Corsair crafted a menacing gaming PC in the Vengeance a5100 (starts at $3,999.99; $6,999.99 as tested), loaded out with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card in its sizable dual-chamber chassis. It’s unapologetically loud, obscenely powerful, and boy, does it take up a lot of desk space. While you'll be impressed by this rig's performance, we've tested others that can pump out similar frame rates for less cash, with less noise, and a smaller footprint, like the Editors' Choice-award-winning Velocity Micro Raptor Z55a.

Configurations: Navigating the Nitty Gritty

At first glance online, you'll find just two Vengeance a5100 configurations, each with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU (eight cores, 16 threads, up to 4.7GHz). One model includes an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 memory (clocked at 6,400MHz), and a 2TB SSD for $3,999.99, while the other features an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, twice as much RAM, and two 2TB SSDs for $6,999.99. (I've tested the latter configuration for this review.)

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

From either of these two configuration pages, you can change the CPU and RAM allocations from the set options, which changes the price. Sometimes, these custom-tweaked configs can cost less than other, inferior configurations because of sales. (In one case, an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D configuration costs more than a Ryzen 7 9800X3D-based one.) Rather than getting into the weeds, just know that the absolute ceiling for this desktop is a Ryzen 9 9900X3D CPU, an RTX 5090 GPU, 64GB of 6,000MHz RAM, and 4TB of SSD space for $7,299.99. Ours was close.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Design: Big Power, Big Chassis Footprint

Corsair built the Vengeance a5100 to be absolutely massive in footprint, but not all that tall. Its MicroATX case measures a whopping 14.8 by 12 by 18.4 inches (HWD) and weighs more than 20 pounds. At this size, this rig looks to define your work (or play) space, and its relentless RGB lighting will immediately grab the attention of anyone who walks in.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The Corsair Vengeance a5100 is an intimidating machine; just its presence on your desk demands that you take it seriously. Although its size is a challenge to mere mortal desks, I do rather like the system's look. The split glass and metal panel on the front gives it a neat sci-fi appearance, like a computer NASA would use 10 years from now.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The side glass panel gives you a complete look at the RGB lighting on the system's RAM sticks, CPU cooler, and almost countless fans. Weirdly enough, though, when you crack open the right panel, you won't find any mounting spots in the case for 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives, so you’ll have to resort to external drives for more storage. The chassis lacks its usual drive cage behind the right side panel. (It's a stock Corsair 2500X case, but the company left out the hard drive cage, which is removable, to accommodate the PSU and cabling.)

In addition, this PC's motherboard has only two M.2 slots (MicroATX can't take much more), which in our configuration is each home to a 2TB SSD. You'll find an unoccupied PCI Express slot on the board, but it can't be accessed with the GPU installed.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The internal expansion may be very limited, but the Vengeance a5100 has no shortage of ports, including two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A connections, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and two USB Type-C connections. The PC's "front panel" I/O is actually on top of the case, serving up two USB Type-A ports, a single USB Type-C connection, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Networking support for the system includes a 2.5Gbps Ethernet jack, a Wi-Fi 6E radio, and a Bluetooth 5.3 module.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Unfortunately, the system is as loud as it is large in footprint. Even minor tasks will have you reaching for your headphones to drown out the intense hums of this rig's bank of cooling fans. Loud systems come with the territory, when dealing with this sort of hardware, but I've overheard the smaller Velocity Micro Raptor Z55a finding a way to deal with the noise better.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Performance Testing: Plenty of Punch...But That Price

You won't find many RTX 5090 gaming PCs in this price range to compare against the Vengeance a5100, but if we are going for price, the $7,094 Falcon Northwest FragBox we tested, and its even-better AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU, is the perfect foil to have it face off against. The similarly configured Velocity Micro Raptor Z55a, for $5,609, serves as our "budget" option. Finally, I've tossed in the RTX 5080-powered Alienware Area-51 at $6,109 for its similar positioning.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, tests a system in productivity apps such as web browsing, word processing, and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput.

Three more tests we use are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 renders a complex scene using the company's Cinema 4D engine; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the freeware video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.

Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image editing prowess with various automated operations in Adobe Photoshop 25.

The Vengeance a5100 can handle most productivity workloads well compared with its rivals. However, it and the Raptor Z55a took more than twice as long as the Area-51 and FragBox in our video transcoding test. (Those two PCs simply outclass the Vengeance on raw core and thread count, so no surprise there.) In other benchmarks, though, it nearly tied the Raptor Z55a and came in second to the FragBox.

This combination of components makes more for a solid 3D-graphics powerhouse than a first-class media production workstation, though it will carry out those tasks relatively easily. If your day-to-day grind involves video work or other tasks that can leverage lots of CPU threads, the FragBox or Area-51, with Ryzen 9 or Core Ultra 9 processing, might be better choices if you genuinely need the best for gaming, project rendering, and transcoding tasks in one PC.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

We challenge each desktop's graphics with several simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K) use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. Steel Nomad and its Steel Nomad Light variant focus on common game-development APIs, like Metal and DirectX 12, to measure GPUs' geometry and particle rendering performance. Finally, Solar Bay measures ray-tracing performance, rendering increasingly intense ray-traced assets at 1440p.

Our real-world gaming testing comes from the in-game benchmarks of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and F1 2024. These three games—all benchmarked at full HD (1080p or 1200p), 2K (1440p or 1600p), and 4K (2160p) resolution—represent competitive shooter, open-world, and simulation games, respectively. Each game runs at high detail or the highest available settings: Extreme for Call of Duty, Overdrive for Cyberpunk, and Ultra High for F1 24.

Because the Call of Duty test can produce triple-digit frame rates even on low-end PCs, running it at maximum detail settings delivers sensible results to evaluate high-frame-rate performance. Our Cyberpunk 2077 test, meanwhile, is included to push the PC to the limit; we run it on the all-out Ray Tracing Overdrive preset without DLSS or FSR. Finally, F1 2024 represents our DLSS effectiveness test (or FSR, on AMD Radeon-based systems), demonstrating a GPU’s prowess with these popular frame-rate-boosting and upscaling technologies.

This Corsair tower is no slouch for gaming and really shines at 4K resolution. For a while, I’ve been saying that the RTX 5090 is a bit much for gaming. However, testing has made it clear that this is the only GPU option for a playable experience at 4K and 120Hz in the most graphically demanding games.

Compared with the Raptor Z55a and FragBox, the Vengeance a5100 performed well during our real-life gaming benchmarks, better than it did on the synthetic testing. It often delivered higher frame rates (even if just by a smidge) out of the RTX 5090-equipped trio. However, the Raptor was able to challenge the Vengeance for a lot less in up-front cost, thanks to its far less flashy case design, halved storage capacity, and other cost savings.