by You managed. You’ve set aside some money for a new gaming PC, but then realized you don’t know where to start. You have some idea of what you want, but the thought of finding parts and building a PC is stressful. This is where Redux hopes to step in by making you a PC based on what you’re going to play and charging no premium for parts and labor.
Redux provided one of its “good” models for review, priced at $1,415 at the top end of its budget class of PCs, with an Intel Core i5 12400F and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 powering all the fun. If you’re looking for a 1080p gaming machine with solid performance, Redux’s good tier PC is a good place to start.
On the Redux website you can choose from different base types: Good, Better and Best, with three different price points. That way, if you come on a budget, you can choose your lane right away. Next, Redux lets you choose your top three games from a list of popular PC games and your ideal resolution for playing those games. It generates a build list of components that fit under the criteria (which you can edit) and you’re good to go.
Other boutique websites do this as well, but Redux’s feels the easiest to use.
Building, setting up, and testing (basically work) only adds a $100 build fee to the overall price, regardless of which configuration you decide to go with. You’re mostly paying MSRP for everything except, of necessity, the GPUs. Most RTX 30 series graphics cards will still set you back $200 more on average, which is pretty typical these days.
Redux ‘Good’ specs
CPU: Intel Core i5 12400F
Cooling: Cool Master Hyper 212 ARGB
Motherboard chipset: Asus Prime B660M-A AC D4
Memory: 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4
Graphic: Asus Phoenix GeForce RTX 3060 10GB
Storage: Kingston NVMe M.2 SSD 500GB
Performance: High power 700W 80+ gold
Guarantee: 1 year
Price: $1,415 (opens in new tab)
It’s surprising considering the area where most PC builders make the most profit is the assembly of your PC, which can easily add hundreds of dollars to the cost of your custom rig.
What you can’t seem to customize are the case, fans, motherboard, and power supply. It appears that Redux is using the same chassis, a custom Cooler Master TD500 RGB with a nice looking front panel showing off a trio of RGB fans (five in total inside). One odd disappointment is that there is no USB Type-C connectivity anywhere on the PC.
A casual user probably won’t care if they can’t choose their PSU, but for me I’d like to have some options in case I want to upgrade the GPU later. I might opt for a beefier PSU now, but that’s just me.
However, Redux’s semi-automated configurator customizes which power supply comes with your rig if you opt for a higher-powered GPU. This RTX 3060-powered machine comes with a 700W power supply, while an RTX 3090 Ti system rocks a full 1KW brick.
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It leaves a comically large amount of negative space inside the case
Inside is an Asus Prime B660M-A AC D4, which as you can see from the photos is a fairly small Micro-ATX motherboard. So much so that it leaves a comically large amount of negative space inside the case. While the system works visually flawlessly, the desktop almost looks like something is missing as all the bits are adjusted in the top left corner when viewing the system from the side.
I almost preferred a non-glass screen or a smaller body to make things look less cumbersome. However, cable management is impeccable and setting up the PC was absolutely hassle-free. So, kudos to the Redux shipping team.
Another small upgrade to consider is a larger SSD. While the Kingston NVMe M.2 SSD is a pretty good drive, at only 500GB, anyone with a large library has some choices to make or spend a little more. Upgrading your build to a 1TB drive is just an additional $40.
On the benchmarking front, the Redux Good model’s closest competitor is the similarly equipped Ryzen 5-powered NZXT Streaming PC, which is within $10 of the Redux system. The NZXT also has an RTX 3060 under the hood.
During my testing, the Redux PC beats the slightly more expensive mid-range NZXT PC by a handful of frames in almost every gaming benchmark we’ve thrown at it; except for F1 2021, where it beats NZXT’s rig by nearly 30 fps.
However, in more demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus, both systems achieved almost identical results. In Cyberpunk 2077, the Redux stays at an average of 29 fps, which isn’t great. But once you enabled DLSS, I was able to frolic around Night City at 61fps. I probably could have squeezed out more frames if I had decided to dial down the graphics settings from Ultra, but why would I do that?
gaming performance
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system speed
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On the CPU front, the Intel i5 12400F in the Redux easily beats NZXT’s Ryzen 5 5600X in almost every benchmarking category. We saw similar CPU performance in our review of the Cyberpower Infinity X125, which remains one of the better gaming PCs under $1000.
Redux’s “good” gaming PC left me with one Good Impression. It’s a well-built system with a nice case design and great performance for around $1400. The fact that there’s no USB Type-C port is concerning, but if you’re looking for a great entry-level PC with some upgrade potential, Redux has you covered. It’s a good system for PC gamers who just want to play games and not worry too much about what they’re actually putting into it.
