Secret Three | RX 9070 XT + Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Ready-to-Go Gaming PC | PC36

🤫 Secret Three

An X3D processor and a 9070 XT, with the money kept where it changes the frame rate

Secret Three is the tier where this series stops being the sensible choice and starts being a genuinely fast machine. A Ryzen 7 7800X3D, still one of the best gaming processors made, and a Radeon RX 9070 XT with 16GB behind it. That is a high refresh 1440p pairing and a capable 4K one.

The Secret series is designed to be great value without skimping on quality - an economical motherboard that does everything this build actually uses, and every remaining pound in the processor and the graphics card - with excellent upgrade potential thanks to the robust components used

🧬 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 this board is generous on all three: 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.

📃 Specifications

• 🧠 CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
  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
  • No power limit imposed, and that is worth stating. In our small form factor machines this processor runs to a package ceiling because a 67mm cooler is all that fits. Here it has a full dual-tower cooler and 40 litres around it, so it runs as AMD intended with nothing held back
  • 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 a Curve Optimiser undervolt, which lowers temperatures and fan speed rather than raising clocks
  • Socket AM5, so a faster processor can go in later without replacing anything else
• ❄️ CPU cooler: upHere Gaming UE2KC6 dual-tower ARGB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • A dual-tower air cooler with six 6mm heatpipes and two 120mm PWM ARGB fans, rated to 265W and standing 155mm tall
  • Rated at 265W against a processor that draws well under half that in games. That is the whole argument for a dual tower: Rated power means it will run it without thermals going over 100c - so you need to overspec - just like we have here
  • Two fans in push-pull across two fin stacks, which is a fundamentally more effective arrangement than one tower with one fan, and it is where the step up from Secret Two lives
  • The ARGB matches the case fans and runs from the same board headers, so the machine reads as one thing through the glass rather than a collection of parts. It is also, frankly, the reason we chose this cooler over others at the price
  • At 155mm it clears the case's 175mm limit comfortably, and the fans can be removed without taking the cooler off if you ever need to service it
  • Mounted with thermal paste applied by hand rather than using a pre-applied pad
• 🔲 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. A card this heavy deserves a reinforced slot and this board has one as standard
  • 8+2+1 Dr.MOS power design. Plain English translation: substantially more power delivery than a 7800X3D asks for, with room for a 9800X3D later. ASRock do not publish an amperage figure for these power stages - typically they're 60A stages
  • 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. That is a real step up from the boards on Secret One and Two, which have two slots each
  • 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 running the fans and the cooler
  • This is an economical board by design and it is the right one for this build. If you want Wi-Fi 7 and USB4, 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, which is where the platform is happiest, and going faster on paper often makes it slower in practice. It matters more here than on the tiers below, because the X3D cache and the memory subsystem work together
  • 32GB is the right amount for a machine at this level. It covers modern games at high 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 from this tier up. TLC holds its speed during long sustained writes where a cheaper QLC drive slows down, and it has better write endurance. It costs more and we fit it here because 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. The 2TB option is below
  • 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: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • RDNA 4, 16GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus giving 640GB/s, with 64MB of Infinity Cache. Roughly 300W of card
  • A genuinely fast 1440p card with enough in reserve for 4K in most titles, and 16GB means the memory question simply does not come up
  • 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, not the 12V-2x6 plug. Simpler to route and one less thing to worry about. The power supply carries a native 12V-2x6 cable anyway, so a future NVIDIA card would drop straight in
  • Being straight about ray tracing and about streaming: RDNA 4 closed a lot of the gap but NVIDIA still leads on ray tracing, and the RTX 5070 Ti is the faster card with it turned up. NVENC is also the encoder most streaming software is built around. Where the 9070 XT wins is raster performance for the money, which at this price is a large win. If ray tracing or streaming is your priority, say so on live chat and we will talk you through the alternatives honestly
  • The chipset and VRAM are guaranteed: it will always be an RX 9070 XT 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. A card this size fits with room to spare, which is exactly why this build does not need any of the compromises our small machines make
  • 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, which is why the fans are where they are. If you would rather have a mesh front, there is a free case swap in the upgrade options below
  • 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, if you ever fit liquid cooling
  • 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
  • Fully compatible with rear-connect motherboards if you ever go that way
  • 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
  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. That is the airflow path this chassis was designed around, and it puts the coldest air in the room directly under a 300W card
  • 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, and on Secret Four. A card at this power level runs two eight-pin cables down past the floor mounts, and those cables are thicker and stiffer than the ones on a smaller card. 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
  • We do not fit top fans on any Secret build. With intake in the floor and exhaust at the rear, the airflow path is already doing its job, and three more fans would add cost and noise for very little
  • 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
• ⚡ Power supply: Montech Century II 850W 80+ Gold, fully modular
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 850W against a build that draws around 420W under a heavy gaming load. A comfortable margin that keeps the supply in its quiet, efficient band rather than working near its limit
  • Fully modular and 80 PLUS Gold. Only the cables you need are installed, which matters more than it sounds in a case with a glass front
  • ATX 3.1 certified with a native 12V-2x6 cable. This card does not need it, but it means a future NVIDIA card would drop straight in without an adapter
• 🔌 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 two eight-pin runs to the graphics card are routed away from the base fans and secured, which is the same problem the grilles are the second answer to
  • 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. 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, 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 four thousand pound machines get. This is the part of the Secret series we are proudest of: the price is lower, the build standard is not

  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. With a dual-tower cooler and 40 litres of case this build is already quiet, so this makes a quiet machine quieter rather than fixing a problem

  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. On this build that is worth having for the quiet rather than for frames. The real gains here are the memory tune, which the X3D cache responds well to, and the graphics card overclock, which on a 9070 XT is substantial
• 🛡️ 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

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

  A 300W card runs two thick eight-pin cables past the floor fan mounts. The grilles mean a cable can never reach a blade. We mention it because you will see them in the machine and we would rather you knew why they are there.

• The motherboard is economical 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. What it does not give you is Wi-Fi 7, USB4 or a premium audio codec. On a value build we think that is the right trade, and the X870 upgrade is there if you disagree.

• 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

  Worth taking on a machine at this level, since a card this capable tends to mean playing the large modern titles that run past 100GB each. You can also defer it, because this board has two more M.2 slots free.

• 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 it if cooling and airflow matter to you more than the look of a glass front, and on this build there is more heat to move than on the tiers below, so it is a more serious option here. 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, which makes it a cheaper upgrade here than on Secret One or Two.

• 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. It is also fully unlocked, unlike the 7800X3D, because the second-generation cache sits underneath the cores instead of on top, which gives the Ultimate Performance Tune more to work with. This board and cooler both have the headroom for it. Less worth it if you play mostly at 4K, where the graphics card sets the pace regardless.

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

  For enthusiasts rather than for most buyers. 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.

• 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?

• High refresh 1440p gaming at high to maximum settings
• 4K gaming in most titles, particularly with FSR 4
• Simulation games, large open worlds and heavily modded titles, where the X3D cache does its best work
• Competitive shooters at very high frame rates
• Streaming and recording, using the card's AV1 encoder
• Buyers who want serious performance and would rather pay for the processor and the card than for the badge on the motherboard

📊 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: 300-380 FPS
4K: 170-220 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

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

1440p: 95-120 FPS
4K: 55-70 FPS
Upscaling set to Auto (DLSS / FSR / XeSS based on GPU).

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

1440p: 150-185 FPS
4K: 85-105 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.