RTX 5060: The ABS Flux II Aqua gets a $300 discount, but its older DDR4 platform and faster RTX 5070 alternatives costing just $100 more make the deal difficult to recommend.
With Black Friday approaching, Newegg is advertising a $300 discount on the ABS Flux II Aqua gaming PC. The desktop has dropped from $1,999.99 to $1,699.99, but that discount looks less impressive when compared with its recent pricing history. Newegg advertised the same configuration for $1,599.99 on October 11, making the current promotion $100 more expensive than an earlier sale.
Under the hood, the system pairs an ASUS GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GDDR7 graphics card with an Intel Core i7-14700F processor. It also packs 32GB of DDR4-3200 RAM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD.
The hardware can handle modern 1440p gaming and demanding productivity tasks. However, spending nearly $1,700 on a gaming desktop built around a midrange GPU and an aging Intel platform is difficult to justify, especially with faster alternatives already available.
RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Delivers Mixed Results At 1440p
The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB launched at a $429 MSRP, making it an unusual centerpiece for a $1,700 gaming desktop. Its additional graphics memory is useful in demanding games. In TechSpot’s testing of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at native 1440p using the Medium preset, the 16GB model delivered 82% higher average frame rates than the 8GB version.
The card also averaged 79 fps in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and 66 fps in Dying Light 2 at 1440p in TechSpot’s separate review benchmarks. However, its 128-bit memory interface and midrange processing hardware restrict performance in demanding ray-traced games.
NVIDIA’s DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation helps supported titles appear smoother by inserting AI-generated frames. These extra frames improve visual fluidity, but they do not reduce input latency like higher native frame rates. For buyers mainly interested in 1440p gaming, allocating more of the budget to a faster GPU makes better sense.
Powerful Intel Processor Comes With Platform Limitations
The Core i7-14700F uses 20 cores, divided into 8 Performance-cores and 12 Efficient-cores. Its hybrid design handles demanding applications, video editing, and gaming alongside livestreaming. It can also benefit CPU-intensive games such as Counter-Strike 2 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
The upgrade options are less appealing. The ASUS PRIME B760M-A AX D4 supports the included 32GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 RAM (2x16GB), but moving to DDR5 requires a motherboard replacement. Intel’s 14th-generation processors also mark the end of the main LGA1700 upgrade path, as newer Core Ultra desktop processors require the incompatible LGA1851 socket.
ABS pairs the processor with a Gamdias BOREAS E1-412 single-tower air cooler. Given the i7-14700F’s 219W maximum turbo power, cooling performance during sustained rendering workloads deserves attention.
Storage comes from a Patriot P400 Lite 1TB SSD. A spare M.2 slot allows expansion, while the included 650W 80 Plus Gold power supply is sufficient for the current components. Higher-power GPU upgrades may require a PSU replacement.
Faster RTX 5070 Gaming PCs Offer Better Value
Newegg also lists an ABS Flux II Aqua with an RTX 5070 12GB, the same Core i7-14700F, and 32GB of DDR4 for $1,799.99. That puts a substantially faster graphics card within $100 of the discounted RTX 5060 Ti system. Tom’s Hardware found the RTX 5070 averaged 31% higher performance than the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB at 1440p across its test suite.
Buyers willing to change platforms have another option. An ASUS desktop with a Ryzen 7 8700F, RTX 5070, and 32GB of DDR5 is also listed at $1,799.99. For the same $100 premium, this configuration combines a faster gaming GPU with newer memory technology.
At $1,699.99, the RTX 5060 Ti configuration is not a compelling buy. Newegg has already advertised it for $1,599.99, while competing RTX 5070 systems deliver better gaming performance for a relatively small additional investment. With Black Friday approaching, waiting for a deeper discount or spending the extra $100 on a better-balanced desktop makes more sense.
Also read: PS5 Pro Versus Ryzen 5 5600X: Why GPU Bottlenecks Mislead PC Builders
Anup Singh is an independent technology journalist and content writer covering Apple, Android, AI, laptops, gaming, and the consumer tech industry. He focuses on delivering factual, well researched, and easy to understand reporting while explaining how new technologies impact everyday users.