Ridge Two | Radeon RX 9070 16GB + Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Ready-to-Go Gaming PC | PC36

⛰️ Ridge Two

No one will guess what's inside it

One of the best gaming processors ever made is also one of the most efficient. That is a useful coincidence for a case this size, and it is the whole idea behind Ridge Two: a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and a Radeon RX 9070 with 16GB, in a fabric-fronted aluminium box you would happily leave out on a shelf.

The RX 9070 is a genuine high-tier 1440p card, and putting the X3D cache behind it is what turns a small machine that plays games into a 1440p system that happens to be small. Simulation titles, large open worlds, heavily modded saves and competitive shooters at high refresh are where that pairing pulls away from anything else this size.

Getting all of it into 12.6 litres under a 67mm cooler is the difficult part, and it's the part we do by hand. The card is selected to sit properly alongside the side fans, the cabling is routed to keep the intake clear, and the fan curves are set on the bench before it ships. Stand it beside a monitor or lay it flat under a television like an amplifier; either way it doesn't read as a computer.

🧬 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, and the board's second M.2 slot is free for a later drive. Within the space limits of a small chassis, the graphics card and cooling can be changed too. This is a machine designed to be kept rather than replaced.

📃 Specifications

• 🧠 CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (package power capped at approximately 90W)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 8 cores, 16 threads of Zen 4, boosting to 5.0GHz, with 96MB of L3 cache thanks to AMD's 3D V-Cache
  • The cache is the whole point. Stacking 64MB of extra L3 on top of the die means far more of a game's working data sits next to the cores instead of out in system memory. In the games that care - large open worlds, simulation titles, heavily modded games, competitive shooters at very high refresh - that is worth more than raw clock speed, and it is why this chip has stayed at the top of gaming charts for so long
  • Why we set a 90W ceiling. Left alone, a 7800X3D chases its boost past its rated draw whenever it has the cooling to support it, and this case allows 70mm of cooler and no more. So we set the ceiling ourselves rather than let the chip ask for headroom that is not there. In games it typically draws well under 90W anyway, so the cap costs essentially nothing where it matters. In long all-core work such as video exports or rendering, this machine will finish behind the same processor in a full tower
  • The 7800X3D is not multiplier-overclockable. The stacked cache sits above the cores on this generation, so AMD lock the multiplier to protect it. Tuning here means undervolting via Curve Optimiser, which in a case this size is the more useful direction anyway - see the setup options below
  • Socket AM5, so a faster processor can go in later without replacing anything else
• ❄️ 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
  • This is the cooler doing the harder of its two jobs in the Ridge range, and it is why the 90W ceiling exists. Paired with an efficient X3D chip it holds temperatures comfortably in normal gaming, and it will be audible under a sustained all-core load
  • 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: more power delivery than this processor will ever ask for, particularly with a 90W ceiling in place
  • Two M.2 slots, one Gen5 and one Gen4. Only one is used here, so a second SSD is a straightforward job rather than a compromise. That is unusually generous on a Mini-ITX board
  • Two DDR5 slots, both used on this build with a matched pair
  • 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
  • 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

  • A matched pair running dual channel at DDR5-6000 CL36, enabled via EXPO in the BIOS before it ships
  • DDR5-6000 is the speed Ryzen on AM5 runs best at. It keeps the memory controller and the memory running in step with each other, which is where the platform is happiest, and going faster on paper often makes it slower in practice
  • 32GB is the sensible amount for a machine at this level. It covers modern games with plenty spare for a browser, Discord and a stream running alongside
  • Both memory slots are used, so a later capacity increase means replacing the pair rather than adding to it. On a Mini-ITX board that is simply how it is, and 32GB is enough that most people will never need to
  • 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. 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, and the money saved is in the graphics card instead
  • 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
  • Specification guaranteed, model may vary. Happy to confirm the exact part on request
• 🎮 Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070 16GB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • RDNA 4, 56 compute units, 16GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus giving 640GB/s, and 64MB of Infinity Cache. 220W board power
  • A genuine high-tier 1440p card. It sits roughly 30 percent ahead of the RX 9060 XT in Ridge One and close behind the RX 9070 XT, while drawing considerably less power - which in 12.6 litres is not a footnote, it is the reason this card and not the XT
  • 16GB on a 256-bit bus, so there is both plenty of memory and plenty of bandwidth to feed it. This is not a card that will run short at 1440p
  • Supports FSR 4, AMD's machine-learning upscaler, which needs RDNA 4 hardware and is a real step up from FSR 3. AV1 encode and decode for streaming and recording
  • Powered by standard 8-pin PCIe connectors rather than the 12V-2x6 plug. Simpler to route in a small case, and the 750W supply has both to spare
  • Being straight about ray tracing: RDNA 4 closed a lot of the gap but NVIDIA still leads here, and the RTX 5070 Ti in Ridge Three is the faster card with ray tracing turned up. Where the RX 9070 wins is raster performance for the money and the power draw. If heavy ray tracing is your priority, Ridge Three is the honest recommendation
  • Card selection matters in this chassis. With the side fans fitted the card can be up to 57mm thick, which most two-and-a-half slot cards clear and some triple-slot models do not. We choose a model that fits properly with the fans in place rather than asking you to remove them
  • The chipset and VRAM are guaranteed: it will always be an RX 9070 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. On this tier we would recommend upright, because it cools measurably better and this build gives the case more heat to move than the tiers below
  • 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, and it means the card gets its own air rather than sharing with the processor
  • 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. Simple, and effective, 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. 80mm fans have to spin fast to move meaningful air, and we would rather not add that noise for a small gain. If you want them fitted, ask on live chat and we will discuss it honestly rather than just selling you three fans
  • Fan curves are set by hand before dispatch and verified through our standard stress testing rather than assumed. This is the part of a small build that decides whether it is pleasant to live with
  • Honest expectation setting: this is a capable machine in a small box. At idle and in light use it is very quiet. In a demanding game with the card working hard you will hear it, more than you would hear the same components in a full tower. That is the trade small form factor asks for, and the fan tuning is where we spend the effort to keep it reasonable
• ⚡ 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 against a build that draws around 320W under a heavy gaming load. That is a comfortable margin, and it keeps the supply running in its quiet, efficient band rather than working hard
  • 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
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 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
  • Two 8-pin PCIe runs to the graphics card, kept out of the airflow path rather than looped across it. Fully modular, so nothing unused is installed
  • This is where a large share of the assembly time on a Ridge goes, and it is the difference between a small build that runs cool and one that does not
• 📶 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
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  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, the 90W package power ceiling set, 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
  • This is the tier where it earns its money. There is less air in this case than in a tower, so how the fans are curved and how much voltage the processor is fed have a much larger effect on what you hear. If you are buying a small machine because you want it in your living room, this is the option to take

  PC36 Ultimate Performance Tune, available in the listing options

  • Advanced tuning: memory tune, Curve Optimiser undervolt and GPU overclock on top of everything in Premier
  • The 7800X3D has a locked multiplier, so tuning it means undervolting rather than overclocking. That is not a consolation prize in this chassis - it is the single most useful thing you can do to a small machine. Less voltage means less heat, which means lower fan speeds for the same performance
  • The memory tune and the graphics card overclock both add real frames on top. Worth taking if you want everything this hardware has and want it quiet with it
• 🛡️ Warranty: 3 years parts & labour (return to base)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 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

• The processor runs to a 90W cap, which costs nothing in games and does cost time in long rendering work (click or tap to read more)

  In games it makes no meaningful difference, because the 7800X3D is unusually efficient and rarely reaches that ceiling while playing. In sustained all-core work - long video exports, heavy rendering, large compiles - this machine will finish behind the same processor in a full tower. If that kind of work is a large part of what you do, tell us on live chat and we will point you at a tower instead.

• This much hardware in a small case is very quiet at idle and audible in a demanding game (click or tap to read more)

  A 220W graphics card and a capped 8-core processor in 12.6 litres cannot be as quiet as the same parts in a full tower - there is simply less air and less surface area to work with. At idle and in light use it is very quiet. In a demanding game you will hear it. We tune the fan curves by hand to make that as pleasant as we can, and we would rather set the expectation than let you find out.

• Photos may show a cable tie holding the graphics card, which is deliberate, permanent and routed clear of every fan (click or tap to read more)

  A card of this size and weight will sag and sway at its outer end, and in a chassis this dense that movement is a real risk to the card and to the slot it sits in. The restraint stops it, and it is part of how we make a build like this safe to own and safe to move.

• 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.
• PC36 Premier Optimisation: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  The upgrade we would take first on this particular build. In a small case the fan curve and the processor voltage decide how the machine feels to live with, far more than they do in a tower. Worth it if the machine is going somewhere you sit near it. Less relevant if it lives under a desk and you wear a headset.

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

  Worth taking if you keep a large library of modern games installed, since several now run past 100GB each. The board's second M.2 slot is free, so this is also the one storage decision you can comfortably defer on a Ridge Two.

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

  Worth it if you play with ray tracing turned up, if you want DLSS specifically, or if you stream with software that prefers NVENC. That configuration is Ridge Three, so ask us to price the two against each other rather than assuming the upgrade is the cheaper route - it often is not.

• CPU upgrade to Ryzen 7 9800X3D: choose it from the quick-add upgrades, or speak with us via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth it if you play at very high refresh rates in processor-limited games, where the newer chip is meaningfully quicker. It is also fully unlocked, unlike the 7800X3D, because the second-generation cache sits underneath the cores instead of on top. Less worth it at 1440p with settings turned up, where the graphics card sets the pace. We will tell you which of those describes your games.

• 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 and high refresh rates, which is exactly what this pairing is built for
• Simulation games, large open worlds and heavily modded titles, where the X3D cache does its best work
• Competitive shooters at very high frame rates
• Living rooms and desks where a tower would not be welcome, and where the machine is meant to be seen
• Streaming and recording, using the card's AV1 encoder
• Buyers who want serious performance without a serious box, and who understand the noise trade that comes with it

📊 Performance estimates

Figures are 1440p. Performance varies with game updates, maps, settings and background apps. These are estimates, not guarantees, and they account for the 90W package power ceiling.

Fortnite - Competitive Settings (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 285-355 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

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

1440p: 88-112 FPS
Upscaling set to Auto (DLSS / FSR / XeSS based on GPU).

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

1440p: 140-172 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.