Ridge One | RX 9060 XT 16GB + Ryzen 5 7500F | Ready-to-Go Gaming PC | PC36

⛰️ Ridge One

Handsome enough to leave out, current enough to keep

There is an 8GB version of this graphics card and it costs less. We don't fit it. Video memory is the thing most likely to age a machine badly, and Ridge One is built to be kept: a fabric front set into a machined aluminium frame, still looking right on a desk long after the argument about 8GB has been settled.

Underneath, everything is current. A Ryzen 5 7500F on AM5, a socket AMD are still adding processors to, DDR5 memory, and a Radeon RX 9060 XT with 16GB behind it. It plays modern games at 1440p with the settings up, and holds very high frame rates in the competitive ones.

Feet come in the box for either orientation, so it stands beside a monitor or lies flat under a television like an amplifier. We assemble it, cable it and tune it by hand, which in a chassis this thin takes a good deal longer than a tower does.

🧬 Built to last, designed to evolve

Built on AMD's AM5 platform, which AMD have committed to supporting into 2027 and beyond. The processor, memory and storage can all be upgraded without replacing the motherboard. This board has two memory slots and two M.2 slots, and this build uses one of each, so there is genuine room to grow. Within the space limits of a small chassis, the graphics card and cooling can be changed too.

📃 Specifications

• 🧠 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7500F
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 6 cores, 12 threads of Zen 4, boosting to 5.0GHz, with 32MB of L3 cache
  • The 7500F is the 7600 with the integrated graphics switched off and a lower price attached. In a machine with a dedicated graphics card that costs you nothing at all, and it is the single best value processor on AM5 because of it
  • 65W TDP, and like any modern Ryzen it boosts past that when there is headroom to take. That is still a modest heat load, and the AXP120-X67 fitted here absorbs it without having to spin up. In a case that allows 70mm of cooler height and no more, a processor that runs cool is the correct choice rather than a compromise
  • Socket AM5, so a much faster processor can go in later without touching anything else. That is the main structural difference between this machine and Ridge Zero
  • No integrated graphics, which is what makes it cheap. Not a limitation in a build with a dedicated card, but worth knowing
• ❄️ CPU cooler: Thermalright AXP120-X67
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • A low-profile top-down cooler, 67mm tall, with six heatpipes and a full-size 120mm fan
  • The case allows 70mm and no more. That rules out every tower cooler ever made, so the only question is which low-profile cooler, and this is the best one available. Most coolers at this height use a 92mm fan and have to spin it hard; the 120mm fan here moves the same air far more slowly, and fan speed is what you actually hear
  • Top-down design, so it also pushes air across the motherboard's power stages and memory. In a chassis this size that is worth having, because there is no case fan aimed at that side of the board
  • Comfortably more cooler than a 65W processor asks for, boost included. This is the easier of the two jobs it does in the Ridge range
  • Mounted with Thermalright's own paste, applied by hand rather than using a pre-applied pad
• 🔲 Motherboard: ASRock B650I Lightning WiFi (Mini-ITX)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 8+2+1 power phase design with Dr.MOS on an 8-layer PCB. Plain English translation: far more power delivery than a 65W processor needs, and enough headroom to run a 7800X3D or a 9800X3D if you upgrade the processor later
  • Two M.2 slots, one Gen5 and one Gen4. Only one is used on this build, so a second SSD is a straightforward job rather than a compromise. That is unusually generous on a Mini-ITX board
  • Two DDR5 slots supporting up to 128GB. One is used here, which leaves the obvious upgrade open
  • Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 built in, aerial supplied. 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet
  • Rear I/O runs to a 10Gbps USB-C, three 10Gbps USB-A and two more USB-A, which is a lot of ports for a board this size
  • Realtek ALC897 audio. Fine through headphones and speakers, and a step below the ALC1220 on our larger boards. If you use a USB headset or an audio interface it makes no difference at all, and most people at this price do
  • PC36 only uses motherboards chosen for stability and longevity. See our Trusted brands page
• 📏 Memory / RAM: 16GB (1×16GB) DDR5-5600 CL36
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • A single 16GB stick of DDR5-5600 CL36, leaving the board's second slot empty and ready
  • One stick rather than two, and we will explain the reasoning properly rather than gloss over it. DDR5 pricing is unusually high at the moment. A second stick adds a meaningful amount to a machine at this price, and fitting one is how we keep the 16GB graphics card in the build without the total climbing
  • The honest numbers. A single DDR5 stick is not penalised the way a single DDR4 stick was, because each DDR5 module runs two independent sub-channels internally rather than one. The gap against a matched pair is real but small: roughly 4 to 9 percent in genuinely processor-intensive games, and close to nothing everywhere else. In the games this build is bought for, the graphics card is the limit long before the memory is
  • If you would rather have dual channel from day one, ask us on live chat and we will fit 2×8GB for a small supplement. We would not usually recommend it, and on this board in particular: there are only two memory slots, so a pair of 8GB sticks fills them both, and getting to 32GB later means throwing both away. The single 16GB stick leaves a slot free, so adding a matching stick gives you 32GB in dual channel for the price of one
  • 16GB is enough for every current game at these settings
  • Specification guaranteed, model may vary. Happy to confirm the exact part on request
• 💾 Storage: 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Rated at 5,000MB/s or better. Games load in seconds and Windows feels instant
  • This is a QLC drive, which is the honest tier for this price. It is quick for everything you will do day to day, and it slows down only during very long sustained writes such as moving hundreds of gigabytes in one go. For gaming and normal use you would not notice
  • We fit 1TB as standard across the whole range rather than varying it by price, so comparing our machines to each other is straightforward. The 2TB option is below
  • The board's second M.2 slot is free, so adding a second NVMe drive later is a real option here. On Ridge Zero it is not
  • Specification guaranteed, model may vary. Happy to confirm the exact part on request
• 🎮 Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • RDNA 4 with 16GB of GDDR6. Strong 1440p at high settings in modern titles, and very high frame rates in competitive games
  • 16GB is the reason this card is here. There is an 8GB version of the same card and we do not fit it. Video memory is the thing most likely to age a graphics card badly, and doubling it costs far less than replacing the card in two years
  • Supports FSR 4, AMD's machine-learning upscaler, which needs RDNA 4 hardware and is a real step up from FSR 3
  • AV1 encoding for streaming and recording at a much better quality-to-bitrate ratio than older codecs
  • Modest power draw and a single 8-pin connector, which is exactly what 12.6 litres wants. It also leaves an enormous amount of headroom in the 750W supply for a later upgrade
  • Being straight about ray tracing: Radeon is still behind NVIDIA here, and at this tier heavy ray tracing means leaning on upscaling. Raster performance and the 16GB are where this card earns its place
  • The chipset and VRAM are guaranteed: it will always be an RX 9060 XT with 16GB. The AIB brand varies with availability, and we only use established manufacturers. See our Trusted brands page for more info
• 🧰 Case: Fractal Ridge, Black
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 12.6 litres. 374 × 110 × 395mm standing up, or 360 × 375 × 115mm lying down. Mini-ITX, three expansion slots
  • A fabric front panel set into a CNC-machined aluminium frame. It is meant to sit out in a room rather than under a desk, and it does not look like a computer
  • Feet are supplied for both orientations. Stand it upright beside a monitor, or lay it flat under a television like an amplifier. Both are designed in rather than tolerated, and we set it up whichever way you tell us. Upright runs slightly cooler
  • Two 140mm Fractal Aspect 14 PWM fans included in the side panel as intake, feeding air directly onto the graphics card
  • Sandwich layout. The motherboard sits on one side and the graphics card on the other, connected by a rigid PCIe riser card rather than a ribbon. That is what makes a case this thin possible
  • Graphics cards up to 335mm long, CPU coolers up to 70mm tall, SFX and SFX-L power supplies
  • Four 2.5 inch drive mounts, with all four brackets in the box. No 3.5 inch bays
  • Front I/O is USB-C, two USB-A and a combined headphone and microphone jack
  • Small form factor builds take considerably longer to assemble, cable and tune than a standard tower. That work is included in the price rather than added to it
• 🌬️ Case cooling: 2 × 140mm side intake, included with the case
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Two Fractal Aspect 14 PWM fans in the side panel, blowing straight onto the graphics card through its own perforated panel. It is a simple arrangement and it works well, because the card has its own side of the sandwich and its own air
  • Proper four-pin PWM fans, not the three-pin fans usually bundled at this price, so they can be slowed right down when the machine is idle. Plain black, no lighting
  • The case also has three 80mm mounts in the top which Fractal do not populate. At this heat level they are not needed, and we would rather leave them empty than sell you fans that are not earning their place
  • Fan curves are set by hand before dispatch and verified through our standard stress testing rather than assumed
  • A 65W processor and a 160W class graphics card is a comfortable load for this chassis. Ridge One runs quiet
• ⚡ Power supply: Thermaltake Toughpower SFX 750W 80+ Gold, fully modular
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • SFX form factor, because that is what a case this size takes. An SFX unit is roughly half the volume of a standard ATX supply and costs considerably more for the same wattage, which is one of the hidden expenses of building small and one we would rather explain than bury
  • 750W is far more than this build draws, which is deliberate. It means a much larger graphics card can go in later without touching the power supply, and in a case this size that is not a swap you want to be doing twice
  • Fully modular, which in 12.6 litres is a functional requirement rather than a tidiness preference. There is nowhere to put a cable you are not using
  • 80 PLUS Gold, and ATX 3.1 certified. All PC36 power supplies of 750W and above are ATX 3.1 certified
• 🔌 Cabling: Black cabling, routed for a small chassis
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  • Short runs, routed specifically to keep the intake path and the card's own fans clear. There is 13.8mm of routing space behind the power supply and not much anywhere else
  • Fully modular, so nothing unused is installed. This is where a large share of the assembly time on a Ridge goes
• 📶 WiFi / Bluetooth / Ethernet: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 and 2.5G Ethernet, included
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Built into the ASRock B650I Lightning WiFi. No separate adapter needed, and the aerial is supplied in the box
  • Wi-Fi 6E adds the 6GHz band, which is far less congested than 2.4 and 5GHz in a busy household. It is plenty of wireless for anything you will do on this machine
  • 2.5 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. The same test our most expensive machines get

  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
  • Worth more in a small case than a large one. There is less air to work with, so how the fans are curved has a bigger effect on what you hear

  PC36 Ultimate Performance Tune, available in the listing options

  • Advanced overclocking: memory tune, CPU tune and GPU overclock on top of everything in Premier
  • The 7500F is unlocked, so there is real headroom here, and the graphics card responds well to a tune. Worth taking if you want everything the hardware has. The honest caveat is that this build is graphics-limited at 1440p, so the gains come mostly from the card rather than the processor
• 🛡️ Warranty: 3 years parts & labour (return to base)
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  • Standard 3-year coverage included, parts and labour both. The same warranty as every machine we sell, regardless of price
  • Optional extended warranties in the listing options below

👁️ Transparency notes

• A large part of this price is the case and the build time it takes, not only the components (click or tap to read more)

  The Fractal Ridge is an expensive chassis and small form factor builds take considerably longer to assemble. If what you want is the most performance for the money, a micro-ATX machine will beat this comfortably at the same price and we will point you at one on live chat. Ridge One is for people who want this specific object.

• This build uses single channel RAM, which offers a price saving but a very small performance loss (click or tap to read more)

  The gap against a matched pair is roughly 4 to 9 percent in processor-intensive games and close to nothing elsewhere, because DDR5 modules run two sub-channels internally rather than one. We fit one stick because DDR5 prices are high at the moment, and the money does more good in the graphics card. Adding a matching 16GB stick later gives you 32GB in dual channel, which is the cleanest upgrade on this build. If you would rather have 2×8GB in dual channel from the start, ask us on live chat, though it fills both slots and we would not usually recommend it.

• 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

• Quick-add upgrades. This listing has a set of one-click upgrades chosen to fit this exact build, each one priced, in the Quick-add Upgrades section on this page. Memory, storage, optimisation, the anti-sag bracket and the extended warranty are in the build options instead. Anything not shown in either place, ask us on live chat and we will price it.
• Second memory stick for 32GB (2×16GB) dual channel: available via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  The cleanest upgrade on this build. It moves you to dual channel and doubles the capacity in one go. Worth it if you multitask heavily, stream while playing, or run simulation games and heavily modded titles, which are the ones that feel memory bandwidth. Less urgent if you mostly play at 1440p with settings turned up, because the graphics card is the limit there.

• Storage upgrade to 2TB: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth taking if you keep more than a handful of large modern games installed. Less pressing on this build than on Ridge Zero, because the board has a second M.2 slot free and adding a drive later is straightforward rather than awkward.

• Graphics card upgrade: choose it from the quick-add upgrades, or speak with us via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  The 750W supply is deliberately oversized and the case takes cards up to 335mm, so a considerably faster card will go in without any other change. Worth it if you are driving a high refresh 1440p monitor and want to stop turning settings down. If that is the plan, ask us to price it against Ridge Two, which pairs a larger card with a much stronger processor and is often the better answer.

• CPU upgrade: available via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  AM5 means the processor can be changed later without replacing anything else, and this board has the power delivery for a Ryzen 7 7800X3D or 9800X3D. Worth it if you play simulation games, large open worlds or competitive shooters at very high refresh rates, where the processor sets the frame rate. Not worth it if you play at 1440p with settings up, because the card is the limit there.

• White colourway: available via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  The Ridge comes in white as well as black, and we build it either way. Ask us before you order and we will price it up. Everything else about the machine is identical.

• Extended warranty: available in the listing options below.
• Anything else: speak with us via live chat. This is a small case with real limits, so if you have something specific in mind we would much rather discuss it before you order than have you discover a constraint afterwards.

🎯 What is this PC best for?

• 1440p gaming at high settings, which is what this pairing is built around
• 1080p gaming at very high refresh rates in competitive titles
• Living rooms and desks where a tower would not be welcome, and where the machine is meant to be seen
• Lying flat under a television as a console replacement
• Streaming and recording, using the card's AV1 encoder
• Buyers who want a small machine that stays current for years rather than the cheapest way into the case

📊 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: 220-280 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

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

1440p: 60-75 FPS
Upscaling set to Auto (DLSS / FSR / XeSS based on GPU).

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

1440p: 100-130 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

💬 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.