I'm planning my first gaming PC with a flexible budget of around £2,000, excluding peripherals. It will mainly be used for DayZ, but I'd like enough performance to run modern games generally. Sometimes it will sit on a desk in one room, and other times I'll move it to the living room and connect it to a large TV, so portability is important.
I'm considering a compact mATX case such as the Lian Li A3-mATX, although I'm unsure how convenient it is to connect and disconnect an HDMI cable. I'd also appreciate advice on choosing a suitable motherboard and power supply rather than simply copying parts from a prebuilt list, since I don't want to overpay unnecessarily.
The parts I'm currently considering are a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, a PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Reaper, and a Sudokoo CPU cooler. I'd particularly like recommendations for the motherboard, PSU, and a compact case with a glass panel so the components are visible. Any compatibility, cooling, or value advice would be appreciated.
1 Answer
The HDMI cable should be reasonably easy to unplug from the A3-mATX, so that shouldn’t be a deciding factor. For this case, I’d lean toward a 240 mm liquid cooler rather than a traditional tower air cooler, especially if you’re using bottom-mounted fans and want to manage airflow in the compact layout.
A sensible parts direction would be the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RX 9070 XT, an affordable B850M Wi-Fi motherboard such as the Asus Prime B850M-A WiFi, an 850 W fully modular Gold-rated PSU, and several 120 mm case fans. The A3-mATX can work well for this build and has a glass-panel option, but make sure the exact panel and radiator support match the version you buy. The motherboard does not need to be especially expensive; focus on AM5 compatibility, adequate VRM cooling, Wi-Fi if needed, and the M.2 and USB connections you actually require.
Thanks, I may have confused the A3 with another compact mATX case after watching several reviews. The cooler I originally chose came from a video review, although the reviewer seemed to have trouble fitting the sponsored liquid cooler. What was the reason for choosing a different, smaller SSD?