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Wired2Fire Phoenix Intel Review Ratings
generalize
Wired2Fire Phoenix is a great mid-range gaming PC, perfect for 1080P or 2560P. Build quality is excellent, and the overall cost of a PC is about the same as buying the components individually and building it yourself.
advantage
- Affordable PCs that match or are buying components individually.
- Windows 11, builds, and 5-year warranty are basically free
- Great for 1080P gaming, works well at 2560×1440
shortcoming
- No Modular, Bronze Budget PSU
- No RGB fan on motherboard/GPU/CPU cooler
- There are some inconsistencies between product page specs and deliverables, although these are usually upgrades.
I previously reviewed the excellent Wired2fire Predator last October, which used an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and an RTX 3060 Ti. That’s an impressive midrange PC idea for 2560×1440 gaming.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been looking at the more affordable Wired2Fire Phoenix Intel powered by the MSI line of PCs made by Wired2fire.
This computer uses the latest 12th gen Intel Core i5 12400F CPU and MSI Nvidia Ventus 2X RTX 3060 GPU. To keep costs down, the motherboard is a DDR4 compatible micro-ATX MAG B660M Mortar.
It’s geared towards 1080P gaming, although I tested it at 2560×1440 and found it to be quite capable at this resolution.
Specification
| Wired 2 Fire Phoenix Intel | Retail Component Pricing |
|---|---|
| MSI MAG VAMPIRIC 100R RGB | £50 |
| Intel Core i5-12400F | £170 |
| Arctic Freezer 34 | £30 |
| MSI Nvidia Ventus 2X RTX 3060 | £479.95 |
| ADATA XPG 16GB DDR4 3000MHz Dual Memory | £70 |
| MAG B660M Mortar Wifi DDR4 | £180 |
| 1TB Lexar NM610 M.2 2280 NVMe | £100 |
| MSI MAG A550BN | £45 |
| all | £1124.95 |
The stock configuration for this build indicates that the GPU is an MSI GeForce RTX 3060 VENTUS 2X LHR. What I actually got is the MSI GeForce 3060 VENTUS 3X 12G OC, which is the triple fan version. The VENTUS 3X is an excellent card, and I’m guessing these changes will happen due to inconsistent stock levels of GPU and other components.
Prices and suggested changes
the default configuration of Phoneix Intel £1099.
I’d recommend paying the extra £8 for 16GB of standard DDR4 3600MHz. I’m also considering switching to a 1TB Samsung 980 PCIe 4.0 NVMe.
If you can bump your budget up a bit, spending an extra £93 on the MSI Ventus 2X OC RTX 3060 Ti will boost gaming performance significantly.
PSUs are harder. It’s a very budget PSU, and being rated Bronze rather than modular isn’t ideal. Many would advise against going cheap on a PSU. While I prefer a better PSU, all other good options come at a high price. Both the PC and PSU come with a 5 year warranty, so I’m not sure if the extra cost on the Corsair PSU is worth it.
Alternatives – how much does it cost compared to building it yourself?
| 3XS Gamer 3060 | |
|---|---|
| Corsair iCUE 220T RGB | £73 |
| ASUS PRIME B660-PLUS D4 | £200 |
| Intel Core i5 12400F | £170 |
| Quiet! Pure Rock 2 | £34 |
| Corsair Vengeance LPX 3600MHz | £74 |
| EVGA Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 | £479.95 |
| Corsair CX550M semi-modular | £55 |
| 1TB WD Blue SN570 | £85 |
| all | £1170.95 |
As a comparison, I looked at Scan’s competing systems and tried to price the system as a self-build system.
With GPU prices fluctuating so much and inventory levels constantly changing, my component prices may change.
The MSI Nvidia Ventus 2X RTX 3060 was on sale for £539 when I started writing this, but it’s now £479.95 on Amazon
Then the 1TB Lexar NM610 is listed on Amazon for £100, but you can get a better NVMe drive for less.
So I price a similar system at £1095. My system price does not include Windows 11 licenses. So you can save a little money compared to building it yourself.
Check out Scan, they have the 3XS Gamer 3060. Priced at £1191. Essentially the same, using a B660 motherboard, RTX 3060 and Intel Core i5 12400F. I would say the scanning system is a bit better. You have 3600MHz DDR4 as standard, and a better PSU. Scan only offers 3 and 5 years of support.
Therefore, I think Wired2Fire Phoenix is a good value compared to competing system builders and building their own systems.
Delivery and Packaging
Just like the Wired2fire Predator, delivery and packaging are excellent. The PC was delivered by DPD, so I got a 1 hour window and regular notifications.
The PC comes in a huge outer box, then it’s filled with air packs, and then the PC is in the original box. The company ships the motherboard box with all your cables, but they still don’t ship the GPU box, which will make it harder to sell your GPU if you want to upgrade later.
Then protect the PC’s components with Instapak expandable foam wrap.
Overall, I cannot fault the overall packaging. Removing the GPU for shipping is arguably a safer option, but if you’re buying a pre-built system, you don’t want to start installing your own components.
Build quality
The build quality is so good that I can’t criticize it enough. Cable management is particularly impressive. Not only did they keep the visible part of the case neat, but Wired2fire also tidyed up the bottom of the motherboard.
PCs are much better assembled than I would have assembled myself, and it’s worth considering when considering pre-build vs. self-build. As much as I love building a brand new PC, I don’t have the patience for all the cable management.
The case is budget, but nothing special. My main problem with cheap cases is that build systems are less pleasant because they’re harder to use, but that doesn’t apply here.
Thankfully, Wired2Fire ditched the backup cooler and replaced it with the Arctic Freezer 34. It’s a budget cooler, but it’s so good that you wouldn’t do any extreme overclocking with it, but I found it kept everything cool while being pretty much silent.
Overall, the fan noise is very good. Under light load, my main work PC easily drowns out any noise the Wired2Fire makes.
It’s worth noting that the product page says “Wired2Fire Heatpipe CPU Cooler” and the associated picture suggests that the cooler has an RGB fan, but that’s not the case. The only RGB comes from the rear case fan and front panel. I don’t have a strong feeling for RGB, so it doesn’t bother me, but when you have a glass side panel, the unlit interior might look a little weird. If you want RGB, I don’t recommend any upgrade options; you have a top-notch Noctua cooler without LEDs, or you’ll have to spend £86 to upgrade to an MSI MAG CORELIQUID C240 CPU AIO liquid cooler.
performance/benchmarks
This PC is designed to perform best at 1080P, but overall it runs most things pretty well at 2560×1440, which is the resolution I use for all my benchmarks.
It can comfortably play the vast majority of the latest modern games on the highest settings.
- 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 8475 (graphics card: 8672, CPU: 7512)
- 3DMark 13 – Time Spy Extreme: 4090 (graphics card: 4077, CPU: 41692)
- PCMark 10: 7175 (Basic: 10016, Productivity: 9392, Digital Content Creation: 10657)
- Far Cry 6: Average 71fps, Highest 79fps, Lowest 60fps
- Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Benchmark:
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Benchmarks: 82fps average, 49 minutes, 146 max
- Crystal plate: 2413MB/s read 1903MB/s write
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is notoriously challenging to run at its highest settings, making it one of the most GPU-demanding games in recent years.
With this, it’s not just a case of using preset settings or dialing as high as possible. I had to screw up a few things in order for the game to work well.
As with the other benchmarks, I’m at 2560×1440, it might be worth dropping down to 1080P so you can crank up the settings.
What I’ve achieved is:
- Ray Tracing: Ultra:
- Ray Tracing: Medium
Switching DLSS from Auto to performance can significantly improve performance.
- Ray Tracing Off, High Quality, DLSS Performance:
- Ray Tracing On, High Quality, DLSS Performance: .
overall
WIred2Fire Phoenix is a great mid-range gaming PC, perfect for 1080P or 2560P.
The build quality is excellent, I am impressed with the cable management and the fan noise is very low.
The components cost slightly more than the system sells, so you get the full version, Windows 11, and a 5-year free warranty.
