You did it. You've set aside some money to buy a new gaming PC, but you realize you don't know where to start. You kind of have an idea of what you want, but the thought of finding parts and assembling a PC is stressful. So Redux wants to build a PC based on what you're trying to play so you don't feel like you're splurging on parts and labor costs.

The "Good" model Redux provided for review costs $1,415 and is powered by an Intel Core i5 12400F and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, making it one of the company's cheaper PCs If you're looking for a 1080p gaming machine, Redux has a lot of options for you, Redux's good tier PCs are a great choice. Redux's website offers a variety of basic types to choose from: "Good," "Better," and "Best," with three price ranges to choose from. If your budget is limited, you can quickly choose a lane. Next, Redux will have you select the top three games from a list of popular PC games and the ideal resolution for playing those games; Redux will generate a build list (editable) with components that fit that criteria, and you're ready to go.

Other boutique sites offer this kind of functionality, but Redux's is the easiest to use.

Building, setting up, and testing (basically labor) only adds $100 to the overall price of the build, regardless of which configuration you choose. Inevitably, you will pay MSRP for all components except the GPU. For most RTX 30 series video cards, this averages $200 above list price.

This is surprising considering that most PC builders make the most profit from assembling PCs and can easily add several hundred dollars to the cost of a custom rig.

The only things that cannot be customized seem to be the case, fans, motherboard, and power supply; Redux seems to be using the same case, the Cooler Master TD500 RGB custom case, with a nice looking front panel showing off three RGB fans (five in total inside) Feature. An odd disappointment is that there is no USB Type-C connection anywhere on the PC.

A casual user might not mind not having a choice of power supply, but for me, I would like to have some options in case I want to upgrade my GPU in the future.

However, for me, I want some choices in case I want to upgrade my GPU in the future.

However, Redux's semi-automatic configurator will adjust what level of power comes with the rig if you choose a higher power GPU. This RTX 3060-powered machine has a 700W power supply, while the RTX 3090 Ti system has a 1KW power supply.

Inside is an Asus Prime B660M-A AC D4, which as you can see from the pictures is a fairly small micro ATX motherboard. This leaves a comically large space available inside the case. The system looks and works perfectly fine, but looking at the system from the side, the desktop looks as if something is missing, as all the bits are regulated to the upper left corner.

To avoid looking awkward, I would have preferred a smaller case or not a glass panel. That said, cable management was flawless, and I had no problems setting up the PC; kudos to the Redux shipping team.

Another small upgrade to consider is a larger SSD; the Kingston NVMe M.2 SSD is a pretty good drive, but it is only 500GB, so anyone with a large library will have to make some choices or spend a little extra. Upgrading the build to a 1TB drive would only cost another $40.

In benchmarks, the closest competitor to the Redux Good model is the Ryzen 5-powered NZXT Streaming PC with similar specs, which is within $10 of the Redux system; the NZXT also has an RTX 3060.

In my tests, the Redux PC slightly outperformed NZXT's slightly more expensive mid-range PC by a small frame margin in nearly every gaming benchmark we threw at it.

However, in heavily loaded games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus, both systems scored about the same. In Cyberpunk 2077, Redux averaged only about 29 fps, which is not great. However, with DLSS on, we were able to get 61 fps in Night City. I could have gotten more frames by lowering the graphics settings from Ultra, but why did I do that?

Gaming Performance

System Performance

On the CPU front, the Intel i5 12400F on the Redux easily outperformed NZXT's Ryzen 5 5600X in almost every benchmark category; the Cyberpower Infinity X125 review confirmed similar CPU performance, which remains one of the better sub-$1000 gaming PCs.

Redux's "Good" gaming PC left me with a good impression: great performance for around $1400, good case design, and a well-made system; the lack of a USB Type-C port is a concern, but an excellent potential upgrade in the future If you're looking for a starter PC, Redux has you covered; Redux is a good system for PC gamers who just want to play games and not worry too much about the actual contents.