I've taken a proper bargain of a case from Thermaltake and built a gorgeous white PC with it
Every month we build a gaming PC with the latest components and cases—it's good to get stuck in and build something regularly in our opinion. If you're looking for inspiration for your next build, or you're new to the hobby, you can check out our picks below. You can easily make changes to these too, and in some cases, we hope you do. We're building and testing every PC we highlight, and if we run into any issues, we'll explain them here.
We're back with another build. This time, a compact white gaming PC, powered by AMD's top gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and a Gigabyte RTX 5070 Ti Eagle OC Ice SFF. I've tried to gain a few style points with the Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex and Cooler Master Sickleflow Edge 360 fans—three fans combined into a single unit. That's more of a time-saver than you'd think and makes for fewer cables.
All of which has been stuffed inside a surprising affordable chassis: Thermaltake's S100 Tempered Glass Snow Edition. This budget case looks better than it should, considering its price tag, and altogether brings this white PC build together nicely.
Quick list
- Case: Thermaltake S100 Tempered Glass Snow Edition - $73/£40
- Motherboard: ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning WiFi - $210/£198
- Graphics card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Eagle OC Ice SFF - $900/£610
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D - $472/£420
- RAM: Crucial DDR5 Pro 64 GB - $228/£171
- SSD: Solidigm P44 Pro 2 TB - $240/£187
- Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex - $80/£55
- PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W - $130/£110
- Fans: Cooler Master Sickleflow Edge 360 ARGB White Edition - $75/£53
Gallery
Parts list
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex
US: $80 | UK: £55
If you're tired of the parade of liquid coolers with screens, RGB gizmos and absurdly price tags, let me introduce you to the Hyper 612 Apex.
A heatsink with fans on either side—nothing abnormal or over the top about that. Though the Hyper 612 Apex does crank up the style points by including a couple outer covers, for the fans and top of the heatsink, to keep everything looking uniform. And don't be fooled, despite its affordability, it has one neat feature to make installation easier: the fans slide in and out of the heatsink for quick removal.
This cooler can keep a modern processor running cool in games and more intensive testing. It does struggle, however, with a 14th Gen Intel chip, as most do. It's a good thing those are on the way out, then.
Thermaltake S100 Tempered Glass Snow Edition
US: $73 | UK: £40
This stylish PC case hides a secret: it's actually very affordable. In some regions more so than others. Either way, this is a clean case for such a small amount of cash.
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning WiFi
US: $210 | UK: £198
A compact Mini-ITX motherboard with plenty of ports. Better yet, it's a Mini-ITX board that doesn't cost more than a graphics card. Though this is the one part of this build I'd swap out if I did it again. A Micro-ATX motherboard would be better, but I didn't have one to hand. You do have to be careful to update the BIOS on an ASRock AMD mobo, too, as they've been known to have issues.
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Eagle OC Ice SFF
US: $900 | UK: £610
The RTX 5070 Ti is a powerful card that delivers solid 1440p and 4K performance and takes the edge off ray-traced games. The RX 9070 XT was our first pick, but it didn't fit.
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
US: $472 | UK: £420
The daddy of gaming processors. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is rapid in its calculations thanks to a stack of extra cache placed under the processing cores.
Crucial DDR5 Pro 64 GB
US: $228 | UK: £171
A set of finely-tuned memory for AMD Ryzen systems, right in the CPU's sweet spot for speed at 6000 MT/s. We're setting this PC up to open as many Chrome tabs as you like.
Solidigm P44 Pro 2 TB
US: $240 | UK: £187
A slightly older SSD that works great for gaming. If you can spare the budget, a faster PCIe 5.0 SSD would be good, but cooling is a bit limited on this Mini-ITX motherboard.
Be Quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
US: $130 | UK: £110
A trustworthy power supply with plenty of watts to spare for our build. The modular cables remove any unnecessary cable mess, too.
Cooler Master Sickleflow Edge 360 ARGB White Edition
US: $75 | UK: £53
Three fans in one. If you're planning to load three 120 mm fans into your PC, this one unit does the same job with only four screws and fewer cables.
Performance
We put every build through its paces, testing the latest games and putting the CPU under pressure to ensure stability.
This PC is 'Custom PC #10' in the charts below.