Wired2Fire R7X3D 9070 XT Beast

A strong debut for AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT, and if you have space to house it this is a striking choice

- TIM DANTON

If you read our review of AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card (see issue 368, p70) then you'll know that Nvidia finally has serious competition at the high end. But it needs the right processing partner, which is where AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D comes in. While the Ryzen 7 7800X3D was great for gaming, it couldn't be easily overclocked; the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, on the other hand, is effectively AMD's unlocked Ryzen 7 9800X with extra cache.

Such a powerful pairing needs a suitable base, and British PC manufacturer Wired2Fire doesn't hold back. As its name gives away, the Gigabyte X870 Eagle WiFi 7 uses AMD's top-end chipset - and that means all the mod cons. PCIe Gen 5 support for one of its three M.2 slots, 2.5GbE and Wi-Fi 7 networking, plus dual USB-C 4 ports. Here, Gigabyte's EZ-Latch technology ensures that removing the giant GPU, M.2 storage and any PCIe expansion cards you may add is easy. A 2TB Kingston Fury Renegade Gen 4 card sits in the Gen 5 M.2 slot but is still supremely fast: 7,367MB/sec reads, 6,832MB/sec writes. You can also add more storage via two easy-access 2.5in/3.5in bays at the rear of the case.