CLX Set Scarab Gaming PC

There are plenty of options for anyone looking to spend less than $1500 on a rig. These entry-level gaming PCs offer up a good foundation for future upgrades but also mean you don't miss out on playing the newest games like Elden Ring at decent settings.

Personally, I think these PCs are often more interesting to check out than your $4,000 bruiser that'll play any game at 4K and beyond. While those are fun to mess around with, the reality is most people don't have that kind of scratch sitting in their bank accounts. The real challenge for system builders is providing a solid gaming experience, with the right components, for those without limitless funds. 

Named after the Egyptian God of War, the $1500 ($1,494 to be exact) CLX Set gaming PC is looking to place at the top of the pack in a crowded field of PCs all looking for space on your desktop. This compact gaming PC makes a good first impression out of the box, but much like the Egyptian Gods of Old, they can be fickle deities.  

The build I've received is from the CLX Set series desktops in a small form factor, micro ATX case. There's a pretty in-depth PC configurator on the website that lets you decide pretty much every component down to closed loop liquid cooling options. 

There are little boxes that tell you what sort of frame rate to expect from a handful of games. I would have liked to have seen some more contemporary games used in these sorts of part picker features on system builder sites. I'm sure GTA V is still very popular, but it's also almost a decade old. 

I was able to make a duplicate of the Set PC I was sent on the configurator to see what sort of lead time I'd get, which worked out at roughly two weeks. There doesn't seem to be much of a markup on components, either. Hell, even the GPUs seem reasonably priced which is becoming more and more of a welcome sight. 

CLX does also offer ready-to-ship PCs they can get out to you in a matter of days, though those can not be customized, which is a pretty common practice.

Inside this PC are neatly packed components ensuring that no space is wasted within the white CLX Mini-ITX chassis, with the requisite tempered glass side panel. Between the RAM and 120mm fans, the RGB-laden components provide a hell of a light show in the tight quarters, which are themselves controlled by software, or the LED button on the front panel. 

Speaking of components, an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, 16GB RAM, and an RTX 3060 GPU are powering the Set. We've seen how well the GeForce RTX 3060 performs as a lower-budget GPU on these systems and this time is no different. The Ryzen 5 CPU on the other hand didn't really perform up to the task, as you'll see shortly. 

Despite the lack of space, CLX still manages to pack in a full RTX 3060 GPU with some room to spare. It's a strange reversal from the system Redux sent, which had a motherboard and components sized for a much smaller case, despite sitting in a mid-sized chassis leaving an unusual amount of empty space within the PC.