The ROG Rig

The ASUS ROG Rig

Introduction

For the majority of us our systems fall into two distinct categories.

Firstly there are the systems that we’ve built ourselves. These usually consist of a mish-mash of parts that suited whatever our budget was at the time and are generally gradually upgraded throughout their lifespan in the same manner as the old joke about an old broom that has had the handle and bristles replaced a number of times. By the time we consider a wholly new machine usually the only thing left of our initial build is the case and maybe a drive or two.

The other option is to buy it in one big lump from one of the many companies that enable you to spec your own system from a selection of components. Usually these are more consistent in the brands they use, either because the builder has a deal with certain manufacturers or just because those particular components are popular sellers.

Very few of us commit to a brand so much that a large percentage of our components come from one place. This is because it’s almost impossible to do – Cooler Master and Corsair don’t make motherboards for example. However, the ASUS Republic of Gamers brand has expanded to the extent that it is almost possible to be incredibly brand loyal and build a significant portion of your system using only their components. Naturally we understand how popular that famous ROG eye logo is and wondered what kind of performance you could get and expense it would take to build a system almost entirely from ASUS ROG branded products. The launch of the Ryzen 3rd Generation hardware and Navi GPU has enabled us to go down this singular path with everything that isn’t ASUS being AMD, and the only places we’ve had to deviate from either of these paths is with the memory and storage drive.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve built.

Test Setup

The system itself is an upper end setup combining one of the best of the RX 5700 XT graphics cards with the eight core Ryzen 7 3800X, mounted into the outstanding Maximus Hero X570 motherboard and all wrapped up in a very eye-grabbing case and cooling setup. Like all systems it’s better to show than to tell, so it’s time to see it in the flesh.

CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 3800X – £379.99

Motherboard : ASUS ROG X570 Maximus Hero – £374.99

Case : ASUS ROG Helios – £267.99

CPU Cooler : ASUS ROG Ryujin – £231.99

PSU : ASUS ROG Thor 850w – £199.99

GPU : ASUS ROG Strix 5700XT OC – £479.99

Memory : Gskill Trident Z Royal 3600MHz  – £199

M.2 Drive : Corsair MP510 960GB – £134.99

Cables : CableMod Pro PSU Cables – £99.99