Nord Two | RX 9070 GRE 12GB + Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Ready-to-Go Gaming PC | PC36

🌲 Nord Two

The same walnut, a considerably faster machine

Nord Two is where this series stops being about the case. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D in here is the processor that made gaming benchmarks stop arguing for about two years, and the Radeon RX 9070 GRE beside it is a card that lands within a few percent of an RTX 5070 for meaningfully less money.

The result is a high refresh 1440p machine that still looks like a piece of furniture. Real walnut across the front, dark tinted glass down one side, no lighting anywhere, and three fans that spend most of their life turning slowly.

The GRE is the part most people will not have heard of, so we have explained exactly what it is and where it sits further down rather than leaving you to look it up.

🧬 Built to last, designed to evolve

This system is built on AMD's latest AM5 platform, which offers one of the best upgrade paths available today. That means you can start with a great processor now and still have room to move up the stack later, while keeping the same motherboard, case, power supply and most of your core components. The 7800X3D fitted here is already close to the top of what AM5 offers for gaming, so on this build the upgrade path is mostly about the graphics card, and both the power supply and the case have been chosen with that in mind.

📃 Specifications

• 🧠 CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 8 cores, 16 threads of Zen 4 with 96MB of L3 cache, courtesy of AMD's 3D V-Cache stacked directly onto the compute die
  • The chip that made X3D the default recommendation for gaming. That cache means the processor spends far less time waiting on memory, and it shows up in frame times and 1% lows rather than just benchmark averages
  • It is also remarkably efficient. In games it draws well under 100W while performing like a chip that draws far more, which is why a straightforward air cooler keeps it quiet without effort
  • On this build the processor is deliberately ahead of the graphics card. That is the right way round: it means a card upgrade later gives you the full benefit rather than running into a processor bottleneck
  • Worth knowing: the 7800X3D is not overclocked by raising multipliers, because AMD limit voltage on the stacked cache for good reason. It responds instead to a per-core Curve Optimiser undervolt, which is what our optimisation options do
• ❄️ CPU cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120
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  • A twin tower air cooler with six heatpipes and two 120mm PWM fans, 155mm tall. It performs like coolers costing three times as much and it has been the sensible answer in this class for years
  • Comfortably more cooler than a 7800X3D needs, which is the point. Excess capacity is what lets the fans turn slowly, and fan speed is what you actually hear
  • Plain black, no lighting, matched to the rest of the build
  • Mounted with Thermalright's own paste, applied by hand rather than using a pre-applied pad
  • The North takes coolers up to 170mm, so this sits inside the limit with room to spare
• 🔲 Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 Eagle AX (ATX)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 12+2+2 phase digital VRM. Plain English translation: the part of the board that feeds the processor is built for chips considerably hungrier than a 7800X3D, so it runs cool and never becomes the limit
  • Three M.2 slots, one PCIe Gen5 and two Gen4, so there is plenty of room to add storage later without opening a drive bay
  • Four DDR5 slots supporting up to 192GB, with two free on this build
  • Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5 built in, aerial supplied
  • Gigabit Ethernet, which is faster than almost every domestic broadband connection in the UK
  • PC36 only uses motherboards chosen for stability and longevity. See our Trusted brands page
• 📏 Memory / RAM: 32GB (2×16GB) DDR5-6000 CL36
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • EXPO-tuned dual channel DDR5-6000 CL36, the speed and timing combination Ryzen responds to best on AM5. We fit CL36 as standard rather than the slower CL40 kits often used at this price
  • Two matched sticks in dual channel, unlike the single stick in Nord One. On an X3D processor the memory matters less than it does on a normal chip, because the cache absorbs a lot of it, but dual channel is still the right call at this tier
  • 32GB is comfortable headroom for gaming, streaming and creative work at the same time, and two slots stay free if you ever want more
  • Specification guaranteed, model may vary. Happy to confirm the exact part on request
• 💾 Storage: 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD (TLC)
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  • TLC flash rated at 6,500MB/s or better, which holds its speed through long sustained writes rather than dropping off once a cache fills. On a build at this price we do not fit QLC drives
  • Higher write endurance than the entry-tier alternative, which matters if you record gameplay, edit video, or install and uninstall a lot
  • Two further M.2 slots sit free, plus room for two 2.5 inch and two 3.5 inch drives in the base
  • Specification guaranteed, model may vary. Happy to confirm the exact part on request
• 🎮 Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE 12GB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • What it actually is: the GRE is a cut-down RX 9070. Same RDNA 4 silicon, 48 compute units instead of 56, 12GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus instead of 16GB on 256-bit, and 48MB of Infinity Cache instead of 64MB. It started life as a China-only model and went on sale worldwide in June
  • Where it sits: roughly 5 to 7 percent behind an RTX 5070 in normal rendering, about 15 percent behind a full RX 9070, and around 30 percent ahead of the RX 9060 XT in Nord One. In ray traced games the gap to the 5070 widens to around 10 to 13 percent, because NVIDIA is still ahead there
  • Why we fit it: it costs us noticeably less than the RX 9070 and gives up about 15 percent. On a machine at this price that trade buys you the 7800X3D rather than a lesser processor, and the processor is the part that will still be relevant in four years. If you would rather have the 9070 and its 16GB, it is a straightforward swap, see the upgrade options
  • 2,220MHz game clock, up to 2,790MHz boost, 34.3 TFLOPS, 220W board power. Two 8-pin PCIe connectors rather than the 12V-2x6 NVIDIA use
  • Supports FSR 4, AMD's machine-learning upscaler, which needs RDNA 4 hardware and is a genuine step up from FSR 3. Also AV1 encode and decode for streaming and recording
  • DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b outputs, PCIe 5.0 interface
  • The chipset and VRAM are guaranteed: it will always be an RX 9070 GRE with 12GB. The AIB brand varies with availability, and we only use established manufacturers. See our Trusted brands page for more info
• 🧰 Case: Fractal North, Charcoal Black with walnut front and dark tinted glass
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  • 447 × 215 × 469mm. Steel chassis, real American black walnut front slats, and a dark tinted tempered glass side panel. The walnut is genuine wood, not a printed finish, so every one is slightly different
  • The wood is not just decoration. Behind the slats sit a steel mesh and a nylon dust filter, and the front intake pulls air straight through the gaps between them. The whole front panel lifts off to clean the filter
  • Brass-coloured accents on the power button and the front trim, which is the detail that stops it looking like a black box with a plank on it
  • Graphics cards up to 355mm and CPU coolers up to 170mm, so this build sits well inside both limits and a much larger card would still go in
  • Front I/O is USB-C, two USB 3.0 Type-A, and separate headphone and microphone jacks
  • Takes ATX, micro-ATX and Mini-ITX boards. Seven expansion slots. Dust filters at the front and under the power supply
• 🌬️ Case cooling: 2 × 140mm front intake (included with the case) plus 1 × 120mm rear exhaust fitted by us
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • The North ships with two Fractal Aspect 14 PWM fans already in the front, drawing cool air in through the walnut. They are proper PWM fans rather than the three-pin fans usually bundled, so they can be slowed right down when the machine is idle
  • It does not ship with a rear fan, which surprises most people who buy one. Every Nord we build gets a 120mm exhaust fitted at the back as standard. Without it the warm air coming off a twin tower cooler has nowhere sensible to go
  • The glass-panel version of this case does not include Fractal's fan hub, which only comes with the mesh-panel model. With three fans that makes no practical difference, so we wire them to the motherboard headers and tune the curves there instead. Worth knowing if you ever add more fans yourself
  • All fans are plain black and non-RGB. Fan curves are set by hand before dispatch and verified through our standard stress testing
  • A 7800X3D and a 220W graphics card in a 45 litre case is a comfortable thermal load rather than a difficult one, and the tinted glass panel is slightly quieter than the mesh alternative. This machine is quiet in normal use and only becomes audible under a sustained heavy load
• ⚡ Power supply: Deepcool PL750D 750W 80+ Bronze, ATX 3.1 certified
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  • AMD ask for 650W with this graphics card. 750W leaves the unit sitting in the quiet, efficient middle of its range under a full combined load rather than working near the top of it
  • The headroom is also there for upgrades. This supply will run an RX 9070, an RX 9070 XT or an RTX 5070 Ti without being replaced, so a card upgrade later is a straight swap
  • ATX 3.1 certified, built to absorb the sudden power spikes modern graphics cards produce without shutting the machine down. All PC36 power supplies of 750W and above are ATX 3.1 certified
  • This is a fixed cable unit, and in this case that is the right choice rather than a compromise. The North mounts the power supply on the floor under a solid shroud, so spare cables tuck into dead space where nothing is visible and nothing blocks airflow. A modular unit would cost more, look identical once the panel is on, and give you a bag of loose cables to lose
  • Deepcool back it with a 10 year warranty. An 850W Gold upgrade is available if you want the ceiling raised further, see the options below
• 🔌 Cabling: Black cabling, routed and tied
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  • Black cables throughout, matched to the black interior. Routed behind the motherboard tray through the case's own channel and tied down, then the excess is folded into the power supply shroud
  • The North gives 30mm of space behind the tray, which is workable rather than generous, so this takes longer than it does in a big airflow case. That time is included in the price
  • Braided cable extensions in a colour of your choice are available. See the upgrade options below
• 📶 WiFi / Bluetooth / Ethernet: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5 and Gigabit Ethernet, included
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  • Built into the Gigabyte B650 Eagle AX. No separate adapter needed, and the aerial is supplied in the box
  • Wi-Fi 6E adds the 6GHz band, which is usually far less congested than 2.4 and 5GHz if your router supports it
  • Gigabit wired Ethernet, which we would still recommend over wireless for competitive play
• 🪟 Operating system: As chosen by you from the listing options below. Windows 11 Home (OEM) is recommended.
• 🧹 Setup and optimisation: PC36 High-Class Standard. Full stress test with certificate, bloat-free installation, and BIOS set up properly
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  PC36 High-Class Standard, included free with every build

  • Ready the moment you open the box. Your PC boots straight into Windows with a local account already set up. No account sign-in wall, no first-run questionnaire, no half-hour of setup before you can use the machine you just bought
  • BIOS updated and configured properly: manual fan curves, PBO enabled, EXPO enabled, Secure Boot enabled
  • Vanilla Windows 11 installation if you choose Windows, with no bloatware added by us, and all drivers loaded and ready to go
  • Full stress test with certificate. Every system is torture tested on CPU, RAM and GPU before dispatch, and ships with the certificate to prove it

  PC36 Premier Optimisation, available in the listing options

  • CPU tuning to bring thermals and noise down with minimal performance loss, plus a deeper strip and debloat of Windows and a hand-tuned fan profile
  • This is the option worth taking on this build. The 7800X3D responds very well to a per-core Curve Optimiser undervolt, which drops both temperature and noise without costing performance. In a case chosen for how it looks and sounds rather than how much air it can move, that is money well spent

  PC36 Ultimate Performance Tune, available in the listing options

  • Advanced overclocking: memory tune, CPU tune and GPU overclock on top of everything in Premier
  • Being straight about the ceiling. The 7800X3D cannot be overclocked by multiplier, so the CPU portion of this is an undervolt rather than a clock increase. The real gain here is on the graphics card, where a GRE has genuine headroom and this case has the airflow to support it. Worth it if you want the last few percent, but Premier gets you most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost
• 🛡️ Warranty: 3 years parts & labour (return to base)
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  • Standard 3-year coverage included, parts and labour both
  • Optional extended warranties in the listing options below

👁️ Transparency notes

• About the 12GB of video memory. This gets talked about online far more than it deserves. At 1440p, 12GB is enough for the overwhelming majority of games at high settings, and you will not think about it. The handful of cases where it bites are edge cases: a small number of very heavy titles with ray tracing pushed to the absolute maximum, where the 1% lows dip. Turn one ray tracing setting down a notch and the problem disappears. If you want a card that will never be asked the question, the 16GB RX 9070 upgrade below is the answer, but do not buy it because of something you read on a forum.
• The GRE sits below an RTX 5070 in ray tracing specifically. Around 10 to 13 percent behind in ray traced games, and closer to 5 percent in everything else. If ray tracing is the reason you are buying rather than a bonus, tell us on live chat and we will point you at an NVIDIA build instead. We would rather move you to the right machine than sell you this one.
• The walnut is real wood. Grain and tone vary from panel to panel, so yours will not look exactly like the photographs. That is the nature of the material rather than a fault.
• The case ships without a rear fan. We fit one to every Nord as standard, at our cost. Mentioned here only because if you ever buy this case yourself, you should know to budget for one.
• Product images are representative photos of a similar spec in the same style. Your PC will look similar but not identical. Our support team can help clarify anything you're unsure of.

🛠️ Popular upgrade options

• Graphics card upgrade to RX 9070 16GB: available via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  The upgrade that actually changes this machine. Around 15 percent more performance and 16GB of memory instead of 12GB, which removes the ray tracing caveat above entirely. Worth it if you play at 1440p with everything turned up and intend to keep the card for four or five years. Not worth it if you mostly play competitive titles at high frame rates, where the GRE is already past what most monitors can show.

• Graphics card upgrade to RX 9070 XT or RTX 5070 Ti: available via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  Both are a real step up and both fit this case and this power supply without further changes. At that point it is worth comparing against Nord Three, which pairs a faster card with a 9800X3D and an 850W Gold supply rather than bolting a big card onto this configuration. We will do the comparison honestly on live chat.

• Storage upgrade to 2TB: available in the listing options below.
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  Worth it for most people at this tier. Modern AAA installs regularly run past 150GB each, and a 1TB drive fills faster than you expect. You can also defer it, since two M.2 slots stay free and the case takes four more drives.

• 850W Gold power supply: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Not needed for this build as specified, and we will not pretend otherwise. It is worth taking only if you already know you want to fit a much larger card later, in which case doing it now is cheaper than doing it twice.

• Braided cable extensions: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth considering on this build specifically, because the tinted glass panel puts the cabling on show in a way our solid-panel cases do not. Sleeved extensions in a colour that picks up the walnut look genuinely good here. Purely cosmetic, so skip it if the machine lives under a desk.

• Memory upgrade to 48GB or 64GB: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Only worth it if you edit video, run virtual machines or work with large 3D scenes. For gaming, including heavily modded gaming, 32GB is not the limit on this machine. Two slots stay free either way, so this is not a decision you have to make now.

• Extended warranty: available in the listing options below.
• Anything else: speak with us via live chat. We build these to order, so most things are possible if you ask before you buy.

🎯 What is this PC best for?

• High refresh 1440p gaming at high settings in modern titles
• Competitive shooters at very high frame rates, where the 7800X3D's cache sets the ceiling rather than the graphics card
• Streaming and recording, using the card's AV1 encoder
• Rooms where the PC is on display and needs to look like it belongs there
• Buyers who want a machine that is quiet by default rather than quiet after tinkering
• Anyone who wants the processor sorted for years and expects to upgrade the graphics card once along the way

📊 Performance estimates

Figures are 1440p. Performance varies with game updates, maps, settings and background apps. These are estimates, not guarantees.

Fortnite - Competitive Settings (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 280-350 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

Cyberpunk 2077 - Ray Tracing Medium (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 78-100 FPS
Upscaling set to Auto (DLSS / FSR / XeSS based on GPU).

Battlefield 6 - High Settings (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 125-155 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

DaVinci Resolve - PugetBench Standard (click or tap to expand)

Estimated score: 6,500-7,000

💬 Need help?

Not sure if this is the right spec for you? Ping us on live chat and we'll help you choose the perfect PC for your games, work and budget. You'll be talking to one of us, not a chatbot.