The Ultimate MSI Gaming PC

We take a look at MSI's latest Gungnir 300R Case

Table of Contents Table of Contents

*SPONSORED POST*

Building the best gaming PCs out there, is what we do here at WePC. This time around we had an absolute special treat in store, as MSI sent us its latest Gungnir 300R Airflow chassis. Although not overly known for their cases, the company has rapidly built a solid reputation as a fantastic chassis manufacturer with the Gungnir being one of its best cases thanks to some intuitive design decisions across the board.

The Gungnir 300R is built around maximising airflow output across its form-factor, all intuitively combined with some neat in-built features including an integrated, height-adjustable, GPU stand. Along with a number of other neat tricks and cable management features that we’ll get onto in just a moment.

It manages all this whilst coming it at just shy of £150, and comes with that bracket, a vertical GPU support and 4 RGB fans as standard for some impressive value too.

We’ve also gone with some additional epic MSI parts here as well. Including the MSI MAG Z790 Carbon WiFi motherboard, Spatium M480 Pro 1TB SSD, and the incredible MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 4070 Ti too. Let’s dive into the parts then shall we?

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Parts List

GPU	MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 4070 Ti
CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K
Cooler	MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360
Motherboard	MSI MAG Z790 Carbon WiFi
RAM	32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5 Memory
SSD	MSI Spatium M480 PRO 1TB SSD
Case	MSI Gungnir 300R
PSU	Cooler Master MWE Gold 1050 V2

Budget Alternatives – MSI’s RTX 4060 8GB GAMING X NV Edition

Ok, look, there’s no denying that this is a pricey rig. Intel Core i9-13900K, plus RTX 4070 Ti on their own there cost close enough to £1400. Fortunately the main core of this system is a versatile thing, and you can swap out parts easily enough for some better price-to-performance options. 

One such piece we’d highly recommend is MSI’s RTX 4060 8GB GAMING X NV Edition. This beautiful special edition card packs in some serious green flare, with some stunning yet subtle RGB lighting and that brilliant top-tier RTX 4060 performance we’ve come to admire.

On top of that it also comes with MSI’s Twin Frozr 9 cooling solution, featuring the TORX FAN 5.0, improving airflow by an impressive 23% compare to traditional axial fan tech.

If you’re dead set on 1440p gaming, and 60fps is more than enough, then this is the card for you. At half the cost of the RTX 4070 Ti in our core build here, it’s a fantastic solution for that, and inside the Gungnir 300R will be plenty cool as it fires those frames out of the door and onto your PC screen. 

Hardware Showcase

Let’s go into a bit of detail then on some of the real highlight stars of this build. We won’t go over some of the obvious components, or less exciting ones here. For instance, the Intel Core i9-13900K is a fantastic chip, but we’ve got a full review on that, and plenty of additional info on the new generation processors as well.

Likewise, the power supply and the memory, are fairly standard affairs too, but there are a few exceptions on some of these parts, we’ll definitely point out.

MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360

Speaking of the Intel Core i9-13900K, let’s talk about what exactly we’ve chosen to cool it. That’s the MAG CORELIQUID E360 from MSI. This beautifully affordable 360mm AIO is an absolute beast when it comes to keeping your chip chilled, complete with a full copper CPU block, an intuitive 12 pathway radiator, and an impressive three-phase motor the real party trick for this RGB beauty is in the block itself.

One of the biggest problems people have with coolers is placement in a chassis. Sure it’ll mount to the front or the roof just fine, but what about motherboard compatibility? That’s always the Achilles heel that’ll force you into mounting the block with the logo upside down, or at the wrong orientation. Some coolers with LCD screens allow you to change that in software, others, you can use Allen keys to remove the pump head entirely, and rotate it, in MSI’s case here? You twist it. Done. Less than 5 seconds, and bam, right orientation. Seriously, why has no one thought of this before?

Pump twisting aside, the CORELIQUID E360 also comes with 3 RGB fans as standard, intuitive RGB lighting in the block itself, full AM5 and LGA1700 compatibility, two different colorways (white and black), and, for a 360mm AIO comes in at an incredibly affordable £120.

MSI MPG GUNGNIR 300R AIRFLOW

The pièce de résistance of this whole build is of course, the Gungnir chassis we mentioned earlier. For the non-norse lovers out there, Gungnir is Odin’s legendary spear from ancient Norse mythology. Built by the dwarves known as the Sons of Ivaldi, the spear’s most prestigious property is always hitting its mark no matter what, and it’s safe to say that that’s exactly what MSI has managed to achieve with this iteration of the Gungnir.

Just take a look at the cooling capacity on this beauty. We’re talking room for twin 360mm radiators, up to 55mm thick (with one layer of fans on them). On top of that, the case supports up to 10 120mm fans total. 3 in the front, 3 in the roof, 1 in the rear, 1 in the GPU bracket itself, and two above the power supply shroud. 

It also comes, as standard with a hot-swappable vertical GPU bracket (although you will need to supply your own PCIe riser cable) if you really want to show-case your GPU, and an incredibly well-designed bracket too, that not only can be slid left and right, but also allows you to rotate it, adjust the depth of it, and adjust the height of the support brackets as well. And on top of all of that versatility, it’s also RGB… Like seriously, what can’t it do?

Combine that with E-ATX motherboard support (up to 280 x 305mm) GPUs up to 360mm in length, and some impressive cable management routing solutions in the rear of the chassis as well and it’s one seriously versatile case.

MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 4070 Ti

The party piece for this build however is the RTX 4070 Ti GAMING X TRIO 12G. If you want that sweet sweet 60fps 4K gaming experience then this is the card to get, and MSI hasn’t held back on this one either. With a custom PCB, TRI FROZR 3 cooler, full copper baseplate, and even a dual-bios solution specifically built out for when you want to switch between gaming and silent operation, it’s one heck of a card.

The thing even has reinforced support plates built into the card itself to better help distribute the load, and protect the card from any warping that might lead to poor contacts with thermal pads or paste, neat, huh?

Combine all that with MSI’s now legendary Afterburner GPU tuning software, and you’re onto a winner with this beauty.

MSI MAG Z790 Carbon WiFi

If you’re looking for a solid and dependable motherboard for your 13th or 14th gen processor, then MSI’s MAG Z790 Carbon WiFi is a solid and dependable pick. Aside from looking darn fine with that fully industrial design, it also packs in some impressive thermal cooling solutions under the hood, connecting those MOSFETs, along with an impressive array of I/O and connectivity across the board.

In fact there’s 4x M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots on the board along with 1x PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot as well just to start with.  Combine that with memory support up to 7600 MHz, and an exceptional rear I/O featuring 8 USB 3.2 Type A ports, and 2 USB 3.2 Type C ports, with full WiFi 6E support as well, and it’s darn near flawless, especially for just £380. 

The End Result

Those are the bulk of our hardware choices for this build, and some of the highlighting features that make it an epic system for any PC gamer today. Yes, it’s a bit of a 4K beast, and the price-tag will reflect that, but as we mentioned with the NV colourways there’s definitely ways around that, and with the Intel 14th gen right around the corner, the price of those still impressive 13th gen parts is bound to fall. Alternatively you could drop the Core i9, and opt for an i5 instead, and still achieve similar performance across the board.

One thing we didn’t mention is the storage on this beasty. We’d highly recommend something like the MSI SPATIUM M480 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD, 1 or 2TB dependent on your needs. It’s a fantastic drive and ideal for a gaming PC. Honestly, it’s just not worth using an old-school SSD any more, not when you can get speeds up to 8GB/s with one of these bad boys.

And there you have it folks, one crisp and pristine MSI 4K gaming PC, inside the incredible Gungnir 300R case, not bad, not bad.