Can this 12th-gen rig power you to 1080p gaming joy?

LENGTH OF TIME: 1-2 HOURS

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: EASY

1 BACK TO BASICS

WE HAVE ANOTHER sweet-looking chassis to play with for this build. Thankfully, it’s a light case with many avenues to thread cables through. We remove both the front and back panels, top mesh filter, front grille, front filter, and case fans. Sounds like a heavy task but most of these are secured with thumbscrews and require a screwdriver at most.

We recommend resting the case down on its back when taking the front glass panel off to avoid dropping it. If we said we haven’t had accidents with glass panels, we’d be lying. Anyway, with just the Corsair’s 275R Airflow’s skeleton on show, we can get started on adding in the goodies.

2 ADDING THE LUNGS

BEFORE WE GO any further, we put in the stock fans. We will always need an exhaust fan, so we added this first. With one of the three stock fans we have on offer, we secured this onto the case, with the face of the fan looking inward. This will pull the warm air from the machine away and out the back. For the other two, we screwed them onto the front of the case using the top two spaces, facing the same direction as the exhaust fan. The fans here will bring cooler air in from outside, creating a nice stream of air that flows through our rig. With all of these fans, we made sure that the cables came out towards the back of the case, ready for routing.

3 SUPPLYING THE POWER

WE DON’T OFTEN add the PSU in at this stage, but we threw out the rule book for this month’s build. We’re not normally that impulsive but on this occasion, we just thought why not? It also adds a nice amount of weight to the bottom of the machine to keep things sturdy. To fit this in, it takes a few small case screws. You can get away with a couple but we always suggest using as many as possible, that’s four in our build. Annoyingly the RM750 logo is upside down, but on the flip side, this will be covered by the back panel.

4 CHIP IN

NOW THE POWER SUPPLY is in, we can focus on the motherboard and its components—starting with the most important of all, the CPU. The new 12th-gen chips feature a rectangular design, which makes this step even easier to get the right way round. Before we get there though, we need to lift the retention arm. Unhook the arm by gently pressing down on it and then pulling it to the side to release it. When installing the chip, always align the corner arrow on the chip with the one on the motherboard to ensure the correct orientation. Remember, don’t touch the pins when handling the CPU, only the sides. Once this is rested in place, clamp it down by hooking the retention arm back.