FUTURE-PROOFING

WE CAN’T ESCAPE THE FACT that the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is really expensive. We’ve opted for a third-party offering, with the overclocked, triple-cooler card from Asus providing the reason for this machine’s existence. To make sure it’s kept fed with data, the rest of the build is pricey as well. To be fair, though, you wouldn’t want to slide a $1,400 graphics card into a bargain-basement budget rig.

For the heavy lifting, we’ve turned to Intel’s current top-end CPU, the Core i7-8086K. At least, it was top-end until Intel released its new processors as we were writing this, but as the 9000-series family hasn’t been fully unleashed yet, we’ll stick with what we know is a strong gaming processor. Capable of turboing up to 5GHz on more thread-shy titles, and offering six physical cores (that’s 12 threads, thanks to Hyper-Threading) to more modern titles, this processor can handle the most cutting-edge of games with ease.

Processor and graphics card sorted, the next big decision is what motherboard to use, and here we’ve elected to use the Asus ROG Maximus X Formula to provide the backbone for the machine. This is a top-end board, with plenty of quality features, including decent audio, integrated Wi-Fi, and RGB Armor to keep the build looking sleek, as well as colorful. The solid steel backplate means there’s no flexing when you’re building, either.

32GB of RAM and a 1TB M.2 SSD mean that we’re not hanging around waiting for our next game to load, and also ensure that we have a speedy experience in Windows and more serious titles as well. Finishing off the specification, we have a Raijintek Orcus 240 AIO cooler that we’ve been keen to try for a while, a quality Be Quiet! 850W PSU, and for the case we’ve turned to the Corsair Obsidian 500D, which is a striking-looking chassis for any high-end build. Oh, and don’t forget a copy of Windows 10 while you’re at it.