Secret Four | RTX 5080 16GB + Ryzen 7 9800X3D | Ready-to-Go Gaming PC | PC36

🤫 Secret Four

An RTX 5080 and a 9800X3D, in the same plain box as the rest of the series

Secret Four is what this series looks like when you take the idea all the way. A Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is the fastest gaming processor you can buy, and an RTX 5080 with 16GB of GDDR7. A proper 4K machine.

What has not changed is the approach. Same 40 litre Phanteks case as Secret Zero. Same floor intake. The same economical motherboard as Secret Three, which gives this build a Gen5 steel-reinforced graphics slot, four memory slots and three M.2 slots, and does not charge you for a badge. Every pound that could have gone on a fancier board went into the processor and the card instead.

That is a deliberate position rather than a cost-cutting one, and we would rather explain it than have you wonder. At this price most builders would put you on a premium board with Wi-Fi 7 and lighting on the heatsinks. We would rather you had the faster card.

🧬 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: four memory slots with two free, and three M.2 slots with two free. The case takes graphics cards up to 430mm and coolers up to 175mm. This is a machine designed to be kept.

📃 Specifications

• 🧠 CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 8 cores, 16 threads of Zen 5, boosting to 5.2GHz, with 96MB of L3 cache thanks to second-generation 3D V-Cache. 120W TDP
  • This is the fastest gaming processor currently made, and it is not a close-run thing in the games that respond to cache. Large open worlds, simulation titles, heavily modded games and competitive shooters at very high refresh rates all lean on exactly what this chip does best
  • The second-generation cache is the important change, and it is a physical one. On the 7800X3D the stacked cache sits above the cores, which is why AMD lock that chip's multiplier to protect it. On the 9800X3D the cache sits underneath, so the cores are directly against the heat spreader and the processor is fully unlocked. It runs cooler under the same load and it can actually be overclocked, which makes the Ultimate Performance Tune worth considerably more here than a tier down
  • No power limit imposed. A 360mm radiator and 40 litres of case mean this chip runs exactly as AMD intended, with nothing held back for thermal reasons
  • Socket AM5, so there is an upgrade path from here even at the top of the range
• ❄️ CPU cooler: Thermalright Aqua Elite V6 360mm ARGB liquid cooler
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • A 360mm all-in-one liquid cooler with three 120mm ARGB PWM fans, a copper coldplate and an ARGB pump head, mounted in the top of the case
  • Three hundred and sixty millimetres of radiator against a 120W processor. That is the point of it: not that the chip demands this much, but that a radiator this large sheds the heat with the fans turning slowly. Quiet comes from surface area, and this is the most surface area we can put in this case
  • It also moves the processor's heat out of the case entirely. An air cooler dumps warm air into the chassis for the rear fan to deal with; a top-mounted radiator exhausts it straight out through the roof. In a build with a 360W graphics card underneath, keeping those two heat sources on separate paths is worth more than the raw cooling figure
  • The 9800X3D helps itself here too. With the cache underneath the cores rather than on top, it transfers heat to the coldplate more readily than the previous generation did, so this pairing has a great deal in hand
  • The ARGB on the fans and the pump head matches the case fans and runs from the same board headers, so the machine reads as one thing through the glass
  • Mounted with thermal paste applied by hand rather than using a pre-applied pad. Tube routing and pump orientation are set so no air can collect at the pump, which is the thing that shortens an AIO's life
• 🔲 Motherboard: ASRock B850M Pro-A WiFi (micro-ATX)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • PCIe 5.0 x16 for the graphics card, in a steel-reinforced slot with gold contacts. An RTX 5080 is a heavy card and this board holds it properly
  • 8+2+1 Dr.MOS power design. Plain English translation: comfortably more power delivery than a 9800X3D draws, including when it is overclocked. ASRock do not publish an amperage figure for these power stages and we are not going to invent one
  • Four DDR5 slots supporting up to 256GB. Two are used here, so going to 64GB later means adding a pair rather than replacing what you have
  • Three M.2 slots: one Gen5 with a heatsink and two Gen4. Only one is used. Note that filling the second CPU-connected M.2 disables the secondary PCIe x4 slot, which will not affect most people but is the sort of thing we would rather you heard from us
  • Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 built in, aerial supplied. 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet on a Realtek Dragon controller
  • Rear I/O includes a 10Gbps USB-C and a 10Gbps USB-A alongside four more ports, plus HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4. Realtek ALC897 audio, four SATA ports
  • BIOS Flashback and Post Status Checker diagnostic LEDs, plus three addressable lighting headers
  • The most debatable choice in this build, and we are putting it in plain sight. This is a mid-range board under a very fast machine. It does everything this build actually uses. What it does not have is Wi-Fi 7, USB4 or a premium audio codec, and if you want those the X870 upgrade is in the options below
  • 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, and going faster on paper often makes it slower in practice. On an X3D chip that balance matters more than the headline number
  • 32GB is the right amount for a machine at this level. It covers modern games at maximum settings with plenty spare for a browser, Discord and a stream running alongside
  • Two of the board's four slots are free, so going to 64GB later is a matter of adding a pair rather than throwing away what is in there
  • Specification guaranteed, model may vary. Happy to confirm the exact part on request
• 💾 Storage: 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD (TLC)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Rated at 5,000MB/s or better, fitted in the board's Gen5 slot under its heatsink. Games load in seconds and Windows feels instant
  • TLC rather than QLC. TLC holds its speed during long sustained writes where a cheaper QLC drive slows down, and it has better write endurance. A machine at this level is likely to be moving large files around
  • We fit 1TB as standard across the whole range rather than varying it by price, so comparing our machines to each other is straightforward. At this price the 2TB option below is the upgrade we would encourage most, because a card this capable tends to mean a library of very large games
  • Two more M.2 slots free, plus two 2.5 inch mounts and a 3.5 inch mount in the case
  • Specification guaranteed, model may vary. Happy to confirm the exact part on request
• 🎮 Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 16GB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Blackwell, 16GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit bus. A 4K card in the proper sense, and far more than any 1440p monitor will ever ask of it
  • DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation. Transformer-model upscaling is a real visual step up from the older model, and on a card this fast it is what turns 4K from playable into effortless
  • Heavy ray tracing at 4K is comfortable here. This is the tier where ray tracing stops being a setting you weigh up and becomes one you leave on
  • Dual NVENC encoders. If you stream or record seriously, NVENC is what most streaming software is built around and having two of them means recording and streaming at once without either suffering. AV1 supported for encode and decode
  • Powered by a 12V-2x6 connector, fed by a native cable from the power supply rather than an adapter. That matters for safety as well as tidiness
  • The chipset and VRAM are guaranteed: it will always be an RTX 5080 with 16GB. The AIB brand varies with availability, and we only use established manufacturers. See our Trusted brands page for more info
• 🧰 Case: Phanteks XT V3, Black
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 460 × 235 × 370mm, roughly 40 litres. Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX, four expansion slots. Steel chassis with tempered glass front and side panels
  • Generous where it matters. Graphics cards up to 430mm long, CPU coolers up to 175mm tall, power supplies up to 150mm. An RTX 5080 fits with room to spare
  • The same case as every other Secret build, and that is the point. It costs a fraction of what a showpiece chassis costs, it holds a 5080 and a 360mm radiator without complaint, and the money it saves is sitting in the graphics card
  • The glass front is the whole design. There are no front fan mounts, because there is no front mesh to breathe through. Air comes in through the floor instead. If you would rather have a mesh front, there is a free case swap in the upgrade options below, and on this build it is worth a thought
  • Fan mounts: three in the base, one at the rear, three in the top. Seven 120mm positions in total
  • Radiator support is top only, up to 360mm. This build uses every millimetre of that
  • Two 2.5 inch drive mounts and one 3.5 inch mount
  • Front I/O is USB-C, one USB-A and a combined headphone and microphone jack
  • Also made in white. We build either at no extra cost, so ask on live chat if you would prefer it
• 🌬️ Case cooling: 3 × 120mm ARGB base intake with grilles, 1 × 120mm ARGB rear exhaust, 3 × 120mm ARGB on the radiator
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Three reverse-blade ARGB fans in the floor drawing cool air straight up into the graphics card, and one ARGB exhaust at the rear that we fit ourselves. On a 360W card that path matters more than on anything else in this series
  • Reverse blade matters here. In a bottom-mounted position a normal fan's blade geometry works against the direction of travel; a reverse-blade fan is built to push the other way and moves noticeably more air for the same noise
  • We fit grilles over the base fans on this build, as we do on Secret Three. A card at this power level runs a thick 12V-2x6 cable and its harness down past the floor mounts, and a grille means a cable can never find a blade. It costs us a few pounds and it is the kind of thing that only becomes obvious once you have built a lot of these
  • Seven 120mm fans in total, which is the case at its maximum, and every one of them is doing a job. Three drawing cool air in at the floor, one pulling it out at the rear, and three on the radiator taking the processor's heat straight out of the roof. The other Secret builds run four fans and no top mounts, because without a radiator up there the extra three would add noise for very little. Here they come with the cooler and they earn their place
  • Four-pin PWM throughout with addressable lighting, matched to the cooler and run from the board's headers
  • Fan curves are set by hand before dispatch and verified through our standard stress testing rather than assumed. Honest expectation setting: a 360W graphics card in any case will be audible in a demanding game, and it is the card you will hear rather than the processor. The radiator gives the CPU side a great deal of quiet headroom, but it cannot do anything about the card. This chassis handles the heat comfortably; it is not a silent machine under load and we would rather say so
• ⚡ Power supply: Montech Century II 850W 80+ Gold, fully modular
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 850W, which is NVIDIA's own recommendation for the RTX 5080. Under a heavy gaming load this build draws around 540W, so there is genuine headroom above the load rather than merely enough
  • Fully modular and 80 PLUS Gold. ATX 3.1 certified with a native 12V-2x6 cable, which is specifically designed to tolerate the short transient spikes Blackwell cards are known for. That certification is the reason 850W is the right answer here rather than a nervous one
  • If you would rather have more headroom, a 1000W unit is available on live chat. It is not necessary and we will not push it, but if you are planning a 5090 one day it is cheaper now than later
  • Only the cables you need are installed, which matters in a case with a glass front
• 🔌 Cabling: Black cabling, routed and tied
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Fully modular, so nothing unused is installed. Routed through the chassis cable channels and tied down, with the floor intake path kept clear so the fans can actually breathe
  • The 12V-2x6 cable is routed with a proper bend radius rather than forced into the nearest gap. That connector does not tolerate being crushed, and getting it right is not optional on a card this expensive
  • Braided cable extensions are available as an upgrade if you want the look through the glass. Ask us on live chat
• 📶 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 B850M Pro-A 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
  • 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, 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
  • Worth it if the machine is going somewhere you sit near it. The graphics card is the loudest thing here, so a good part of the value is in the fan profile rather than the processor tune

  PC36 Ultimate Performance Tune, available in the listing options

  • Advanced tuning: memory tune, CPU overclock and GPU overclock on top of everything in Premier
  • This is the build in the range where it is worth the most. The 9800X3D is fully unlocked, unlike the 7800X3D, so this is a real overclock rather than an undervolt, and a 360mm radiator is exactly the cooling you want behind one. Add a memory tune the X3D cache responds well to, and a 5080 with genuine headroom, and there is more on the table here than anywhere else we sell
• 🛡️ 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 graphics card ships in its own box to protect the PCIe connector in transit, with instructions for fitting it (click or tap to read more)

  This PC contains a large and high value graphics card. All graphics cards have a point of weakness at the PCIe connector, and shipping the card in its own box prevents damage that can happen in transit despite our industry-leading packaging. It arrives with simple instructions and fitting it takes a couple of minutes. If you have any queries about this, please contact us. This is without doubt the safest method to ensuring your high performance graphics card arrives pristine.

• The motherboard is mid-range on purpose, so every pound it saves goes into the processor and the graphics card (click or tap to read more)

  The B850M Pro-A gives this build a Gen5 steel-reinforced graphics slot, four memory slots and three M.2 slots, and every pound it saves is in the processor and the card. What it does not give you is Wi-Fi 7, USB4 or a premium audio codec. We think that is the right trade on a value build and the X870 upgrade is there if you disagree. We would rather show you the reasoning than quietly fit a cheaper board.

• We fit grilles over the floor fans so a graphics card cable can never reach a spinning blade (click or tap to read more)

  A card at this power level runs a thick cable harness past the floor fan mounts. The grilles mean a cable can never reach a blade. You will see them in the machine and we would rather you knew why they are there.

• 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 360W graphics card makes noise in any case. This is a well-ventilated 40 litre chassis with a proper airflow path and a radiator taking the processor's heat out of the roof, so it handles the heat comfortably, but it is not a silent machine when the card is working. The Premier Optimisation fan profile is where most of the improvement lives.

• RGB heatspreaders on the RAM are not guaranteed unless the quick add-on is chosen - this is due to industry-wide supply constraints on memory
• 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.
• Storage upgrade to 2TB: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  The upgrade we would take first on this build. A card this capable means playing the largest modern titles, several of which run past 100GB each, and 1TB fills faster than people expect. You can defer it because two M.2 slots are free, but taking it now is tidier.

• PC36 Ultimate Performance Tune: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth more here than on any other machine we sell, because the 9800X3D is fully unlocked and this is a genuine overclock rather than an undervolt, with a 360mm radiator behind it. Combined with a memory tune and a GPU overclock there is real performance on the table. Worth it if you want everything the hardware has. Less relevant if you play at 4K and are already limited by the card.

• Mesh-front case swap to the Phanteks XT M3: available via live chat, at no extra cost.
  Click or tap for more info

  The same chassis with a fine mesh front instead of tempered glass, and two front intake fans plus a rear exhaust rather than the floor arrangement. Worth considering, though less pressing here than on Secret Three: the processor's heat already leaves through the radiator in the roof, so the floor intake is feeding the graphics card and little else. Less worth it if you want the machine to look like this one does in the photographs. It costs nothing either way.

• Memory upgrade to 64GB: available via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth it if you edit video, run virtual machines, or work with large datasets alongside gaming. Not worth it for gaming alone - no current game benefits. This board has four slots with two free, so it means adding a pair rather than replacing what you have.

• Motherboard upgrade to X870: choose it from the quick-add upgrades, or speak with us via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  The upgrade most likely to appeal on this particular build, because it is the one place the Secret approach shows. It swaps the board for a Gigabyte X870M AORUS ELITE WIFI7, and three things genuinely change. Wi-Fi 7 instead of Wi-Fi 6E. Two USB4 ports at 40Gbps, which no B850 board has, for single-cable docks, very fast external drives and DisplayPort out over USB-C. And the audio codec moves from ALC897 to ALC1220, taking the signal-to-noise ratio on the analogue output from around 97dB to around 120dB, with dedicated audio capacitors and PCB isolation. Worth it if any of those three is something you would actually use. None of them will change your frame rate.

• 1000W power supply: choose it from the quick-add upgrades, or speak with us via live chat.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth it if you are thinking about an RTX 5090 at some point, in which case fitting it now saves doing the job twice. Not necessary for this build as it stands, and we will say so rather than sell it to you.

• Extended warranty: available in the listing options below.
• Anything else: speak with us via live chat. You'll be talking to one of us, not a chatbot.

🎯 What is this PC best for?

• 4K gaming at high to ultra settings, which is what this pairing is built for
• 1440p at very high refresh rates, where the 9800X3D is the fastest thing you can put behind a monitor
• Heavy ray tracing at either resolution, with DLSS 4 doing the work
• Simulation games, large open worlds and heavily modded titles, where the X3D cache does its best work
• Serious streaming and recording, using both NVENC encoders at once
• Buyers who want the fastest parts and are content for the box around them to be plain

📊 Performance estimates

Figures are given at 1440p and 4K. Performance varies with game updates, maps, settings and background apps. These are estimates, not guarantees.

Fortnite - Competitive Settings (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 350-450 FPS
4K: 200-260 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

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

1440p: 140-180 FPS
4K: 90-120 FPS
Upscaling set to Auto (DLSS / FSR / XeSS based on GPU).

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

1440p: 170-210 FPS
4K: 95-125 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.