere, easily, are the icing on the cake.
