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Velocity Raptor Z95A Gaming PC Shows What Leaving It to the Pros Looks Like

Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A Buy at Velocity Micro Pros Excellent gaming performance Tidy interior Ample upgrade options Cons Considerably more expensive than DIY So-so front connections Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A Buy at Velocity Micro If you want an extreme gaming PC without bloatware or the tedious work of configuring and building it yourself, the Velocity Micro SX3 Raptor Z95A stands out as a compelling option. It's pricey, but the folks at custom builder Velocity Micro put together a tidy system using almost exclusively standardized parts, leaving the door open for future upgrades. While it's frequently cheaper to build on your own -- at the very least, you save on the cost of labor -- the Raptor Z95A manages to be fairly competitive with other systems in its class, like the $3,899 Corsair Vengeance a7400 or $4,699 Vengeance i8200, though it leaves room to be undercut by systems like this $2,750 Asus ROG G700 with an RTX 5080 of its own. The Z95A is built around a few core elements that don't change, no matter the configuration. It's centered around a Gigabyte Aorus Pro X870E motherboard and Velocity Micro's SX3 case -- a 55-liter tower that fits ATX and EATX motherboards. Closed-loop liquid cooling is also a central feature, with a 360mm radiator and the option for RGB-lit fans. Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A Price as reviewed $3,999 Size 55 liter ATX (19.3 x 18.9 x 9.25in/490 x 480 x 235 mm) Motherboard Gigabyte Aorus Pro X870E CPU 2.5GHz AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Memory 64GB DDR5-5600 Graphics 16GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 FE Storage 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD Connections USB 2.0 (x2 rear), USB 3.0 (x2 front), USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2 (x1 front), USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (x4 rear), USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (x3 rear), USB4 (x2 rear), 3.5mm audio connector (x1 front, x2 rear), Optical S/PDIF (x1 rear), 2.5GbE (x1 rear), Antenna x2, HDMI (x1 on motherboard Networking 2.5GbE, Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7 802.11be, Bluetooth 5.4 Operating system Windows 11 Home 24H2 The configurations start at $2,549. At that price, you get a Ryzen 5 9600X processor with 32GB of DDR5-5200, a 750-watt 80 Plus Bronze power supply, a 1TB Kingston NV3 SSD, and an RTX 5060 8GB. (The "A" in Z95A refers to AMD. There's a Z95i based on Intel CPUs.) Our test configuration bumps up a Ryzen 7 9800X3D with 64GB of DDR5-6000, an 850-watt 80 Plus Gold power supply (an MSI MAG A850GL in this case), a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD and an RTX 5080. When the unit was prepped, it was listed at $3,999, though currently it's sitting at $4,644, partly because of volatile component prices. That's far from the peak of the pricing. Higher CPU, GPU, memory, and storage options can ramp the price up dramatically. Bumping up our test configuration up to the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and RTX 5090 alone would raise the price to just under $7,000. Josh Goldman/CNET If you tried to build it out piece by piece yourself, the configuration would cost roughly $3,000. This would be with largely identical parts, though calls for a different case and cooler, as Velocity Micro uses its own exclusive case and cooler. The extra $1,000 (or $1,644 at the current price) may be worth it for some, as it comes with some peace of mind that the cooling has been done effectively, the hardware is backed with a warranty, and the cable runs are kept neat. If you configure it yourself, you'll also have to bark up the tree of graphics card pricing. Unless you can get your hands on an RTX 5080 FE at its $1,000 retail price (or used), you might see your price leap up considerably. Clean but not too eye-catching "Micro" might be in the name, but there's nothing small about the Velocity Micro SX3 Raptor Z95A. The 55L SX3 case sits in the border between an ATX full and mid tower, able to accommodate as large as an E-ATX motherboard. As configured here, there's plenty of room inside the case thanks to the modest proportions of the RTX 5080 Founders Edition; it will be a little tighter with beefier GPU designs. Josh Goldman/CNET The case doesn't stand out. It's a rather stately black build with a healthy combination of solid aluminum, perforated aluminum, and a glass side panel. There are a few plastic elements around the front, but they don't stick out or make the case seem cheap. The front grille offers plenty of air for the three intake fans while keeping the perforations small and tightly packed. Hair and dust are still likely to get sucked in, but the grille should keep a good deal out still. Velocity Micro's 360mm radiator attaches at the top of the case and gets three more 120mm fans exhausting through it. This placement is smart, as it avoids feeding the graphics card pre-warmed air from the radiator. There's one more 120mm exhaust fan in the rear. While this does mean there are more exhaust fans than intakes -- creating the risk of negative pressure that could pull dust into the system from gaps in the case -- the air resistance provided by the radiator should help prevent this. The front fans also have a mostly clear line to the back of the case, so they blow hard enough out the back to keep dust from entering through the less-filtered holes there. Josh Goldman/CNET Velocity Micro has done tidy work with the cable management. Cable runs are kept mostly out of sight, appearing only for the short distance they have to travel to plug into the motherboard and other components. Surprisingly, the backside of the case, behind the motherboard, isn't a complete rat's nest either. The lack of pre-wired SATA cable runs is a little disappointing, especially when the system includes two 3.5-inch drive bays in the basement of the case, near the power supply, and two 2.5-inch drive mounting points. I wasn't thrilled to see the hoses for the CPU cooler touching the GPU radiator fins, either. The hoses may degrade from contact with the hot metal, and the airflow out of the back of the GPU is likely impacted. Josh Goldman/CNET The motherboard offers a great selection of ports, including 2.5Gb Ethernet to go on top of the Wi-Fi 7 support. The front I/O is limited with just two USB-A ports, a USB-C port, and a 3.5mm combo jack. The case allows the front I/O to sit either on the left side near the bottom or up at the top edge. The muscle 4K gaming calls for The Z95A is an extreme-performance system. It pairs some of the most powerful gaming PC hardware on the market for both high-frame-rate and quality 1080p and the horsepower to handle 4K gaming with cranked-up settings. In all of our game benchmarks, the system was happy to run at an average of more than 150fps at 4K, and that's without even tapping into the advanced Nvidia DLSS optimizations available to it, like Frame Generation. Monster Hunter Wilds' benchmark ran at 64fps in 4K with Ultra settings and DLAA enabled. Dialing back to 1080p but leaving other settings unchanged, it hit 120fps on average. That's without Frame Generation, which Monster Hunter Wilds encourages you to enable. Josh Goldman/CNET It can also keep on trucking even under demanding loads. In 3DMark's Steel Nomad stress test, the Raptor Z95A sustained its frame rate over 20 runs with a top score of 8285 (83fps) and a lowest score of 8139 points (81fps) -- that's just some run-to-run variability, not a steady decline in performance. The fans kick up a bit to sustain this performance, but they're not very loud or shrill. Beyond gaming, the Raptor Z95A holds up in high-end everyday operation, and it's well-suited to AI applications with the RTX 5080 tucked inside. It has some of the fastest CPU performance I've seen from systems I've tested for CNET, although some of the top-end Intel chips still rival it for single- and multi-core performance. Naturally, all this power comes with some heat, and it spits plenty out the top and rear. But the important thing is that it's spitting that heat out. The CPU manages to level off around 52 degrees Celsius, and the GPU levels off around 72. Working inside the case shouldn't be terribly difficult, as it's quite spacious. And because Velocity Micro has used all standardized components, your upgrade options will be basically limitless. The AM5 platform of the motherboard should be supported for a while yet, and the case has plenty of room for much beefier graphics cards in the future. All in all, it's a fast, solid build that should allow for enough upgradability to offset the high price over time. Geekbench 6 (single core) Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 2,273 Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 2,427 HP Omen 35L 2,656 Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 2,833 Dell XPS 8960 2,948 Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 3,062 Alienware Area-51 3,149 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 3,303 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Geekbench 6 (multicore) Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 9,947 Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 12,091 HP Omen 35L 12,745 Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 16,959 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 18,338 Dell XPS 8960 18,699 Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 18,735 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Cinebench 2024 CPU (multicore) Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 749 Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 783 HP Omen 35L 961 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 1,321 Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 1,431 Dell XPS 8960 1,554 Alienware Aurora R16 1,806 Alienware Area-51 2,313 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Shadow of the Tomb Raider gaming test (1080p) Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 142 Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 148 Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 174 HP Omen 35L 174 Alienware Aurora R16 226 Alienware Area-51 248 Dell XPS 8960 250 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 362 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS) Guardians of the Galaxy gaming test (4K) HP Omen 35L 139 Alienware Area-51 177 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 187 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance (FPS) 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra Lenovo LOQ Tower 17IRR9 (90WY0000US) 6,007 Lenovo Legion Tower 5i 26IRB8 (90UT001AUS) 6,232 Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti 7,277 Alienware Aurora R16 9,927 HP Omen 35L 16,426 Dell XPS 8960 17,525 Alienware Area-51 21,463 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 21,665 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance 3DMark Speed Way (DX12 Ultimate) HP Omen 35L 7,335 Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 7,425 Dell XPS 8960 7,520 Alienware Area-51 8,717 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 9,009 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance The Rift Breaker CPU (1080p) HP Omen 35L 131 Alienware Aurora R16 163 Alienware Area-51 166 Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 184 Dell XPS 8960 202 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 268 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Procyon Stable Diffusion XL Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 8 34IRZ8 3,444 HP Omen 35L 3,656 Velocity Micro Raptor Z95A 4,257 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance