These were the participants in spring 2023
 |  |  | ||
| a133 Epic (Complete) | PCSpecialist Vortex G50 (Electric purchase) | Max Bite Brutality (Shark Gaming) | Mesh i820R (Multicom) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price at test | NOK 9999 | NOK 9995 | NOK 9999 | NOK 9995 |
| Graphics card | AMD RX 6700 10GB (XFX Speedster Swift 390) | Nvidia RTX 3050 8GB (Zotac Gaming) | AMD RX 6600 8GB (PowerColor Fighter) | AMD RX 6500 XT 4GB (Asus TUF Gaming) |
| Processor | AMD r5-5600 (6 cores) | Intel i5-12400F (6 cores) | AMD r5-5700X (8 cores) | Intel i3-13100F (4 cores) |
| Remind | 16 GB (3200 MHz) | 16 GB (3200 MHz) | 16 GB (3200 MHz) | 16 GB (3200 MHz) |
| Storage | 1000 GB (M.2 NVMe) | 1000 GB (M.2 NVMe) | 1000 GB (M.2 NVMe) | 1000 GB (M.2 NVMe) |
| Wireless comm. | Wi-Fi 6, BT 5 | Wi-Fi 6, BT 5 | No | WiFi 6E, BT 5 |
| Power supply | 550 Watts (80+ Gold) | 450 Watt (80+ Bronze) | 600 Watts (80+ Bronze) | 500 Watts (80+ Standard) |
| Chip set | B550 (ATX) | B660 (ATX) | A520 (m-ATX) | B660 (ATX) |
| Cabinet | Phanteks Eclipse G360A (ATX) | PCSpecialist K107 ARGB (ATX) | Shark Silent Void (ATX) | Fractal Design Meshify C (ATX) |
| Operating system | Windows 11 | Windows 11 | Windows 11 | Windows 11 |
Summary of the machines from spring 2023
Gaming performance
Processor performance
Memory and storage
Noise
Cooling
Upgrade option
Build and design
1st place: Complete a133 Epic
Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.noPerhaps Komplett was extra hungry for revenge after missing out on our previous award. In any case, it is a completely superior victory for their a133 Epic to bring home to Sandefjord this time.
Not only does the machine have the best gaming performance – which weighs heavily – but it is also really pleasant to use and has enormous potential for future upgrades. This is therefore a machine that is fantastic today, and which can easily be improved and built upon in the years to come.
The machine grinds through everyone games at 1080p resolution, and for the more demanding and increasingly popular 1440p resolution, it has zero problem “maxing out” simpler games like Overwatch 2. Even medium-demanding games like Fortnite offer nice graphics and high image flow, while very heavy games like Cyberpunk 2077 also keep nice flow with generally high settings.
In most cases, you can make good use of a screen with a fast 144 Hz panel with this machine.
The only thing it doesn’t handle very well is ray tracing, but it’s hard to criticize in this price segment.
The processor performance is not the best in the test, but good enough that it does not hold back gaming performance. Neither today nor in the coming years.
The cabinet has many fans that provide good air flow. In “Idle” and for office use, we barely hear it, and even during gaming there is only a monotonous and faint hissing sound. The graphics card from XFX is massive and well cooled, and so is the processor of its air cooler.
We like the cabinet. It is solid, and with a glass door, mesh front and adjustable RGB fans, the expression can be largely determined by you. We particularly like the RGB effects on the memory chips, which play well with the rest of the machine.
The cabinet has room for larger radiators at the top and front if you want AiO/water cooling later, is easy to work in and hide cables in, and provides easy access to dust filters on all sides.
You can have up to four 2.5-inch SSDs, or use two of the slots on spinning disks. The motherboard has two fast slots for modern PCIe 4.0 M.2 devices, and while the one already installed performs well, there is room for one more. The memory can also be expanded.
The fully modular power supply of 550 effective watts (80+ Gold) ensures that you can upgrade the graphics card to one that draws a little more power than the current one if needed in the future. As long as it only needs power from two 8-pin PCIe cables, you are in most cases “good to go”, and this applies to most graphics cards in the budget and mid-range segment.
With a bunch of different connection ports and expansion slots, wireless network and bluetooth, and generally quality components in all parts too, Komplett’s a133 Epic is a superior machine.
Anyone who is going to dip their toe into PC gaming for the first time will not get a better entry than this.
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a133 Epic (Complete)
quotation Superior victory. There is no better purchase for 10 notes.
Benefits
- +
Clearly the best gaming performance in the test
- +
Good processor performance
- +
Quiet
- +
Very good cooling
- +
Great upgrade possibilities
- +
Nice and solid cabinet
- +
Great RGB effects
- +
Many different connection ports
- +
Efficient power supply
2nd place: Elkjøps PCSpecialist Vortex G50
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.noWith such a crushing victory from Komplett, it is not a given that so many will consider any of the other candidates, even though they also generally offer higher performance and more options than is normal for the price.
Elkjøp’s PCSpecialist Vortex G50 is the only one in the selection that comes with graphics from Nvidia. Nvidia is known for offering higher ray tracing performance than AMD, but compared to the generally more powerful AMD card we find in the test winner, the G50’s RTX 3050 card doesn’t stand a chance anyway.
The machine still handles all games at 1080p resolution, and also provides a good gaming experience at 1440p as long as you moderate the graphics choices a little in the heaviest titles.
However, it is not the game performance in itself that secures Elkjøp’s machine 2nd place. The machine from Shark Gaming is better there. Here it is the gaming performance combined with all the other good features that ensure a good foundation for the future and bonus points:
Like the stylish case with really powerful RGB lighting and room for an AiO cooler with radiator, but especially the main board which offers several free expansion slots. Among other things, it has room for two fast, additional PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs, three SATA-based storage disks/SSDs and two additional memory chips.
Although the processor is powerful enough for gaming now, the motherboard allows you to upgrade to a processor from Intel’s very latest generation if you need it in the future.
The downside, besides the weaker gaming performance, is that the power supply is a relatively low 450 watts. It will prevent you from choosing among the best and more power-hungry mid-range graphics cards in the future.
We don’t think the machine is noisy, but it is also not as quiet during use as a couple of the others in the selection.
Even with a 2nd place, the PCS specialist Vortex G50 ends up primarily as an alternative to the test winner if it is sold out.
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PCSpecialist Vortex G50 (Electric purchase)
quotation A nice machine from which we miss higher gaming performance and more power.
3rd place: Shark Gaming’s Max Bite Brutality
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.noShark Gaming has built gaming PCs in Denmark for a number of years, but has now focused on Norway. This is the first time we have included one of their machines in our selection, and first impressions of the Max Bite Brutality were initially good. The processor performance is the best in the test, and the game performance is also good where it does not make a huge difference to the test winner.
The cabinet itself is tight and stylish, has room for various cooling solutions and has great RGB lighting with a number of different effects at the front. They also get an extra point for being the only ones to use “sleeved” cables for a neater and more uniform output, and it’s super easy to access the dust filters.
Despite this, the machine ends up in a slightly disappointing third place. This is due to possible bad luck with the cooling of our test machine, but also the choices the company has made in the construction process to keep the price down.
We experience a constant high-frequency surge from the pump that cools the processor. It does not affect our noise measurements, but is particularly troublesome when the machine is idling. We cannot rule out that we are unlucky with “our” pump, but still have to mention it, as we expect the company to have checked the machine before they sent it off.
The machine initially comes with a stylish glass window, but a solid black side cover is also included, and this has passive damping which reduces the pump noise somewhat. But it never goes away.
This would be extra cool if Max Bite Brutality also had the highest game performance, but exactly in this ranking, where Komplett takes the big shot, it may not be so important. If you should still prefer this machine over Komplett’s, perhaps because of appearance or because you want the most powerful processor performance, you can use Shark Gaming’s configurator to have the machine delivered with another processor cooler for a small additional price. Via it you can also have text such as gamertag and similar written on the cabinet, to make it more personal, which is a bit fun.
Measured against test winners, it is still difficult for Shark Gaming to make a mark in their first test with us. While they have provided a forward-looking and powerful power supply, and the cabinet itself is superb, the immediate upgrade options are in poor shape.
They have chosen a small mATX motherboard and it has no free memory slots and no free M.2 slots for more PCIe SSDs. The PCIe slots also do not support as fast storage devices as the competition. The result is that to upgrade this machine you have to substitute components you have already paid for, rather than simply building on them – which is the very idea behind a smart gaming PC.
While one can argue that more gamers prefer to play over a wired network, we also believe it is impractical not to offer Wi-Fi/blue tooth as the rivals do.
Even less practical is that the machine does not have a single USB-C port.
We’re guessing we’ll see more of Shark Gaming’s machines in these ratings, but this particular first attempt didn’t quite hit the mark.
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Max Bite Brutality (Shark Gaming)
quotation Good performance and stylish design. Embarrassing noise and poor upgrade options drag you down.
4th place: Multicom’s Mesh i820R
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.no
Anders Brattensborg Smedsrud, Tek.noMulticom has often delivered these awards’ “charmers”. Not always quite as raw in gaming performance as some of the competitors, but their machines have always behaved exemplary in other areas such as noise level and provided a good foundation for future upgrades.
This is how it is now too, only that this time their Mesh i820R is nowhere near keeping up with the gaming performance of the best. It is so far off that it is not possible to recommend the machine, even though it does a lot of things right on the other important points.
Among other things, we want to highlight how strange it is to turn on the machine the first few times, and have to look for RGB lighting to know if it actually turned on. It is so quiet, and it is so quiet during all lighter tasks such as office work. It is also the quietest machine on the test bench during gaming, but that probably also has something to do with the fact that the graphics card is the weakest.
The temperatures are also allowed to be slightly higher than in the other machines, without this being either dangerous or affecting performance.
We really like the Meshify C case. It’s fairly anonymous, with a sooty side window that reduces the flashiest RGB effects. But it also has the potential to become an “airflow king” if you install a couple of extra fans, or an AiO cooler with a radiator for that matter.
Along with a decent 500-watt power supply, a motherboard with support for the latest Intel processors and the new Wifi-6E standard, five 3.5-inch SATA SSDs, an additional PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD and extra memory chips, only the graphics card was too weak this time. With a little more graphics power, the otherwise same machine can come back significantly stronger next time.
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Mesh i820R (Multicom)
quotation Elegant, silent and very upgradeable. Poor gaming performance destroys.
 – Overall test){kind=link}