PC Specialist Magma L1 System Review

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Like the Apollo before it the case is a PCS Frostflow, which might not win any design or aesthetic awards compared to flashier cases, but it’s still all the case you actually need. Plenty of vents, front panel USB, window. Most beneficially it’s good value, which helps keep the price down. Which is exactly the point we were making in the intro about PCS choice of components.

  

Around the back (rotated sideways for easy of viewing) we find the IO section of the B450 Gigabyte Aorus Elite motherboard, as well as the GTX 1660 Ti outputs and the WiFi antennae.

  

Without any fancy extra cables to give a uniform look to proceedings the internals of the Magma L1 are utilitarian but, as is always the case with PCS builds, they have been tied and hidden as well as possible. At this price you want all of the money on the performance steak rather than nice but unimportant sizzle.

  

At the top end we find AMDs own cooler. We’re curious as to how well this manages as our experience with it until now has been the same as a lot of factory supplied coolers, just about good enough but you should really upgrade. With the Ryzen 5 3600 being new to our experience this is one of the places we’re most interested in testing. Alongside it we find the 16GB of Corsair DDR4 2400, which is more than enough memory for any sensible task you require of the system.

  
  

At the bottom end we find the Aorus logo and front panel USB connectors along with some vertical mounted SATA ports. Part of the small price you have to pay going from the X570 chipset the B450.

Lastly the graphics card is listed in the specifications as a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, so don’t be surprised if you get a different manufacturer to the Zotac one that is supplied in our review system. It’s worth noting though that the Apollo T1 also had the Zotac version of the GTX 1660 Ti, so maybe you stand a good chance of getting a nicely cooled take on the baby Turing card.