Last Updated on March 18, 2023 by Detective Dev
Foreign [Music] Hey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going To be taking a look at one of my Favorite small form factor gaming PCs That I've ever tested on the channel now I've done a video on this I think it was About two years ago I picked this unit Up on eBay and it's definitely been a Workhorse I consider this my game Capture PC this has been running Basically 24 7. I've got all of my game Capture software installed on it and I Use my capture card with this unit here But recently the external power supply Failed on it so I had to order another One and I've actually been looking to Upgrade the CPU and GPU on this unit but Really what was holding me back was the Included power supply it was coming in At around 240 watts and it just wasn't Enough for what I wanted to add to this Unit originally this came with the 10th Gen i5 and a GTX 1650 but I did upgrade The GPU to a GTX 1660. we've still got That 10th gen i5 and to tell you the Truth for 1080p gaming this is more than Enough I mean I've had a really good Time with this little PC but I think It's time for an upgrade and we're going To go ahead and basically do as much as We can to this unit with the form factor We're working with here
Since I've been using this PC I've had 16 gigabytes of RAM but it was running In single channel so I went ahead and Upgraded to 32 gigabytes we've got two Sticks now we're in dual Channel another Upgrade I was able to snag on eBay is an MSI Aero ITX RTX 3060. this is a non-ti Variant but it should offer a Significant boost over that GTX 1660 Which also isn't a TI variant it's got 12 gigabytes of vram and it only needs One six pin power connector and that's Exactly what we have here with this MSI Trident 3. I also wanted to upgrade the CPU in this rig and this originally came With an i5 10400f which isn't bad for 1080p gaming but I wanted a little more Out of it so I went with an Intel I9 10900k in this little setup and Obviously heat may be an issue but I can Limit the power if I need to and when we Get into it we'll take a look at Everything so that's going to be a nice Little jump on the core count and Threads here the original I5 that was in Here I had six cores 12 threads now We've got 10 cores and 20 threads with a Higher boost clock and the final thing I Needed to add here was a larger power Supply well I needed to replace this Anyway because the original one died so I picked up basically the highest Wattage that I could get which is a 330 Watt power supply made for this trident
3. now I'm still a little worried about The power consumption here this I9 10900k is a 95 watt part the RTX 3060 Non-ti variant that I have here is rated At 160 Watts but with the boost power The GPU and the CPU put out there is a Chance we could reach that 330 watt Max Of the power supply I have here but I'm Personally willing to see what happens And while I'm doing all of my testing I Will have this plugged into a kilowatt Meter so we can see exactly what we're Pulling at idle gaming and we'll even do An extreme stress test on this just to See if we can break that 330 watt mark All right so here it is I've been up and Running for a little while now and you Might notice I have Windows 10 installed That's because the m.2 that I'm using Already had Windows 10 installed on it And I didn't want to go ahead and wipe It we're getting amazing performance I Mean with that 3060 and that I9 I can Basically run anything at 1440p some of The stuff I may have to turn dlss on but It still looks great here As you can see we've got that I9 10900k 32 gigabytes of ddr4 at 29.33 and of Course the RTX 3060 non-ti variant but With this we still get 12 gigs of vram Now given that this is such a small form Factor PC and we're working with an I9 I Did limit the CPU power from Intel Tuning utility turbo short boost is only
Set to 120 watts and our boost power Max Is at 85. so obviously I am limiting the Power here that this I9 can put out but It's really due to the form factor and The cooler we're using here but it's Still putting out some really great Performance I'm actually really excited To jump into a little bit of gaming then We'll move over to some benchmarks some More PC gaming and then wrap it up with Some emulation but uh with that out of The way let's go ahead and get into it Starting off here with doom Eternal and Going into this I knew we wouldn't have A problem running it we're at 1440p Nightmare and I'm pretty sure we'd be Able to run this at 4K Ultra on this Setup here I'm just stuck right here at 1440p we're getting over 100 FPS out of It more than enough we could go ahead And lock this down at 120 and have a Really good time with it Next thing I wanted to do is take a look At some benchmarks and first up we've Got geekbench six and remember we are Limiting the power of that I9 CPU single Core coming in with a 1651 multi 6463 Which to me does seem a bit low but uh You know we've kind of cut out about 40 Watts off of the CPU straight off the Top here so it's not boosting up to its Maximum clocks Moving over to some GPU benchmarks with 3D Mark Knight rate forty eight thousand
Six hundred and eighty seven fire strike 18106 looking really good and finally We've got time spy here with an eight Thousand six hundred and twenty six very Good synthetics here and uh you know When it comes down to its CPU temps so Far are looking pretty decent but I do Need to get into some more gaming and Emulation just to make sure So next up we've got Injustice 2 1440p Very high we're maxed out here CPU temps Looking pretty decent only coming in up To around 63 with this one but we're not Taxing that CPU very hard we're only at About 40 Watts here Sonic Frontiers is one I always get Asked about so I figured I'd throw it in Here we're at 1440p high running at 60 And no matter where I go in this game We're right there at 60. you'll see it Fluctuate 59.60 that's something you'll Never really notice unless you had a Frame counter on really great Performance and I figured it would be Cyberpunk 2077 I had to drop this down To medium with no dlss just to get over 60 with it at high settings we were Getting dips into the upper 50s was kind Of few and far in between but when there Was a lot of people on screen you'd Definitely see it and right now I am Dealing with some screen tearing at 1440p medium not exactly sure what this Is about usually it's kind of alleviated
With my game capture but you know Turning vsync on would definitely help Next up Spider-Man Miles Morales 1440p Hi we're getting an average of around 78 FPS now we do get really close to the Lower 60s when we're down on the ground Sometimes but uh right now we don't have Any kind of resolution scale going and You could always just turn dlss on to Eliminate all of this God of War 1440p hi with dlss set to Quality with this one I did have to Enable it I was getting real close to Under 60 here especially in a situation Like this there's a lot going on but Yeah I mean I know the RTX 3060 can Definitely handle this and with the way This little PC is set up it's doing a Really good job Elden ring is another one I wanted to Test 1440p High unfortunately at 1440p We just can't go to maximum with it 1080 You can Max this out if you want to but If you did want to up that resolution High is definitely where it's at and Performance is Awesome with this So before we move over to the emulation Section there was one more PC game that I wanted to test we've got Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 1440p recommended Settings and with recommended settings It did turn dlss on but with this I know It's a bit hard to see we got an average Of 108 FPS and a low of 89.
When it comes to high-end emulation the Most important part of your PC is really Going to be your CPU but uh the GPU Really does play a big part when you're Upscaling here's Xbox 360 using Zinnia We've got Red Dead 2 running at 60fps so I've turned vsync off and if you've ever Tried this you know how hard it can be To run this is one of those emulators That definitely favors Nvidia and the RTX 3060 has more than enough power To test out some switch emulation using The Yuzu emulator I also wanted to test Out some switch emulation using the Yuzu Emulator and with the RTX 3060 paired up With this 10 900k 4K is perfectly fine With switch emulation That's some PS3 emulation using rpcs3 And with this we were able to go up to 4K Skate 3 is definitely one that needs A higher end CPU and this 10 900k has More than enough Force to push this at Full speed and if you take a look at Afterburner at the very bottom we're Pulling around 87 Watts here this is Definitely some of the highest wattage That I've seen while gaming but uh we Can go higher than that with benchmarks And stressing it out and that leads me To the final section total power Consumption like I mentioned in the Beginning of the video I was definitely Worried that a 330 Watts wouldn't be Enough for this I9 and this RTX 3060 but
With limiting that CPU total power Consumption here is looking great at Idle 38 Watts definitely a lot more than Some of the other mini PCS in the market But we are working with pretty high-end Specs here for a mini average 1440p Gaming 196 watts and the maximum that I Could get this to pull from the wall was 247 Watts but remember we do have the CPU wattage limited we could definitely Go over 3 330 if we kind of just Unlocked everything but as you saw with This video it's more than capable of Running AAA games at 1440p with ease I Mean it does a really great job and Obviously it's a bit Overkill with that I9 but you know I love my mini PCS and This is definitely one of the most Powerful ones that I have now but that's Gonna wrap it up for this video really Appreciate you watching if you do get a Chance to pick up one of these Trident Threes for a pretty decent deal on eBay I would definitely jump on it even if it Only had that GTX 1650 if you've got any Questions let me know in the comments Below and if you're interested in maybe Trying to find one of these on eBay I'll Leave some links down below but that's It for this one like always thanks for Watching
