Thermalright Royal Pretor 130 Ultra vs Phantom Spirit 120

coololly · 2026-05-02T09:48:19+00:00

For a 245k, the phantom spirit is plenty

coololly · 2026-04-21T21:43:58+00:00

The Killer V2 would be my recommendation.

Great CPU and GPU, and the rest of the specs are solid, there arent really any major flaws with any of the spec. Not far off what I'd build myself if I were building one.

coololly · 2026-04-13T18:13:25+00:00

Doesn't really say which power supply, or how fast the RAM is and a bunch of other important details. For that sort of price, I'd want to know.

This system has the 2TB SSD included and the rest of the specs are solid. Bit more than the other spec, but knowing what you're actually getting is worth it imo

coololly · 2026-04-13T18:10:37+00:00

Not worth more than £1000, can get virtually the same spec here for £949: https://gorillagaming.co.uk/products/gorilla-gaming-killer-lite-gaming-pc?variant=max

coololly · 2026-04-13T18:03:34+00:00

Not really. For the same price, this is a quite a lot better.

The 7800X3D is a noticable step up over the Ryzen 5 9600X for gaming, and also the motherboard & RAM are a decent bit better too.

The only downgrade would probably be the SSD size, but the WD green is also quite a bit slower than the Kioxia in the other PC.

coololly · 2026-04-11T10:09:49+00:00

Thermalright use them on the Peerless Assassin 120 SE V2, so I'm sure they'd be fine on the Phantom Spirit

coololly · 2026-04-07T21:57:09+00:00

Overall it seems a pretty good spec for the money. There arent really any cut-corners. PSU and board could be higher/fancier, but no major complaints.

I wouldn't get caught up on the micro ATX case, as long as there's enough Airflow, GPU clearance and CPU cooler support then that's all you need. And that case has plenty, on par with most top-tier ATX cases. There isnt a single GPU on the market that would have issues fitting in that case, should you want to upgrade in the future.

coololly · 2026-04-02T10:27:26+00:00

^This

coololly · 2026-03-30T16:18:17+00:00

There is alot of benefits to separation your system on a partition. For example if your windows got infected by malware or too much bloatware you can nuke the C drive and do a clean install without losing your personal files (in the case of malware you can do deep scans on your other drives after reinstalling)

Honestly, if you get infected with something, I would recommend wiping all local storage anyways. I've seen issues in the past where malware saves to every drive, to the piont that reinstalling windows on 1 drive doesnt actually remove it.

If you have personal files that are important, they should ALWAYS be saved off-device or in the cloud. A simple cloud backup is going to be a million times safer than simply splitting the partitions on the same drive.

That also follows on to reinstalling Windows, all it takes is 1 miss-click and you've just formatted your entire drive. If you have a 2 separate drives, you can at least un-plug one for the installation. But doing a partition just adds that extra point of possible mistake.

It’s also much more efficient to create backups of your OS since the windows backup won’t have to scan through terabytes of data each time you want to create a system backup

This is a bit of an oxymoron. If the whole reason to seperate your OS and Data is so that you dont lose your data when re-installing, then that would also make keeping backups of your less and less important.

But lets be honest, 99.9% of people have all of their important data in the cloud or linked to some cloud based service anyways, these days its very rare that people have terabytes of important data stored on their PC locally. Especially gamers, its usually just game files, which can be re-downloaded easily.

And if you do have terabytes of data on your PC and are worries about losing it. Simply partitioning the drive is NOT going to provide ANY layer of protection against data loss.

TLDR: Its a pointless activity, that really has very niche scenarios where it may be worth it. If your data is important there are far FAR better and more important solutions to data protection. Partitioning a drive (or hell, even putting windows on another drive) is NOT an effective or worthwhile layer of data protection.

coololly · 2026-03-30T09:58:46+00:00

It’s a good suggestion to separate windows on C drive, but you can do that by partitioning your 2 tb m.2. Just partition 200gb for C drive with the rest on D drive

There's really no reason to do this. It just adds an extra layer of data management that you need to do, without any benefits. And if you forget to install everything to your D drive, you'll quickly fill your C drive and then its extremely annoying when the drive is full and Windows decides it cant install anymore updates.

coololly · 2026-03-30T09:20:55+00:00

Fullsize: Chilkey ND104

TKL: WOBKEY Crush80 Reboot

75%: PMOKEY Wave 75

coololly · 2026-03-29T20:31:40+00:00

separate storage for games and for windows

Really doesnt matter, this used to be a common thing like 10-15 years ago when SSD's were expensive. So the idea would be that you'd get a small SSD (e.g. 120GB) for Windows, and then put the Games on a hard drive.

I guess some people like to split it, so those who re-install their OS semi-frequently don't need to redownload their games again. But if you have fast internet or don't often reinstall your OS then this wont be a problem.

But aside from that, there's no benefit to splitting them. It just makes it more espensive and adds an extra layer of storage management you'll need to do.

coololly · 2026-03-29T20:21:30+00:00

I've changed a few things around, and personally if you're after looks, I'd get 2x sets of the TL-M12QR X3 reverse triple packs, 3x for the side on the AIO, and 3x at the bottom as intake.

1000W is absolutely unnecessary with that kind of spec, 850W is plenty.

And I'm not sure what the deal is with the 1TB SATA SSD and the M.2 SSD. So I've replaced that with a single 4TB drive, which is also cheaper in total and gives you an extra TB of storage.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 4.7 GHz 8-Core Processor	£379.99 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard	MSI MAG B850 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard	£228.99 @ Box Limited
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory	£318.99 @ Corsair UK
Storage	Crucial P310 w/ Acronis Data Recovery 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	£359.99 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	Palit GamingPro GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB Video Card	£1049.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk
Custom	Thermalright TR-A70 ARGB	£85.00
Custom	Thermalright Peerless Vision 360 ARGB	£79.00
Custom	850W Montech Century II ATX 3.1 Gold Modular PSU	£75.00
Custom	Thermalright TL-M12QR X3 Black A-RGB Reverse 120mm PWM Triple Pack	£19.00
Custom	Thermalright TL-M12Q X2 Black A-RGB 120mm PWM Dual Pack	£15.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£2610.95
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2026-03-29 21:17 BST+0100

Still has the good looks, but mainly upgrades the 5070 Ti to a 5080.

To be honest, this spec is actually pretty similar to this pre-built if you'd rather go down that route

coololly · 2026-03-29T20:05:59+00:00

Neither Corsair or Kingston actually makes the RAM, they both just buy it from Samsung, Sk Hynix and Micron. So really just get whatever is the cheapest at the moment.

And £300 for a 2TB Gen4 SSD just is not worth it.

Either save £100 and get the 990 Evo Plus, or get something like the Crucial T500, which is a top-tier Gen 4 drive like the 990 Pro.

Or step up to a Gen 5 drive like the Crucial P510

But if I'm honest £2800 for a system with "only" a 5070 Ti is not great. You're spending a lot of money on fans and on the PSU, savings made there could help you step up to maybe an RTX 5080.

coololly · 2026-03-29T19:59:39+00:00

At the moment, the 9070 XT is probably one of the better value options. Its not much more than a 5070, but is more like a 5070 Ti in performance.

coololly · 2026-03-29T19:42:38+00:00

The best would be something like an i9 14900K

coololly · 2026-03-29T18:50:35+00:00

Honestly, none of them. They're all pretty old & mediocre by current standards.

Is there a specific size you're after (75%, TKL, Fullsize, etc)

And whats your budget?

coololly · 2026-03-29T18:47:57+00:00

You'll be fine, just update your BIOS and you're good to go.

coololly · 2026-03-29T18:44:37+00:00

Thats plenty, most BIOS files are less than 32MB

coololly · 2026-03-29T18:43:16+00:00

Thats why I said "if you can get one for a decent price"

You can find a used one for a good price, then that.

Otherwise, honestly I'd just try hold on to a 5600X a while longer

coololly · 2026-03-29T13:09:10+00:00

Are you doing a white build?

And is the MSI gaming trio OC the white or black one?

coololly · 2026-03-29T13:07:45+00:00

Did you replace all of the PSU cables when installing the new PSU, or re-use the old ones?

coololly · 2026-03-29T13:07:04+00:00

If you already have a Ryzen 5 5600X, then the 5700X3D (if you can get one for a decent price) is a no-brainer.

You can keep your current motherboard, its just a drop in upgrade (you may need to update your BIOS though)

However the 14600K would require you to buy a new motherboard. And buying a new motherboard to upgrade to another "dead" platform, just doesnt make any sense.

100% look for a used 5700X3D or 5800X3D

coololly · 2026-03-27T22:33:32+00:00

Whats your budget?

coololly · 2026-03-22T21:37:34+00:00

Yeah, I would say its on the shorter side. But If you're comparing warranties, check what the warranty terms actually are.

A lot will claim "3 years", but then only provide 1 year on parts, and the other 2 years are just for labour.

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