Customer Ratings & Reviews

It's my first pc (Still using it might transfer to a new case) I swapped out the 1660 with a RX6600 and it has been well now although I'm running out of space on the main drive.

pretty good so far. no issues rn only problem i wish i had a bigger hard drive and dont know what to go with thats budget friendly

TLDR; What Asus is offering here is a stylish, nicely built gaming desktop PC that offers excellent temperature management and upgradeability. There are aspects of the build that could use some refinement, but nothing that would keep me from recommending this PC to prospective buyers. Unboxing: This computer was packed with excellence for shipping. What Asus did here was simple and elegant in packing the desktop, keyboard, mouse, and misc. cables and other items. It was very easy to unbox the PC and to get everything hooked up and ready to go. Setup: I hooked this to my AOC Aegon 1440p G-sync capable monitor via a display port cable. If you are new to the process of hooking up a gaming PC with a discrete graphics card, you must make sure you plug the PC end of the display cable you are using (HDMI or display port) directly into one of the ports on the graphics card on the back of the PC, not the motherboard (MOBO) ports higher up. Otherwise, you will not be able to get the full framerates on your display that the system is capable of. Furthermore, since this is an “F” series CPU from Intel, there is no integrated graphics on the CPU, so even if you plugged a display cable in the MOBO ports, you would not get an image on your screen. There is an instruction page in the Asus packaging the shows this. The rest of the setup was simple with allowing the Windows 11 setup wizard to lead you through the setup process, culminating in your booting into the Windows 11 desktop which in my opinion is clean and elegant to use. There were plenty of updates waiting to be done when the PC first booted up, so make sure you have some time set aside for multiple update downloads and restarts of the PC. You will also want to ensure you download Nvidia GeForce Experience or get on the website directly to download the latest drivers for the graphics card. I/O: I was disappointed not to find a USB-C plug in anywhere on this PC. USB-C is the direction a lot of accessories and external storage devices are heading. However, there were plenty of USB-A ports including 6 total SS USB-A ports including two on the top of the front panel of the PC, as well as two additional USB-A 2.0 ports on the rear. This is plenty of USB-A hookups for even the most accessory happy user at this price point. The GTX 1660ti has two HDMI and two Display port hookups on it for your display options. Build: I feel that the build quality present here is quite premium in the materials used and strong. This PC is definitely scoring a win for appearance and build far and above its price point. I think customers will be happy with the build quality and appearance of this PC. The only detractor in the appearance of the PC externally is the unpainted rear panel, but I am not worried about this as it is not obvious since it obviously is on the back and should not be readily visible on most peoples’ setup. There is pretty cool RGB lighting on the front and there are RGB lights emanating inside the case itself. The front RGB comes out of the box at 30% brightness and when turned up is not shockingly brighter, but it does help to show it off a bit more. To show off the internal RGB and build components, Asus included a clear acrylic side panel that one can replace the vented metal side panel with to show off the internal components of the PC. There are standoffs on the clear panel that offsets it from the case itself which some users might find ugly. My guess is that they did this to improve air flow, as the only case fan present is the tiny 80mm exhaust fan at the rear. As for the 80mm fan, I am most definitely not a FAN of it. It is extremely loud and annoying to listen to, as it ramps up and down constantly when gaming. Headsets when gaming will alleviate most of this noise, but it is certainly not a pleasant experience for the ears. The temps are effectively controlled in this PC case though, particularly with the vented metal side panel. I am not going to knock the whole review of this PC down just for the fan, as the fan could easily be placed with a premium, quieter 80mm fan for less than $20 and only a few minutes of your time. I am going to mention the fact too that while this airflow design seems to be working, not having any intake fans is somewhat concerning. However, the temperatures are well managed, and the performance is there for the components. I am not going to focus heavily on discussing the performance of this PC as there are plenty of in-depth materials on the web about the performance of the GTX 1660ti and the i5-11400F CPU. Components: There are some improvements I feel could be made from the factory for the setup of this PC. For one, it comes with a single 16GB 3200mHz DDR4 RAM module. I would have liked to have seen dual channel memory here at least as there are 4 SODIMM slots on the MOBO. This is sold as a gaming PC, and dual-channel memory (two sticks of 8GB RAM) would have been far better for the gaming experience. The GTX 1660ti present here is a blower style, single fan GPU that runs very well under load and even under Heaven benchmarking and heavy gaming sessions, never exceeded safe temperatures in my testing. The 1660ti in this build at this price range is a little bit of an underperformer when compared to a 2060 or even 3060 at somewhat higher prices, but it gets the job done in this build. The 512GB represents the only storage built into this device and, quite honestly, it is not enough for modern gamers. A game like Modern Warfare 2019 is over 100GB in file size, so by the time you have just a few games downloaded, you have maxed out your storage. Alas, at this price point there had to be some budgetary decisions made and this may have drawn the short straw. The SSD did come out with some excellent speeds 2492 MB/s read and 1806 MB/S write on one of my tests. The boot up times from turned off are also excellent with this SSD. In summary, you are going to want to add some additional storage down the road, but this is a good starting point for the budget minded gamer. Altogether, I would say Asus has put together a really cool PC here. It needs refinement in some areas like the loud 80mm exhaust fan, but generally speaking, prospective PC gamers uninterested in building their own PC from the ground up are going to be happy with this prebuilt PC. Thanks for reading my review and I hope this helps guide your purchasing decision!

BOTTOM LINE: ASUS managed to impress with a budget-friendly gamer-oriented PC that turns in more than respectable performance on many of today’s AAA titles running 1080p @ Maximum/Ultra/Ultimate--those willing to dial back a few options/presets just a smidgen to Very High or High are going to be in a for a treat without having to break the bank to obtain those compelling visuals. Granted, a lot of the ROG’s performance has to do with the surprisingly capable GTX 1660 Ti under the hood, but even with a few of the oddball design choices ASUS made with this rig, they still managed to deliver something decidedly gamer-friendly that doesn’t struggle just to keep the lights on--and even offers some modest opportunities for upgrades down the road. PROs: - Relatively compact case with a metal vented side panel plus a conversion kit to install the included plexi side panel so you can see all that Aura Sync RGB goodness inside - Speaking of RGB, LED strips run along the top & right edges of the case as well as several LED banks sitting behind a translucent lightning bolt cutout in the front. I could not find an RGB header on the motherboard so I’m guessing the controller is built into one of the USB connections; but all LEDs are configurable using Armoury Crate’s Aura Sync. The lightning bolt can accommodate chasing or smooth transitional effects; however, the LEDs in the strip lights are not addressable individually nor is there any additional RGB lighting on the motherboard, fans, or video card. - Cable management is more than respectable--enough so that you wouldn’t be ashamed to have people see inside your rig. A separate metal cover hides & sections off the power supply & the snake’s nest of captive power cables. There is a set of mounting brackets on the top of the cover to accommodate an additional 2.5” SSD/HDD. There is also room to stack at least a *few* drives in the hidden power-supply chamber though there are no secure mounting points for them. However, there are some odd metal studs & rubber-ringed screw holes on the bottom of the case next to the power supply that might accommodate some sort of OEM or DIY mounting kit or drive cages - If the included 512GB Gen 3 NVMe drive gets cramped (highly likely on a gaming rig), there is another open M.2 slot on the motherboard as well as SIX open SATA ports on the motherboard. The wiring harness includes 5 unused SATA power connectors & there is even an extra SATA data cable in the box to get your first drive up and running. - Online specs call for a 500W 80+ Bronze PSU, but my ROG came with a 600W 80+ Gold LiteON unit; it’s not modular, but it should easily accommodate current power demands (~350W) plus a few additional storage drives without breaking a sweat - More-than-capable 11th-gen i5 CPU hits up to 4.4Ghz on 6 cores; the OS (which immediately updated to Windows 11 on initial power-up) is loaded on decently snappy M.2 SSD that makes for a smooth & responsive user experience (about 14 seconds from power-up to desktop) - I have always associated ASUS—the ROG brand in particular—with a bit of excessive "gamerish" flair because they happen to focus on style & design as well as features & functions; yet I was happy to see that this ROG desktop was incredibly light on any preinstalled or showy bloatware. Other than standard MS app offerings & trials that come with Windows, the only preinstalled apps I found were the MyASUS & Armoury Crate apps, both of which are actually useful for keeping the PC updated as well as accessing more gamer-oriented functions like performance tuning, system monitoring, or RGB control - Okay, I was NOT expecting acoustics to be this good on a budget build; especially given the 1660 Ti’s slot-blower fan, the smallish CPU heatsink fan, & the 92mm exhaust fan (yes, the ONLY active case exhaust is fed by a 92mm fan!). I figured all those small fans would have been whining like a banshee under load, but even setting Armoury Crate’s performance tuning to “Turbo,” the ROG only offered a mild (though admittedly noticeable) hum…huge spikes in temperatures produced some whooshing air from the fans when they really spun up, but there was relatively little intrusive fan noise even during sustained gaming sessions. Setting the Armoury Crate profile to “Windows” kept the PC essentially silent. - What surprised me even more was how well those smaller fans actually kept thermals under control. CPU idle was around 42 degrees; GPU was 33. While gaming, the CPU hit as high as 73, but hovered around 55-58. The GPU went as high as 67 but hovered around 60-65. The 1660 Ti is already factory overclocked, but after applying another slight but stable overclock, the GPU went as high as 78 degrees, but hovered around 68-76 degrees—very impressive given the small fans & airflow-starved case design (more on that later). Note that I only gained about 2-3 FPS on average so the extra heat just didn’t seem worth it to me and I dispensed with the additional overclock - Onboard WiFi 6 means no need to purchase a USB adapter, internal wireless card, or hunt down an Ethernet cable to get this PC online - Plentiful I/O options: the front (top) includes 2 high-speed USB 3.2 ports & a combo 3.5mm audio jack. The back is loaded with separate mic & audio inputs & outputs, 1 GigE port, 1 HDMI 1.4 & 2 DP 1.2 ports, 2 USB 2.0 & 4 USB 3.2 ports, 2 PS2 jacks (does anyone still use those?), as well as the 2 HDMI & 2 DP ports on the GPU. There are also some open COM ports on the motherboard as well as an open USB header. - Those of you eyeing the ROG's upgrade potential will find two open PCIe 3.0 single-height slots still available, and the motherboard will accommodate up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM - I ran through a complete system reset to simulate a hard drive or OS failure; the process was straightforward & took almost exactly 16 minutes of unattended re-installation time to return the PC to its original factory state CONs: - The 1660 Ti is a very capable card for 1080p gaming & managed to keep things more than playable even on some of today’s AAA titles with maxed settings. Dropping some details/effects into the “Very High” or even “High” categories kept frame rates well above 60FPS…throw in a budget G-Sync monitor & you’ll have a smooth & beastly gaming rig with some money left over for more games. However, if you’re hoping for some compelling 1440p or even 4K performance on a budget, it was clear that I was already pushing the card to its limits - The PSU has no hard switch on the back & only one additional 6+2 pin PCIe connector available; the case only has a single power switch and no reset button - The 512GB SSD filled up FAST—the baseline Win 11 install was about 58GB; after installing Horizon Zero Dawn, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Red Dead Redemption 2 & AC Valhalla, I only had 32GB of open storage left; you’re definitely going to want to invest in another NVMe or larger 2.5” drive for data storage because this gaming rig simply doesn’t come with a lot of space for games! - 16GB RAM is plenty for Win 11, gaming, & most productivity/creativity apps. However, ASUS shipped my ROG with only 1 DIMM of Mircron 16GB 3200 CL22 memory. I have never seen an OEM do this because it runs the RAM in single-channel mode. I doubt anyone would likely notice a HUGE difference in performance on a budget-minded rig like this one, but as ROG is a gaming enthusiast's brand, it seemed like an odd choice not to go with two 8GB DIMMs for DDR operation - The included optical mouse & keyboard are both wired—they are passable for getting you up & running, but that’s all. The keyboard in particular is nothing special as the keycaps are relatively short with mushy-feeling but serviceable travel—they’re better than a laptop’s chicklet-style keycaps, but not by much. Neither the keyboard nor mouse have LED lighting - Despite the surprisingly reasonable thermals, airflow for this case seems almost criminally restricted. There is no front or bottom intake ventilation & no top ventilation for exhaust. The ONLY active exhaust is via the diminutive 92mm rear case fan/vent. The only intake is either through the large buckshot cutouts in the metal side panel (there are no mounting holes on the panel for a side intake/exhaust fan) or the gap between the case & the acrylic side panel once the standoff kit is installed. The rear vent opening & mounting points won’t accommodate a 120mm fan so any DIY mods may look a little rough around the edges if you want something more capable for heat removal. There is one open PWM fan header on the motherboard, but I honestly don’t know where you’d put it given the lack of any other intake & exhaust vents. SAMPLE PERFORMANCE (all games @ 1080p, no DSR + "Turbo" Armoury Crate profile) - The WD SN530 SSD exceeded advertised speeds: 2491MB/s Read; 1822 MB/s Write - Timespy (GPU default clock): 6195 - Timespy (+72 MHz core/200 MHz memory overclock): 6464 - Horizon Zero Dawn (Ultimate): Min 31/Max 121/Ave 68 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Ultra): Min 66/Max 149/Ave 92 - Tomb Raider 2013 (for grins @ Ultimate): Min 102/Max 170/Ave 141 - Red Dead Redemption 2 (Favor Quality - Ultra & High): Min 37/Max 61/Ave 48 - AC Valhalla (High): Min 33/Max 111/Ave 56 - Metro Exodus (High): Min 28/Max 101/Ave 57 - Gears 5 (Ultra): Min 41/Max 98/Ave 68

Purchased computer for my 11-year-old grandson. He is extremely happy with it.

Computer is good enough and good value for mild to moderate gaming. Having said that the CPU does go over 80C at times and averages 75C while gaming. Tried to put a Noctua CPU cooler on but opening on right side of case to access bottom of motherboard which is needed is useless. The top 2 holes are barely accessible. I found a workaround but the case is by far the worst thing about this PC.

Great pc for what we needed. Bought if for my 15 year old sister and it fits our needs.

For a startup with your gaming pc but if ur Pc guy go with something next level i also add ram

Being an apple snob I expect flawless build quality unfortunately I need a PC too but I just wish they would make these ports straight so you don’t have to wiggle the HDMI plug-in I understand that they make these in a Chinese factory and they have to make it fast but maybe they should at least double check that the parts are straight other then that the machine is okay for the money I only bought it bc I got 400 off for Black Friday So if you can get it for pretty decent price then get it

Working great so far. My son is loving it. Says it has great graphics.

--- SETUP --- The setup for this Asus Gaming PC was quick. The installation and update of software took about 1 hour in total with 700 Mbps down, but your time may vary depending on your internet speed. The PC tower comes encased with metal sides, but there’s an included glass pane that can replace one of the sides of your PC so you can the the RGB lighting. --- FEATURES --- This PC features an Intel Core i5-11400F Processor, 2.6Ghz (12m Cache, up to 4.4 Ghz, 6 cores), 16 GB DDR U-DIMM, 64Gb Nvidia GeForce GTC 1660Ti 6GB DDR6 (1xDP, 1xDVI, 2x HDMI), 512 GB M.2 NVMe SSD, 1x PCIe 4.0 x 16, and 2.PCIe 3.0 x1. --- PERFORMANCE --- This computer is lightning fast at turning on and just as good at running your games. Upon finishing with all the updates, I downloaded the following clients: Steam, Xbox GamePass App, and the Epic Games Stores (EGS). I connected this PC to my Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 Gaming monitor. The PC was tested with the following games: Control (EGS), Halo Infinite and Tunic (Xbox GamePass App), and Deathloop and Elden Ring (STEAM). For all games, playing at 1080P 16:9 was the most ideal experience, allowing me to play at the highest or ultra graphical settings. With HDR on, the games look fantastic and still run smoothly. With Halo, the PC had no trouble keeping up with the 60 FPS that is preferable in first person shooters. Control Ultimate edition allowed me to turn on Raytracing reflections, but at the cost of visual fidelity, which I didn’t mind because the game still looked amazing and the reflections provided better immersion. Playing Elden Ring brought me great satisfaction, as it is one of my newest games, yet it ran smoothly at the highest quality settings. Tunic looked simply stunning and I completely lost myself for longer than I anticipated. --- EXPECTATIONS --- This PC is great and very customizable if you plan on making future upgrades. The glass pane is easy to install. The only thing that is noticeable is how loud it is when playing graphic-intensive games. You will notice how loud it is during quiet sections of the game if you are playing without headphones. If you are wearing gaming headphones, then it isn’t a big issue. --- VALUE --- For the price, you have a decent entry-level PC that can play your modern games at medium to high graphic levels with HDR. --- APPROVAL --- I highly recommend this product for gamers who are interested in joining the PC gaming market with a chance to upgrade in the future.

I had high hopes for this PC as an upgrade to my old gaming system, while having a mid-range price. The specs are good on paper. However performance is lacking. Here's what I think after a week: First the good. The case is sleek and it comes with both a metal side panel or a clear side panel to see the interior lights better. Boots up fast Accesses games fast Built in bluetooth for your earbuds or other bluetooth enabled headsets or peripherals. No longer a need to use a bluetooth dongle. Plenty of USB ports.6 in back, 2 on top. Dual monitor ready Built in Wifi. Adjustable lighting and colors The mediocre: Comes with a basic keyboard and mouse. Not even a low end gaming set, just basics. The lighting control are not intuitive and instructions are lacking. No disc drive. If you have physical games on disc, you'll need to copy to a thumbdrive, download them, or buy an external optical drive. There is no place in the case to add an internal optical disc drive. The core i5 isn't that much of a better performer than my 6 year old i5. It's redeeming quality is it's windows 11 ready with TPM. Graphics are just so-so. I expected more out of the GTX1660 Ti. Don't expect to run ultra on anything if you want good FPS. It does have sharp graphics even when set to good, or a mix of good and high Here's the FPS for games set on a mix of good/high: Destiny 2 on good : 35fps Mechwarrior online : 27fps God of war : 31fps WoW : 49fps in low clutter, 31 fps in crowded/high clutter 512 GB SSD boots up quick, but only a few games will about max it out. The OS and other preinstalled software already takes up over 50GB. If you don't get a spare HD, make sure you have cloud storage. The location just above the graphics card and below the processor subjects it to a lot of heat. Little room to install a SATA SSD or HD Nearly no room to install a secondary M.2 NVMe SSD. The graphics card looks to block some access or make it a very tight fit. The bad: When the case exhaust fan kicks on, this thing is LOUD. As in, use PTT instead of VOX when gaming because it'll override your mic and annoy your friends. Gets uncomfortably hot- My concern is for the HD as it doesn't appear to have a heatsink. While idle is anywhere from 50-55C when gaming for extended periods it reached over 80C. That's a concern, especially in a room that is at 70 deg F (21C). How will this fare with summertime temps. Windows 11 Home cant be set up unless you have a microsoft account, so you HAVE to have a microsoft account to use the PC. Armory Crate and MyAsus software not very intuitive. Final thoughts: It's an OK gaming rig. Not a big step up from my 6 year old setup. Good for those on a budget, but it's definitely not a top shelf gaming rig. Would be good for the casual gamer, or the occasional raider. Longevity could be a concern due to heat. Disappointed in this particular ASUS setup. For not much more $$, they have a setup with an i7, gtx 3070, 512g SSD plus 2TB HD

Fantastic device! Very satisfied with its capabilities!

Two-part review! Be sure to check both parts. OK, this works out of the box and is a business computer for day-to-day desk top use! 5 stars! The video card version is awesome as this is my 3 rd one for builds. One fan in the GPU shroud that vents out the back. There are no full-time case fans. Be sure to update everything before your start. Windows has at least 20-30 updates and you will need to install WIN 11 as directed. If you uninstall Armoury Crate use the official uninstall tool at ASUS for this model. The standard size/mount 600-watt Gold Liteon PS works fine but has no off switch (pulls air on the bottom and vents out the back). Also, no legacy MOLEX connectors which should not be an issue. The WIFI M.2 is underneath the GPU. The GPU is very large and has a vent cover with one fan. It appears to take air in, blow it over a basic circuit board and out the back of the case. WIFI was fine in all modes (AX worked fine). Blue tooth was a little wimpy on the bass but worked fine. Check setup for BT if you have issues. XBOX controller was linked with no issues. Do not use the BT version suggested at third party sites as it is not compatible with this unit. Unit functions in all normal use applications including videos and music. 3 stars! OK/ truth in advertising: Fan deployment is severely lacking but easily fixable for significant gaming or graphics. The back case fan seems to only run at turn on with a short burst and over heat situations (no way to set its’ parameters that I can find). This appears to be a MOBO/BIOS built in function on the first fan MOBO connector. Other fans work fine but there is no full-time case fan. Be sure to use the side cover with the holes in it. With all 3 covers off cooling was barely acceptable. The plastic left side panel has standoffs for additional outflow of air. BIOS has no adjustments for any fans and only Armoury Crate can manually adjust the CPU fan. What I did: (This unit with minor modifications will make a fine gamming box) 1. Completely removed Armoury Crate from the system using software from the ASUS site. This software is always running in the background and is using the CPU constantly! Nice features but it may increase your CPU temps. YMMV 2. Installed a 120MM front fan inside the case blowing into the case (mounting holes for 92mm and 120mm). Be advised there is an intake vent slot on the bottom of the front panel facing backwards. In addition, if you remove all the guts in the front cover for lights you will get an additional 3 input areas for air. Mounting holes for front fans are available. You may want to remove the paper and guts in the front cover (do so at your own risk as the rubber covered grommets are tricky to pry off). Only after I did this did I have acceptable CPU gamming temps. I installed a combination fan splitter and PWM controller to hook up the rear and front case fans to get constant flow through the case. I set the fans at medium high speed and they are quiet and efficient with the adjustable PWM controller. The PWM controller was connected to the extra 6 pin power supply and does not affect the MOBO or computer in any way. 3. Installed a 4x4 M.2 in slot one and a 3X4 in slot 2 (optional) 4. Left the 16 GB single DDR4 stick as is (it is 3200 stick). I did not see an XMP function in the BIOS so I skipped replacing it with dual 3600 sticks. 5. Put 4 feet on the bottom of the case to elevate the case for proper airflow. 6. Lastly do not run this in gaming mode without sufficient cooling. You will brick your GPU and eventually your CPU. If you are not a gamer you need not worry about any of these issues as the unit works out of the box. The case is cramped and is difficult to upgrade the parts but doable. Had to put some feet on the case to get it off the table surface for airflow. After all of this I was able to use Flight Simulator without any issues at 60FPS. 120FPS was a bridge too far. Summary: It’s all about price versus features. You need to remember that the ASUS had a lot of off the shelf standard parts that easily fit any standard computer. PS, GPU, PSU, DDR 4, M.2, MOBO mounting holes were all standard. Most prebuilds have proprietary designs that force you to buy parts from the manufacture if you can get them at all. Why 4 stars? Because it works out of the box but has heating issues in heavy gamming modes! Suggestions for ASUS: Make both side metal panels with holes as well as provide a vent in the top of the case. Change the next run of the front cover so it has additional front facing vents (leave the vent on the bottom as it is fine). Put 4 feet on the case to elevate the PS vent properly above the desk. Install a front fulltime fan. Design the rear case fan functionality so it runs 24/7 at medium speed. At this point in time, I am debating on which side cover to use as it will also determine air flow patterns inside the case. When the CPU fan goes into after burner you can feel the CPU fan force hot air out the side vent on the metal cover. That may be the best option to limit backpressure. Maybe! The plastic cover looks very nice and has stand offs for venting!

This gaming rig will be good for the budget conscious who plays at 1080p, many modern popular games will run at a steady 60 FPS on high (Ultra on some) with some games with the available FSR (AMD FidelityFX) option running even higher. Lighter multiplayer titles like PUBG, Warzone, Fornite & Apex legends will easily get over 100 FPS with this 1660ti card. The Bad: Fan gets load under load, Bios has limited features regarding tweaking certain CPU & Ram functions, The MyAsus App will indicate Asus proprietary software being up to date when it is not. I had to download Bios upgrade & other various software manually one at a time. All games evaluated in 1080p on HIGH with Geforce Game Ready Driver 512.15 Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy AVG FPS 76 FSR 1.0 enabled (balanced) *GamePass* No Man Sky AVG FPS 72 FSR 1.0 enabled (balanced) *Steam* Praey for the Gods AVG FPS 57 *Steam* All games ran smooth with no tearing NOTE: I have a gaming monitor 165Mhz Time Spy Score 6007 Cinebench R23 Single 1368 Multi 6527 Out of the box, case seems well built with a more conservative modern sleek design but does have some customizability, via Armoury Crate app, RGB lighting that is not overdone. Case also has plenty of room inside to upgrade, additionally you have the option to replace side with a transparent one to show off your internals & lights. Keyboard & mouse included are generic, so I used my Logitech keyboard & wired G403 mouse. While playing Guardians of the Galaxy for 1-hour thermals on CPU stayed at 80C & GPU 60C so it seems this case featuring two isolated air chambers that isolated chambers provide cleaner airflow through the system and prevent heat from the CPU and GPU from warming up the power supply unit and storage drives, keeps heat at reasonable levels. With that said there is no way to add additional outside fan on front but you can add fans on the inside of case. System is rather fast with 11th Gen CPU, 16GB DDR4 U-DIMM (upgradable to 64GB) & 512GB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 3.0 SSD it managed every I threw at it with ease. The Strix G10CE features DTS Headphone:X™ technology to deliver immersive high-fidelity 7.1-channel virtual surround-sound for home theater-quality audio through headphones with equalizer. Overall, a great affordable system as a starter system or for casual gamers like myself. The 1660ti will tie you over gaming wise until the prices to upgrade to a 3060 normalizes.

First, I am NOT going to focus on value for the money. This includes a GPU, and the price for these have been all over recently. So what could be a good price today will be a bad price next month. I am going to focus entirely on part choice and quality. First, the biggest advantage is that this uses STANDARD PARTS throughout. You can move the guts into a new case. If any part dies, you can replace it with any off the shelf part. There are no proprietary connectors or part sizes anywhere. Believe me when I say that this is a big deal. The last thing that you want with a gaming PC is to find that replacing the motherboard later means replacing the case and power supply too. A LOT of OEMs do this (including ones that are likely on the store shelf next to this unit). Asus also MOSTLY made decent choices for the included parts. THe CPU is a good choice to pair with the GPU. Six cores is plenty for gaming. The GPU is OK too. The GTX 10 series is definitely long in the tooth. An RTX 3050 would have been about the same price and overall frame rate, but given more modern features. Still, given the supply chain issues, the GPU might have been as much about availability as price, so this is acceptable given the state of the world these days. The power supply is a “LiteOn” 600W unit that should give some room to grow in the future. The included hardware shouldn’t break 300W when pushed hard, so a reasonable CPU and/or GPU upgrade in the future should be fine. The included CPU heat sink is fine for this application, but any serious CPU upgrades will likely require a new cooler too. The SSD is actually an “industrial” unit that has an extended temperature range, and places reliability over speed. Still, it is hard to tell the difference in real life between a high and mid grade SSD in most applications, so I rate the SSD as a solidly acceptable choice. This is a PCIe 3.0 drive., but the board features both a 4.0 and a 3.0 socket for a total of 2 drives. Note that you will need to provide your own 4.5mm m3.0 standoff to use the 2nd socket. The included copy of Windows 11 home is remarkably free of bloat. They did not even include McAfee software, which I see as a good thing. The motherboard is a “gaming” unit that is really just a micro-ATX Asus Pro B560M-CT that is black instead of green, and with a slightly different BIOS. This is a commercial board. So you get no USB-C ports at all, but you do get a PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, and headers to drive one parallel and two serial ports. These features are useless to gamers. The BIOS is locked down hard. I could not even find a way to change the RAM timings, much less try to overclock anything. But given that the target audience is likely a “plug and play” gamer, this makes sense as you don’t want to give users the capability to brick the board if they don’t know what they are doing. So the motherboard choice is acceptable, but not quite ideal. The micro-ATX case is one of the big future problems. The front is completely closed off to air flow. All air intake comes from the side panel, which has ventilation holes (you can swap this for the included clear solid panel, which I do not recommend). There is a single 92mm exhaust fan in the rear. This case does NOT have a lot of air flow. However, the included parts are such low power that this is honestly not much of an issue. However, if you want to upgrade the unit later to draw more power, you should budget for a new case too. The included exhaust fan can also get VERY noisy, and annoying as it ramps up and down. I actually spent the money to replace it with a Noctua 92mm fan, and it is now quiet enough that it does not bother me. So plan on upgrading the fan once you get this unit. But the case is, overall, functional but not quite future-proof.. Finally, my real complaint (and the only one that will impact every user) is that there is only ONE STICK OF RAM!. The CPU is capable of running in dual-channel mode. But having only one stick of RAM means that the other channel is sitting unused, so your bandwidth is HALF of what it should be. Instead of one 16GB module, they should have used two 8GB modules. The cost difference would have been minimal (1% to 3% of the cost of the computer), but this problem will rob you of around 10% of the CPU speed or more. However, this is also not enough to disqualify this computer from consideration, because most other pre-built gaming computers do the exact same thing. The included RAM is also “single rank” which will also hurt performance a little tiny bit too. If you decide to add another stick of RAM (as I did), then you will need to try to get the exact same model number. If that is impossible then go for one with identical specifications (speed, timings, and rank). So, my overall opinion is this: if you can find a similarly priced computer that uses standard parts, and includes two sticks of RAM, then go for that instead. If you can’t then this would be a good choice as you can upgrade the RAM later.

Games played: Elden Ring, Apex Legends, Valorant, and Forza Desktop performed admirably and was happy to relocate it into the living room to play with my pedal setup for Forza. It’s fairly tall but it’s depth is shorter than most my other cases so it actually fit fairly well in my TV stand shelving. Opening up the box it’s packed very well and it includes a rudimentary keyboard and mouse and an extra clear panel that can replace the side panel if you want to be able to see the RGB elements. It comes with an opaque black panel already installed which limits the lighting to the front of the case if you want to be more low key. Overall the specs performed up to snuff, the 1660 able to keep up with all of the games I played with no stuttering or issues. The major drawback I experienced with this desktop was the fan at low rpm. When the fans first start up it’s a deeper whir than normal so it definitely catches the ear versus your standard high pitched whine. Definitely something you’d want to evaluate for yourself. Overall I’m pleased with this machine as a gaming desktop. It has plenty of available plugs and the onboard wifi performed well enough that I didn’t worry about hard wiring it.

The hardware setup was easy. It comes with steel side panels. If desired, a clear piece of acrylic is included for use as a side panel to display the electronics inside illuminated by the glow of LEDs which can be tweaked using the Aura Sync app. Visually it is an extremely attractive PC with multicolor LEDS on the front panel and inside provides interest. The Wired Optical Mouse and Wired Keyboard plugged into the two USB 2.1 ports and worked perfectly well in that they are functional, but basic for a gaming rig. The mouse and keyboard feel are like any other mass market business/home bundled keyboard, but disappointing in a gaming PC. On the plus side, it gets you going with what’s important inside the case without adding much to the price. Any gaming mice/keyboards can a very personal choice. Most will want update it with a gaming keyboard before too long. Pairing one of my Microsoft Xbox One controllers over Bluetooth 5 was no issue at all, it paired right up and worked perfectly. Most home networks will have Wi-Fi 5 or less. I connected this PC up to my Wi-Fi 5 router without incident. All Windows and ASUS program updates downloaded and quickly installed thanks to the fast Wi-Fi and Western Digital PC SN530 NVME SSD drive. There are four memory slots, only one is filled with a 16GB DDR4 module at 3200MHZ. Three module slots are free. However maximum memory is limited to 32GB. The 11th Generation Intel Core i5-11400F runs @ 2.6GHz with 12MB Cache. This CPU provides really good performance. These new i5’s increased cache and cores over previous i5’s of just a few years ago greatly adds to the performance. These are no longer “business class” only CPU’s. The CPU does not include a video GPU, so the video ports on the mainboard will not work. The money saved there went toward providing the NVIDIA GTX 1660Ti 6GB video card, which is a great compliment to the new i5 CPU. With 6GB, two display ports and two HDMI ports, any modern monitor will work. A dual monitor setup should also be possible with this card. Gone are mechanical hard and optical drives. There are no moving parts aside from the fans. If you still need one use of a legacy drive, you’ll need to hook it up via the four available USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports. The Solid-State Drive greatly adds to the speed while being immune to damage while moving or bumping the PC while in use. I played a bunch of Forza 5 and Halo Infinite. Both games played smoothly without any hesitations or dropouts. Unfortunately, I was only able to use a 27” wide screen business class monitor for testing. The ASUS PC recognized my Dell monitor and let me run it to its max settings. Unfortunately, the monitor I use for gaming was damaged in a fall off the desk setting up this PC. Seeing how smooth this monitor ran at I’m confident this PC can be pushed farther with a better monitor. I was enjoying the fluid game play so much, your lucky to be reading this review. The audio played over the HDMI cable to my monitors speakers without any problem. But I quickly went to my headphones and found the PC’s surround sound playing through them much better, very immersive. When playing games where the system is pushed for extended periods, the fan kicks up and it can be a bit loud, but not horrendous. I only noticed it during quiet moment in game play. Keep it on the floor and it shouldn’t be very noticeable. Having the PC on my desktop, I switched back to the steel cover which has ventilation holes in it. This helped reduce how often the fan ran on high. There is a utility where you can bump up the CP and GPU, but it seems to only affect how often the fan runs on high, not overdrive the clock speed on the CPU or GPU. The utility lacks technical information on what it is doing. In game play, I did not notice any change, I had no slowdowns, play was fluid regardless of the settings I changed here. Like all electronics, there is minimal documentation inside, but none is needed. On powerup, the Windows 11 setup launches to walk you through basic configuration: language, country, Wi-Fi setup, password/PIN, etc. Do register the computer to your Microsoft account. If you ever need to reinstall the OS, this registration information can be used to download and install Windows 11. Once setup you are launched to the Windows 11. The Interface is much like Windows 10, but there are of course some changes. Like past versions, some good, some I didn’t care for, but will need to get used to them. The Asus ROG is a terrific value. It’s a good-looking PC at an attractive price that is able to play current games, stream movies, and browse the web smoothly. The only problem I am facing is that I may need a second one as my son is always on it.

If you are a casual gamer and are not demanding to play in 4K, then this computer meets the needs. The Intel i5 processor paired with the 16 gb of ram and Nvidia 1660 Ti graphics cards provides smooth gaming experience. Sea of Thieves? No problem. Assassins Creed Valhala? No problem. Valorant/Fortnite/Call of Duty Battle Royale? No problem. Playing such games while streaming through OBS for Twitch? No problem. The video card will handle any modern game you throw at it. Probably the first upgrade you probably want to do is add another NVMe hard drive to expand the storage. The biggest issue with this computer is the lack of instructions on how to install the clear see-through fiberglass panel. The computer out of the box contains a metal panel and included is the fiberglass panel and some screws. After spending a few minutes to figure out how the screws are used to secure the see-through panel on the computer, you are presented with a thing of beauty. The led lighting is gentle and not obnoxious. Another upgrade that might be performed later is adding an additional 120mm fan to help push air out of the tower. Overall, if you play games for a few hours a day, this should be a great computer for you at a decent price.

Ok so I'm about 2 years in now, and I gotta say its been doing its job as advertised. Been running all of the latest next-gen games with no frame rate drops or slow loading. Most recently WWE 2k24. I definitely suggest getting a bigger hdd. I used a 4tb laptop drive and slid it into a slot at the bottom of the case so it kind of rests on the floor. At times in certain games it does sound like an airplane taking off, which I see others suggested a better fan and they are probably right. I personally just deal with it because I have it surround anyway. Overall it was great for the value to get into pc gaming. I'm sure there's probably better at this point but this will definitely do the trick