Performance Analysis

Gaming performance is, as expected, very solid. Highly demanding titles like Deus Ex won’t be handled at 4K, but at 1080p or 1440p you’re not going to have many problems with a GTX 1080. The Ryzen cores keep it fed very well, although we have seen faster results when using an overclocked Intel Core i7-8700K, especially at lower resolutions and in VR where the CPU comes into play more, but in terms of the actual experience the Ryzen CPU barely lags behind.The more CPU-limited tasks give the Ryzen 7 2700X a real chance to shine, and the core-hungry Handbrake and Cinebench tests makes great use of the 16 threads. PCMark 10, meanwhile, splits work between the CPU and GPU via OpenCL; here Intel-based systems do better but only a little.

The NVMe drive from Samsung delivers excellent sequential and random read speeds; write speeds on both fronts are better elsewhere, but the differences won’t matter much to most and as usual the OS and applications were very responsive. The PCMark 8 storage traces show that typical workloads are neck and neck with other similar systems – this drive will rarely be a bottleneck.

The Magma Pro isn’t too power hungry, although the idle figure is a bit high and remember that neither the CPU or GPU are overclocked. Drawing 433W under load, we’d probably avoid adding another GTX 1080 (180W TDP) for SLI, though it could probably manage it. The good news is that if you later decide to do some overclocking, you’ve ample headroom.

Putting full stress on the CPU and GPU together allows us to assess thermals and noise. Idle, the system is acceptable on the noise front, but the fans do ramp up noticeably under load. The GPU cooler isn’t able to prevent the GTX 1080 from throttling slightly, and the fan here goes to over 2,000 RPM. Meanwhile, the front fans all spin up when the Ryzen 7 2700X really gets going. The CPU was still boosting comfortably to between 3.8GHz and 3.9GHz on all cores, and it never exceed 76°C, even on a very warm day when our lab was at 26°C ambient. No part of this system is too loud, but when gaming or rendering something you will notice it.

Conclusion

The Magma Pro is, to us, a very well-rounded system. If you’re a power user who likes producing videos just as much as gaming, it’s got many a box ticked with its 8c16t CPU and GTX 1080. Modern touches like USB 3.1 (rear panel only), tempered glass, and a decent RGB setup are always welcome too, of course. There are niggles, though, such as the lack of a CPU overclock, the underwhelming stock GPU cooler, and the M.2 placement which we think is not ideal.

So, clearly it’s not perfect, but is it worth £1,500? That’s a resounding yes. With GPU and RAM prices especially being what they are right now, pricing this system up ourselves at retail got us to a price almost £200 more than this. Shopping around, you could probably get this down, but when you consider that £1,500 includes the price of building the PC to a professional (though not outstanding) standard and a system-wide warranty, it looks even better. It’s important to know that this is a special price for this specific review system; customising any part of it will mean losing the best value (including asking for a CPU overclock), but thankfully the component choices work very well together.

All told, if you’ve been waiting eagerly for second-generation Ryzen CPUs, the Magma Pro is a powerful and excellent value option for those without the time or desire to build a system themselves.