the Alder Lake machine
A NEW GENERATION
IT’S GOOD ON PAPER. BUT HOW WILL THIS ‘NEW GEN’ SYSTEM ACTUALLY PERFORM?
LENGTH OF TIME: 2-3 HOURS
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM
1 CASE OPENING
HERE IT STANDS, all tall and proud. We’ve said it before, but this is one huge battleship. The 7000D AIRFLOW is an impressive feat from Corsair and feels as rugged as ever. Yes, it’s pricey. But the build quality and size lends itself to this type of price tag. It features great accessibility with tidy cable management solutions around the back. There are also plenty of panels that pop off to allow for easier cable routing. We also love the wing-style side panel doors, reminiscent of a supercar. For a showcase build, we think it fits the profile nicely. First though, we pop open the wingstyle panels and take off the front panel.
2 MOTHERBOARD PREP
BEFORE WE DIVE straight into this one and pop the motherboard into the case, we first need to prep it for the CPU. It’s also much easier to attach all the necessary parts to the board before installing it. Yes, there is a lot of room around the board with this case but it’s a good habit to work out the case first. Before we touch the CPU, we remove the plastic piece under the CPU latch. You don’t actually need to do this, as it will pop out when you secure it down anyway, but it works either way round. To open the latch, lift the retention arm up slowly out of its catch. Push it down initially and to the right to release it. Easy-peasy.
3 ALDER LAKE INSTALL
NOT ONLY DOES Intel’s new processor bring a vast amount of architectural and generational changes but it also features a new socket, the LGA 1700, found on our Z690-E board from ASUS. Thankfully, this doesn’t alter how we insert the CPU. Align the two triangles from the processor and the socket to make sure it’s going in the right way. Then by grabbing the sides gently, rest it down into place, making sure not to touch any of the pins underneath. Once it is seated correctly, we pull the retention arm back down towards the latch and tuck it in to lock it in place.
4 DDR5 TIME
JUST AS THE design hasn’t changed all that much from DDR4 to DDR5, nor has the installation process, which is a good thing. Installing the DIMM sticks is one of the easiest parts of building a PC and gives us a little bit of time to relax in the build. Before installing, we always refer back to the motherboard’s manual if we are using fewer than the full amount of possible DIMM slots. As we have only two sticks of DDR5 to use, we need to use the correct slots and this turns out to be slots 2 and 4. After identifying the correct slots, we push back the RAM tabs on the board and make sure the pins are aligned with the slots. Once happy, we push them in and they click nicely into place.