It seems strange that a new system builder would enter the competition to win the crown of best gaming PC, but that's exactly what EK has done with the 250 Conquest. EKWB is best known for its water cooling hardware, making water blocks, tubes, pumps, fittings, and reservoirs (Jacob recently upgraded his PC with an EKWB kit). Basically, everything you need for a serious high-end build. It is a respected brand and is generally considered one of the better brands when it comes to combining the old H-2-O with computer components. It is therefore not surprising that all of their PCs come standard with water cooling.

There are currently six different configurations available, with this EK Fluid Gaming PC 250 Conquest being the most affordable option at $1,899. Since water-cooled PCs are usually reserved for high-end system builders, it's good to see a more affordable (at least relatively speaking) build. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before using the machine, an important task must be done: fill the loops; the sheet that falls out when you take the PC out of the box says "plug and play," but this is not a ready-to-plug-in system. Doing so is not good for the CPU or GPU because there is no water in the loop. However, distilled water (or Cryofuel as EK calls it) is in the box along with a filling bottle (which simplifies the whole filling process).

Following the instructions is easy: pour the Cryofuel into the filling bottle, remove the front and side panels, unscrew the filling ports, fill the distribution plate, and turn on the power. You will need to redo this process several times while waiting for the liquid to be pushed into the machine.

Once the liquid is filled, this is a heavy system (40 pounds is a reasonable weight for any PC), it is also chunky and much wider than a regular mid-tower case, at just under 11 inches. This should be kept in mind if it is to be placed on a desk (in fact, this is a machine that should be shown off). The installed Asus Aura Sync utility allows you to change the lighting and find the perfect light show.

The review machine is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600X and an AMD Radeon RX 5700. Both are in the mainstream Red camp and are great choices for 1080p gaming. Both are water-cooled using EK hardware and fed by a large distribution plate on the front of the case. This plate is also illuminated with RGB LEDs.

EK shows off its build using a Lian Li PC0011D, and the end result is an incredibly good looking system. This is helped by the fact that the power supply is hidden behind the motherboard tray and all the cabling is fairly unobtrusive. The whole thing is beautifully lit up as well; it's rare that RGB doesn't look like unicorn vomit, but EK pulled it off.

The rest of the specs are solid, though nothing too exciting; the Asus Prime X570 Pro is a capable motherboard, boasts a decent feature set, and looks great lit up by the wavy RGB lights. The motherboard does not support Wi-Fi as standard, but EK has bundled an Intel 3168-powered daughter card that supports 802.11ac networking.

The system comes standard with 16GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM. The review sample is equipped with a Crucial Ballistix kit, but EK plans to switch to G.Skill Trident RGB 3200MHz memory in the future. The RGB of the Ballistix memory is slightly off from the rest of the system and the colors do not match the motherboard at all; the hard pipe from the CPU block runs in front of the RAM sticks, but there is enough clearance to remove or add sticks.

The 500GB Samsung 970 Evo NVMe SSD combined with a 1TB hard drive is the only real downside to this system. While it may be a practical and affordable choice, the idea of putting the latest games on a hard drive spinning up in 2020 makes me nervous; SATA SSDs are my preference. A boot drive with only 500GB of space is not ideal either. The 970 Evo is a great drive, but given that this motherboard/CPU supports PCIe 4.0, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

This is hard-piped, so replacing components is not always easy. However, it is not impossible and EK connects straight to the distribution plate, which means you don't have to disassemble the whole thing if you want to upgrade one component. At least that is possible since the kit comes with a drain pipe.

The Ryzen 5 3600X is a powerful 6-core, 12-thread CPU that will happily handle any multi-threaded apps. At this level of cooling, the chip is much closer to its maximum boost clock of 4.4GHz than the normal 3.8GHz, and it shows its full potential in straight CPU tests. If you need serious horsepower for rendering or video encoding, you'll want to opt for the 270 Conquest with 3900X, but the chip is adequate for normal work.

Gaming performance at 1080p is also sound, with all tests showing silky smooth frame rates at the highest in-game settings. We are so accustomed to Nvidia's RTX graphics cards in pre-built systems that we tend to forget that the AMD Radeon RX 5700 is more than adequate for normal gaming. Obviously, the inability to run ray tracing on the few titles that support it is not the end of the world; 1440p is not out of the question either, but more demanding titles may require a bit more effort than just setting everything to max! ...

That said, one would normally expect a bit more raw performance for this amount of money. But the water block, fittings, pipes, and huge front distribution plate cost quite a bit. Not bad at all. Sure, it is possible to build a system that offers the same performance for much less than this, but it won't look as good or be as quiet.

It is worth noting here that while EK touts the PC 250 Conquest's quietness as one of its main selling points, it is at least not always a completely silent rig. Under normal use, it is whisper quiet, especially when compared to PCs with AIO coolers, but when the CPU is pushed hard, such as in Cinebench R20, the three ceiling fans kick up a gear and become noticeably louder. Even at this point, the CPU's maximum temperature remains at 72°C, indicating that it is at least getting the most out of the chip.

All in all, there is a lot to like here. It is incredibly attractively built and very well put together. The fact that it is fully water-cooled, yet the main components are easily accessible and upgradable if needed is certainly a plus. I would have liked to have seen more powerful storage, including a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD for starters, but other than that, I can't get rid of this from what is otherwise an incredible build. According to EK, system configuration options will also be offered, with the option of choosing a high-capacity SSD at the time of purchase.

There is always a huge divide when it comes to pre-built PCs. One side wants everyone to build their own system, the other side wants the peace of mind that a pre-built warranty brings, and the fact that EK has created a machine that looks so good, runs so quietly, and is backed by a three-year warranty makes a compelling argument. While I usually encourage everyone to build their own system at least once (you'll learn so much more), I won't hold it against you if you're attracted to this product.