This no-vidia gaming PC is a great example of how small design decisions can make it feel like you're building a PC on easy-mode - Related to while, remains, no-vidia, like, now,

Amazon has a GeForce RTX 5080 prebuilt PC available now, at least while stock remains

The first wave of Nvidia 50 series GPUs have arrived. Now they're gone. So, if you need an RTX 5080-prebuilt gaming PCs are currently your best bet of securing. While Dell has got some overpriced $5000+ Alienware 51 desktops up for preorder, there other (considerably cheaper, but not necessarily affordable) options up for grabs right now.

We're highlighting one today, in fact. It's the Skytech Azure Gaming PC, priced at $2,[website] on Amazon, it packs an RTX 5080 16GB graphics card, liquid cooling, and an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor. It's a high-end system designed for 4K 60 FPS and over, but does the price justify the specs?

Skytech Azure Gaming PC Desktop $[website] Ryzen 7 9800X3D [website] GHz ([website] GHz Turbo Boost), NVIDIA RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7, 2TB SSD, 32GB DDR5 RAM 6000 RGB. See here.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D runs at [website] GHz with a [website] GHz Turbo Boost, making it a strong performer for gaming and multitasking. The NVIDIA RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7 should easily handle 4K gaming and ray tracing. There's 32GB of DDR5 RAM clocked at 6000 MHz, which ensures fast performance across applications. The 2TB NVMe [website] SSD provides ample storage and quick load times, but actual speeds depend on the specific SSD used. An 850W Gold ATX [website] PSU is powering it all, which should be plenty for this build. A 360mm ARGB AIO liquid cooler keeps temperatures in check.

The Skytech Azure Gaming Case has a tempered glass design and decent airflow. Connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6, multiple USB ports, HDMI, and DisplayPort. It ships with Windows 11 Home pre-installed. The total weight is 30 pounds, and the dimensions are [website] x [website] x [website] inches.

Component Specification Processor AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D ([website] GHz, [website] GHz Turbo) Graphics Card NVIDIA RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7 (Brand may vary) RAM 32GB DDR5 6000 MHz (RGB, Heat Spreader) Storage 2TB NVMe [website] SSD Cooling System 360mm ARGB AIO Liquid Cooler Power Supply 850W Gold ATX [website] PSU Motherboard High-performance gaming board Operating System Windows 11 Home 64-bit Connectivity Wi-Fi 6, USB [website], [website], [website] Gen1, HDMI, DisplayPort Case Skytech Azure Gaming Case (Black, Tempered Glass) Weight 30 pounds Dimensions (LxWxH) [website] x [website] x [website] inches Warranty 1 Year Parts & Labor, Free Technical Support.

You'd expect top performance at this price, and this rig delivers. It should handle titles like Call of Duty, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, and Counter-Strike 2 at ultra settings in 4K with frame rates exceeding 60 FPS. The liquid cooling setup is a plus, ensuring that heat won't be an issue during extended gaming sessions.

However, for nearly $3,000, it's worth considering if you need the latest GPU and high-end cooling. Prebuilt gaming PCs often come with a premium markup. If you're comfortable building your own, you might save a few hundred dollars.

That noted, good luck getting your hands on an RTX 5080 anywhere right now. This GPU is out of stock just about everywhere, and scalpers are charging ridiculous markups. If you want this level of performance in your setup without emptying your wallet on a single component. In that case, this prebuilt PC is a much easier and more affordable route, for now at least.

Call me a cynic if you must, but I'm generally sceptical when someone indicates to be.

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This no-vidia gaming PC is a great example of how small design decisions can make it feel like you're building a PC on easy-mode

Everyone is talking about Nvidia these days. The gaming graphics card corporation, turned datacentre corporation, turned AI corporation, turned Wall Street darling… even my Nan asked me about them lately. But today is not Nvidia's day. Nope, this build is powered by AMD and Intel parts, working in total synchronicity.

You might be surprised to hear that I've used an Intel CPU and an AMD GPU for this mid to high-end hero: a Core Ultra 5 245K and RX 7900 XT. I built it prior to the launch of the RTX 50-series, not that you can buy one anyways, but I wanted to try to be a little more sensible with my money—a $2,000 GPU isn't in the PC Gamer budget.

My main takeaway from this build is just how easily it came together. A spacious chassis with room to manoeuvre, paired with a motherboard with some of the simplest SSD slots known to humankind, and topped off with chip cooling powered by a single cable—small shortcuts that made the process of building this PC feel like child's play. And that's not me bragging about my magnificent building ability—I've had an absolute 'mare with PCs plenty of times. Not here.

Swipe to scroll horizontally Component Model US price UK price Buy links CPU Intel Core Ultra 5 245K $319 £276 Buy link GPU AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT $700 £630 Buy link Chassis Be Quiet! Shadow Base 800 FX $190 £197 Buy link Motherboard ASRock Z890 Steel Legend WiFi $260 £255 Buy link Memory Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-6600 32 GB $125 £150 Buy link Storage Solidigm P44 Pro 1 TB $120 £105 Buy link CPU cooler Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5 $70 £63 Buy link Cooling 4x Be Quiet! Light Wings 140 mm Included with case Included with case Buy link Power supply MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 $120 £81 Buy link.

When I was planning out this build, I had one thing in mind: 'don't go overboard, mate'. I mostly managed that, though you'll forgive a PC gamer for a little overzealous ordering.

As mentioned above, this gaming PC is built on Intel's latest processor platform, Arrow Lake, and the Z890 chipset. I've opted for ASRock's Z890 Steel Legend WiFi to provide the necessary LGA1851 socket required for the Core Ultra 5 245K, though it's a stellar choice for a few reasons. Namely, the RGB light bar along the lower SSD slots.

Only joking. The lighting is a nice touch but I'm reppin' the Steel Legend for its pair of Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, 18+1+1+1+1 phase VRM, and some of the best NVMe slots in the biz.

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All this talk about SSD slots—what's the big deal? Usually where a motherboard would employ a screw, or many screws of varying sizes (yuck!), this absolute legend stuffs a couple of quick release sliders to unleash any one of the three covered NVMe slots (there's one uncovered slot, too). More than that, once you're under the hood, there are no tiny screws to unleash the SSD itself—just a twisty locking mechanism. I was in and out of those slots in no time, and without even reaching for my screwdriver.

I don't get the benefit of heaps of NVMe slots rated to PCIe [website] speeds on this motherboard, just one. That's due to the Z890 chipset's available lanes, and is in direct contrast to AMD's top chipset with many. But I'm not opting for a PCIe [website] SSD in this build to help reduce costs. Instead, the Solidigm P44 Pro 1 TB sits within this machine—a stalwart pick for its reliability and affordability.

If I were using one of Intel's last-generation processors, the fiery 14900K for example, the door would be largely closed to an air cooler. Though with significantly reduced wattage by comparison, the 245K works just fine alongside the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5. In fact, as you'll see in the performance section, temperatures remain pretty low throughout testing. And this isn't even the largest version of this air cooler available. With only a single fan to install, I had but a single fan header to connect before moving onto the next job.

The Dark Rock 5 didn't cause any compatibility issues with the RAM I've chosen for this build: Corsair's Vengeance RGB DDR5-6600 32 GB. This Vengeance gear isn't like the stuff of yore, it's still rather large for all the RGB LEDs stuffed under the hood. The more essential part is that it's rated to 6,600 MHz (effective), which is a speed the Intel chip could actually benefit from to some very tiny degree. The main thing is it is actually relatively affordable memory, even for its speed, lighting and capacity.

The 245K might not be top of the performance charts, nor the sales charts, but it is a superior chip than some give it credit for. Namely, I can reasonably pair it with an air cooler, as I have for this build, and enjoy playable temperatures and low noise. You can't say that of a 14th Gen chip. The alternative here was one of AMD's smart and affordable Ryzen processors. While one of those would be a great fit, I wanted to give Intel's latest processor a run for its money.

The 245K comes with a mix of P-cores and E-cores—six and eight, respectively. There's no Hyper-Threading so it totals just 14 threads. Nevertheless, it's relatively impressive in encoding and rendering benchmarks, such as Handbrake and Cinebench, and draws relatively low power for this performance compared to previous generations from Intel. However, if you want the fastest gaming chip around, this isn't it. Even following a series of performance patches from Intel, I'm still left wanting for more.

Thankfully, the graphics card takes on most of the burden with rendering frames these days, especially at higher resolutions. I've opted for the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT for this build for a few reasons: 1) they're cheap by comparison to the outgoing RTX 40-series; 2) the RTX 50-series wasn't yet available when I made this PC, though good luck getting one now; 3) the RX 9000-series is set to launch sometime in early March, so isn't available.

If I'm going to opt for a last-generation card, at least at the time of building, I could get a lot more for my money out of the RX 7000-series. The RX 7900 XT, too, has been frequently discounted and elements a healthy, long-lasting pile of GDDR6 memory chips—20 GB of the stuff, to be precise.

The final two pieces of the puzzle are the MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 PSU, which needn't be PCIe [website] for AMD's card, which lacks 12VHPWR or 12x6 connectors, but feels the right choice for longevity (and because I had it close to hand). Then, last but not least, the Be Quiet! Shadow Base 800 FX.

The Shadow Base 800 FX is wicked. Partially that's because of its simplicity and spaciousness. There's ample room for near-enough anything inside this case. The four Light Wings 140 mm fans make for quiet operation too, befitting the brand on the box. But it's more that I have very recent memories of building in the Be Quiet Dark Base 900.

The Dark Base 900 has sat in various living spaces of mine for at least five years. At one point it was fitted with parts for my own PC, but these days it's surrounding my partner's PC instead. It has ample room for components and lots of flexibility—though perhaps a little too much. It's a massive hassle to do near-enough anything in it. The screws are fiddly, some are now threaded, the motherboard tray is a nightmare, the PSU shroud feels awkward to remove and reinstall. Altogether, I'd be happy to see the back of it—but the Shadow Base 800 FX has shown me just how far PC cases have come in recent years.

The Shadow Base 800 FX comes part with ease, leaving a cavernous interior ready to fill with all manner of cable mess. Cable mess that is neatly hidden beneath the huge PSU shroud and cable management shroud running vertically through the centre of the case. I've taken multiple pictures of the space between the PSU and front fan, as you could fit nearly two more PSUs inside it. The case doesn't feel excessively large, however.

The fans in the Shadow Base 800 FX come connected to a controller on the back of the motherboard, which only needs to be connected to a motherboard fan and RGB header for easy operation. It also comes away with a single thumbscrew to ease cooler installation.

I've been thoroughly impressed with this chassis. Not because it does anything spectacular, it's simply easy to build into and looks smart without much effort on my part. As I mentioned in the headline, altogether this felt like a gaming PC build on easy mode. From start to finish, I hit no roadblocks, cut no fingers, and when I reached for the power button, it booted first time.

Scroll through the gallery above for the step-by-step of how I put this build together.

Far from the highest scoring, fastest gaming PC in our testing, there is something to be showcased for how well the RX 7900 XT runs in most modern games. Comparing a few similar builds, the 7900 XT is often ahead of the RTX 4070 Super, and not far behind the RTX 4070 Ti Super. The RTX 50-series might crush it game-for-game, but its 20 GB of GDDR6 keeps it in the game for longer.

The Core Ultra 5 245K manages to keep up in games, though I'm sure I could eke more out of this graphics card with a speedier X3D chip in this machine. It does perform admirably next to the Ryzen 7 9700X more broadly in system benchmarks, and while slightly dampened by the occassionally higher performance of the Core i7 14700K, it is thankfully much cooler.

Temperatures are a real benefit of this lower-power processor. Despite a single-tower air cooler with just one fan in the Dark Rock 5, the 245K remained chilly under high load.

So there you have it: a gaming PC born of simple, straightforward parts that has made me appreciate the small stuff.

The SSD slots, the fan controllers, the roomy chassis—these are the little details that have combined to make a big difference when it comes to my experience crafting this gaming PC.

It really has made a noticeable improvement. When I was building in that Dark Base 900 a half-decade or so ago, the complexity and fiddliness felt like the price you pay for a case with all the extras. Nowadays, there's little of that.

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Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 review: the new 4K graphics card to go for

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition specs: CUDA Cores: 10,752.

Has any genus of graphics card been as dramatically storied as the GeForce XX80s? The RTX 3080 was a thing of beauty, only to be tarnished by the worst wheeler-dealing spree (and crypto mining misappropriation) in PC component history. Then the RTX 4080 rocked up with its laughable £1269 / $1199 price tag, a miscalculation so severe that the RTX 4080 Super looked good – despite hardly being any faster – simply for not repeating it. For the new RTX 5080’s sake, you almost want it to be boring.

It isn’t. But then, neither is it a blood-boiler like the RTX 4080, nor a largely aspirational show-off piece like the RTX 5090. By maintaining the 4080 Super’s course correction on price while tooling up on compelling DLSS 4 improvements, the RTX 5080 is an agreeable GPU from the off. Particularly, if you’ve got the 4K monitor to take full advantage of it.

It’s certainly a more sensible buy than the RTX 5090 for high-rez gamesplaying. A Founders Edition, like the one I’m testing here, will set you back £979 / $999, or roughly half the price of the next (and final) RTX 50 model in the pile. Plus, while it has the same 16GB of 256-bit VRAM as the 4080 and 4080 Super, that’s still enough for all the AAA industry’s biggest resource-eaters, and it’s been upgraded to GDDR7 for a stretch of extra bandwidth. Get the Founders Edition and you’ll also bag yourself the same lovely metallic design and effective dual-fan cooler that the RTX 5090 FE has, running even colder here thanks to the RTX 4080’s lower power needs.

It's still a thirsty creature, to be sure: Nvidia reckon you’ll need at least an 850W PSU to run it, and max usage is rated at a toasty 360W. Unlike on the RTX 5090 FE, however, I didn’t record the RTX 5080 FE actually hitting its limit, with it peaking at 322W while running games. Its GPU temperature high of 64°c was a good nine degrees cooler the 5090 as well. See? Sensible. Ish.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 review: 4K benchmarks.

The biggest and scariest of mainstream monitor resolutions doesn’t faze the RTX 5080 a jot, even in the more recent tough runners. The RTX 5090 is faster still, though the RTX 5080 is always able to match a good majority of its sibling’s frames-per-second output for half the cash. It’s also a juicy upgrade over the RTX 30 series’ elite – encouraging, if you’re upgrading from an older card – and it even comes somewhat close to the RTX 4090, which at the time of writing is still going for upwards of £1300 in the secondhand market.

Keen bar chart fans may recall that the RTX 4080 did beat the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti outright, so it’s a bit of a backwards shuffle for the RTX 5080 to not completely outpace the previous generation’s top dog in turn. I’m not sure that’s a particularly huge deal, outside of maintaining conventions, though I do wish the RTX 5080 gave more of a speed boost to rasterised, native-rez games over the RTX 4080 Super.

To look at this, we must – temporarily but with apologies – return to the old RPS test rig and its Core i5-11600K, which is the only one I have RTX 4080 Super results for. Cyberpunk 2077 sees a decent bump, rising from 51fps (with Ultra settings) on the 4080 Super to 71fps on the 5080, though the newest GPU’s 81fps in F1 22 (on Ultra High) is an uptick of just 12fps. Metro Exodus barely improved either, averaging 99fps on the 4080 Super and 106fps on the 5080.

What none of these RTX 40 series cards have, however, is a full suite of DLSS 4 framerate-massaging tools. While one of my personal favourites among these – the new Transformer model option for upscaling, which enhances overall image quality in exchange for a smaller performance boost – is available to older RTX models, the headlining multi Frame Generation (MFG) is . And this actually can nudge the RTX 5080 past the RTX 4090, at least in terms of purely visible smoothness.

If you’re unfamiliar, MFG takes the AI frame generation of DLSS 3 and can throw up anywhere between one and three generated frames for every one of the frames that your PC actually renders. This adds some extra input lag, and it won’t necessarily feel smoother (as the generated frames don’t take into account your mouse movements or keyboard presses), but the visual impact can look very fine indeed. On the RTX 5080, MFG also opens up the possibility of above-60fps framerates at while combining 4K with some of the most demanding ray tracing and path tracing effects in the business. In all three games I tried, applying the 4x frame gen option let it saunter past the RTX 4090, whose DLSS 3 version maxes out at the equivalent of MFG’s 2x setting.

Outside of benchmark nerdery, everything looks and feels playable, though Alan Wake II did start pushing 100ms of latency with 4x MFG on – enough for aiming to get a little sluggish. I’d probably drop DLSS upscaling from Quality to Balanced, in that case, to bump up that base of 37 non-AI frames per second. That would improve visual smoothness even more while touching up responsivity. Otherwise, though, DLSS 4 makes a persuasive argument in the RTX 5080’s favour, and with 75 compatible games confirmed, it’s getting a far more widely-supported start to life than rival frame gen tech like FSR 3 and XeSS 2 did.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 review: 1440p benchmarks.

As ever, anything 4K can do, 1440p can do faster, and there are good reasons to choose the RTX 5080 for this resolution if you’ve redirected all your monitor upgrade budget into a GPU fund. CPU bottlenecking snips the tall-poppyness of the RTX 5090, allowing this cheaper card to keep pace more effectively, while also narrowing the gap against RTX 4090 and downright styling on the RTX 3090.

That noted, it’s worth waiting for the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti at this stage. The RTX 5080 is undoubtedly a barnstormer at 1440p but unlike with 4K, there is sometimes a feeling that you’re paying for more power and elements than you can use. 4x MFG, for instance, isn’t as useful because the framerates you can get without it are already sky-high: take Cyberpunk 2077 with Psycho ray tracing, which the RTX 5080 could run at 106fps with just Quality-level DLSS upscaling. Most monitors wouldn’t even be able to display all the extra AI frames, even if your eyes could perceive the difference between such speeds – and diminishing returns very much do come into effect.

Then again, there is a case for 2x frame gen in some games. F1 24 on Ultra High rose from 116fps with only Quality DLSS to 148fps with frame gen, and that actually did make for a noticeable (if minor) smoothness improvement. The RTX 5080 clearly isn’t a bad GPU for Quad HD – it’s just not the best resolution for spreading its DLSS 4 wings, hence why it’ll be intriguing to see whether the more affordable RTX 5070 duo can make for more suitable matches.

Or AMD’s Radeon RX 9070, maybe. That will have its own souped-up DLSS rival in FSR 4, though it sounds like this will be a simpler 2x frame generator in the DLSS 3 vein. With the faster and more flexible MFG, DLSS 4’s pin-sharp Transformer model option, and the GeForce line’s historic advantages with ray and path tracing, it’s hard to see how RDNA 4 GPUs like this will be able to stand up to the RTX 50 series on capabilities.

For 4K, anyway, the RTX 5080 is the one to beat. It’s cooler, more efficient, and (not, uh, counting any potential stock shortages) drastically more attainable than the RTX 5090, while still having enough muscle for slick, max-quality performance. Is it as lovable as that poor, reseller-abused RTX 3080? Not so much – a bigger jump up from the RTX 4080 Super would have been appreciated. But it’s superior deal overall than both the Super and the original RTX 4080, especially once you start exploiting its more advanced tech. Tech that can help it leave the RTX 4090 behind, let alone those 4080s.

This review is based on a retail unit provided by the manufacturer.

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