The ASUS ROG GD30 is the Taiwanese company's first gaming desktop to feature such a heavy emphasis on user upgradeability and customizations. It draws inspiration from the iconic stormtroopers of the Star Wars series with a two-piece removable white front panel, making for quite a distinctive look.
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The monochrome look is a welcome departure from the traditional red, black, and copper accents of ROG products. A 2D layout of the front panel is available for download, and you'll be able to create your own custom decals for a more personal touch.
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Here's a look at one of the alternative looks you can achieve by removing the top piece of the two-piece front panel. A DVD RW drive sits behind, and you'll need to pop off that section of the panel anyway if you want to access the drive.
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There are two USB 3.1 (Gen 1) and two USB 2.0 ports on the front panel, in addition to separate jacks for your headphone and microphone. Finally, there's a built-in card reader as well, which is quite a welcome convenience.
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The white front panel pieces can be removed to reveal a sleek, all-black chassis.
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The see-through side panel shows off the machine's innards, but its partly obscured by a honeycomb mesh backing. This is actually what ASUS refers to as an "iron screen", and it's supposed to reduce electromagnetic emissions from the components. This sounds a little gimmicky, but hey, it's great for you if you're paranoid.
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There's a distinctive Mayan-inspired design at the top, a hallmark of the ROG series.
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The interior of the case is fairly neat, and the 500 watt power supply and the majority of the cables are obscured by a full-length PSU shroud.
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The ROG Strix GD30 relies on a stock Intel cooler for cooling, which should be sufficient for the locked Intel Core i7-7700 (3.6GHz, 8MB L3 cache) that it ships with.
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The system is equipped with two 16GB sticks of DDR4 2,400MHz Samsung memory.
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The card here is an ASUS Turbo GeForce GTX 1080 with a blower-style fan that dumps heat out the back of the case, but retail units will only come with up to a GeForce GTX 1070. A GPU bracket helps support the weight of the graphics card and makes the installation more secure.
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There's onboard Wi-Fi as well, provided courtesy of a Qualcomm Atheros QCNFA435 module.
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There's space for a 240mm liquid-cooling radiator up top, or two 120mm fans. The clearance room appears fairly generous, so you should be able to fit quite a thick radiator in there.
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The side panels are each held in place by three screws, and you'll have to slide the panels backwards quite forcefully in order to remove them. We'd have preferred to see thumbscrews here, as they're far easier to work with.
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The drive here is a 1TB Toshiba model, and you'll find room for five other 3.5-inch HDDs and two 2.5-inch SSDs.
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There are a total of four USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and one USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-C port at the rear. Things look a bit plain here, but that'll be mitigated slightly by the 120mm Cooler Master exhaust fan that glows red when the PC is powered on.
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Finally, the top cover can be pried off to reveal the radiator fan mounts. Like the side panels, this requires a considerable amount of force which you'll have to be unafraid to apply.
Check here for specs, pricing and availability details.
