Novatech Reign Sentinel review: back-connect beauty

Once the dominion of curious enthusiasts, a wide variety of back-connect motherboards are now available part and parcel with prebuilt gaming PCs. Novatech Reign Sentinel is a wonderful showcase for this form factor, offering a great balance of beauty and brawn.

I loved the aesthetics of Reign Sentinel as soon as I unboxed the system and have only come to appreciate its appearance as time has passed. Despite some grumbles I have concerning USB connectivity, the prebuild has proven itself a righteous rig.

Specs

Examining Reign Sentinel’s specifications, I’d broadly describe the system as ‘premium midrange’.

	Novatech Reign Sentinel specs
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
CPU cooler	MSI MAG CoreLiquid I360 ARGB White
Motherboard	MSI B850 Gaming Plus WiFi PZ
GPU	MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16G Gaming Trio OC White
RAM	32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Vengeance RGB White DDR5-5600 CL40
SSD	2TB Samsung 990 Evo Plus
PSU	MSI MAG A850GL PCIe5 White (80 Plus Gold)
Other features	5Gb Ethernet Bluetooth 5.4 WiFi 7
Case	MSI MPG Velox 300R Airflow PZ White
Warranty	Three-years
Price	£2269.98

While much of the hardware inside this system could easily appear in a more-mainstream build, some components elevate the whole beyond such a category. That’s not forgetting the extra costs that are associated with white colourways.

For a gaming PC, there’s no better processor than Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Packing eight Zen 5 cores, 16 threads, and a whopping 96MB of L3 cache, this CPU frequently pushes frame rates beyond what non-X3D alternatives are capable of.

MAG CoreLiquid I360 ARGB White picks up cooling duties for Ryzen 7 9800X3D, featuring a unique, gorgeous angular block, complete with LEDs, that’s difficult to take your eyes off. This AIO water cooler is more than up to the task of handling the 120W CPU, and does so elegantly as one cable with two headers provides control for the radiator and all three fans.

Next door to the CPU socket, you’ll find 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB White split across two DIMMs, unlocking all the performance benefits a dual-channel memory configuration brings. These DDR5 sticks run at 5,600MT/s with CL40 timings, making them a touch slower than I’d prefer in both regards, but still quick enough.

MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16G Gaming Trio OC White takes centre stage inside Reign Sentinel. The card’s long, rectangular frame proudly cuts through the dead space of its chamber, like a smoothed-down shard of ice.

Credit to Novatech for outfitting Reign Sentinel with an appropriately colour-match. Lucky for the system, Gaming Trio OC White is subtly gorgeous in its own right. I’m a big fan of the reserved approach to RGB here, as MSI place a splash on either visible side of the shell. Meanwhile, a reflective MSI dragon motif takes pride of place on the backplate, tastefully blending into the rest of the card.

The card’s Dual BIOS arrives set to ‘Silent’, rather than ‘Gaming’. This doesn’t affect performance as each profile can push the card’s boost clock to 2,572MHz (2,580MHz while MSI Center is running), and instead only turns on the fans when temperatures call for cooling. This is my preferred approach, as it helps keep ambient noise levels down during less-intensive tasks.

Above the graphics card, hiding under a heatsink, is a Samsung 990 Evo Plus SSD with 2TB of capacity. This is a solid choice of PCIe Gen 4 storage, with maximum sequential read and write speeds of 7,250MB/s and 6,300MB/s, respectively. Suffice to say, you won’t find Reign Sentinel lacking in terms of load times or space for your gaming library.

I welcome Novatech’s inclusion of Samsung Magician as part of their Windows 11 image, making it easier for users to keep track of their drive health and update firmware. Although, the application doesn’t automatically run upon first boot, which feels like a missed step.

Tucked away inside a shroud, MSI MAG A850GL PCIe5 White silently provides all the power Reign Sentinel could ever need. This power supply is fully modular, and is compliant with PCIe 5.1 and ATX 3.1, providing higher total power excursion and native compatibility for 12V-2×6 connectors.

850W provides some overhead for Reign Sentinel, as MSI recommends pairing GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16G Gaming Trio OC White with a 750W power supply. There are no concerns regarding efficiency with this PSU either, as it carries 80 Plus Gold and Cybenetics Gold certifications.

All of Reign Sentinel’s internal components call MSI B850 Gaming Plus WiFi PZ home. As a ‘PZ’ (Project Zero) motherboard, all headers for power, fans, etc. reside on the back of the board. This creates an undeniably cleaner finish than a non-PZ alternative but adds a small premium to total system cost.

Looking beyond aesthetics, there’s a solid amount of PCIe bandwidth to go around. Reign Sentinel rightly uses the PCIe Gen 5 slots for the primary add-in card (GPU) and SSD, but there’s room to expand via several PCIe Gen 4 M.2 slots and a mix of PCIe Gen 4/3 headers running at x4 or x1 speeds.

Networking bandwidth is welcomely high. For wired connections, the motherboard offers a single 5Gb Ethernet. Those that would prefer to run wirelessly can enjoy a reliably fast connection via WiFi 7, which also nets Bluetooth 5.4 support.

My only gripe with this choice of motherboard is its relatively basic USB bandwidth. Half of the board’s ports run at a measly 480Mb/s, flanked by a single 5Gb/s Type-A, one 10Gb/s Type-A, and two 10Gb/s Type-C inputs. Personally, I would prefer to forgo the visual niceties of back-connect in favour of a better rear I/O.

Now, let’s talk case. MSI MPG Velox 300R Airflow PZ White arrives with three pre-installed fans, two 160mm intake, and one 120mm exhaust. These blowers sport the brand’s ‘dual layer blade’ design, rotating at varying speeds that promise greater airflow and heat dissipation.

I’ll explore how cool this setup keeps the case soon, but the lack of ARGB LEDs on the 120mm exhaust does disappoint me. Placed alongside the big and bright 160mm blowers and those attached to the radiator, it does stick out staring in through the tempered glass side panel.

I’m happy to find dust filters across the case, top, bottom, and front. Getting access to the latter two is easy, but the top panel won’t come free without first removing the rear thumbscrews. I’m all for secure fits, but this is slightly annoying when most other chassis don’t adopt this approach.

Round back, Novatech has done a great job at utilising the surprisingly small space MPG Velox 300R Airflow PZ White provides for cable management. The case’s included fan and ARGB hub does wonders to assist overall tidiness, meaning there are just two cables running directly to the board.

Finally, you’ll find two USB-A and one USB-C port up top, alongside a 3.5mm combi jack, next to buttons for power and LED control. However, I’d sooner recommend installing Mystic Light via MSI Center and controlling ARGB components through software for the sake of convenience.

Reign Sentinel retails for £2269.98 at the time of writing. This makes the system just over £110 more expensive than a DIY build, according to my compilation of the same parts through PCPartPicker.

Taking into this cost also accounts for build time, pre-shipping tests, and Reign Sentinel’s three-year warranty, I think Novatech is more than fair in its pricing.

Performance

The power of Ryzen 7 9800X3D and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti combined makes for a versatile gaming machine. Such specifications allow for high frame rates in esports titles and room to enjoy ray-traced eye-candy at higher resolutions.

Before we dive into benchmarks, here are the specs of the prebuilds I’ll be comparing Novatech Reign Sentinel to, along with links to their reviews:

• PCSpecialist Luna Recon Master
  • AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
  • Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090
  • Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice
  • 32GB DDR5-6000 CL40
  • 4TB Samsung 9100 Pro
• CyberpowerPC Ultra R87 Pro
  • AMD Ryzen 7 8700F
  • AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB
  • MSI Pro B650-S WiFi
  • 32GB DDR5-6000 CL36
  • 1TB WD_Black SN7100
• AWD-IT Evolv X2
  • Intel Core Ultra 7 265K
  • Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti
  • MSI Pro Z890-S WiFi PZ
  • 32GB DDR5-6000 CL36
  • 2TB Kingston NV3
• CyberpowerPC Ultra XT
  • AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
  • AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
  • MSI MPG X870E Edge Ti WiFi
  • 32GB DDR5-6400 CL32
  • 2TB Corsair MP700 Pro
• CyberpowerPC Ultra 5080 Pro
  • AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
  • Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080
  • MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi
  • 32GB DDR5-6000 CL36
  • 2TB Kingston Fury Renegade

CPU

Delivering a single-core and multi-core scores of 131 and 1,300, respectively, Reign Sentinel is keeping Ryzen 7 9800X3D in line with expectations.

Throwing in a 6,000/6,400MT/s kit with tighter timings would push scores higher in each category. However, we’re talking relatively minor uplifts of ~1-50pts at best.

RAM

Despite rocking slower RAM than similarly-specced rivals, Reign Sentinel is surprisingly speedy in AIDA64’s copy benchmark. In fact, it’s the fastest of the 9800X3D systems on the board.

Latency, however, is unfortunately on the higher side at 87.8ns. X3D CPUs do operate more slowly in this regard than non-X3D counterparts, but Reign Sentinel still comes out faster than AWD-IT Evolv X2 with Core Ultra 7 265K.

Storage

Storage on Reign Sentinel CrystalDiskMark is plenty fast for gaming and general tasks, with respective sequential read and write speeds of 7,120MB/s and 5,623MB/s. Temperatures are solid too, peaking at 57.0°C under the care of the motherboard’s passive heatsink.

The sequential read result is lower than the drive’s advertised maximum of 6,300MB/s. However, this is typical behaviour for 990 Evo Plus, as AWD-IT Evolv X2 turns in near-identical performance also using the same SSD.

Gaming

3DMark Steel Nomad and Speed Way set the stage for gaming performance to come, putting Reign Sentinel’s GeForce RTX 5070 Ti under pressure. The graphics card expectedly does well in both benchmarks, comfortably scoring above 6,000pts (60fps) in each.

Of course, these synthetics tests only provide a broad estimate to the system’s capabilities. Without further ado, let’s dive into some proper gaming frame rates.

Game	FPS @ 1080p (Min. / Avg.)	FPS @ 1440p (Min. / Avg.)	FPS @ 2160p (Min. / Avg.)
Assassin’s Creed Shadows (RT)	49 / 59	42 / 49	28 / 33
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail	127 / 251	116 / 183	60 / 95
Forza Motorsport (RT)	85 / 121	73 / 89	40 / 48
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord	189 / 330	183 / 248	114 / 149
Rainbow Six Siege X	377 / 514	306 / 422	191 / 251

GeForce RTX 5070 Ti couldn’t ask for a better processor by its side, as Ryzen 7 9800X3D packs plenty of processing power and cache to keep pace. The two components make for a dynamic gaming duo across native 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions.

Rainbow Six Siege X serves as the most impressive showcase of this setup from the perspective of raw framerates. Esports enthusiasts will find nothing to complain about with a 514fps average at 1080p, with room to crank resolution while still maintaining excellent performance.

Meanwhile, both Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail and Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord each enjoy silky-smooth frame rates across each resolution tested. Further proof that this component combo has plenty to offer in rasterised titles.

As one should expect from a GeForce card, ray-tracing performance is also strong. Forza Motorsport speeds along smoothly at 1080p and 1440p, but the limits of RTX 5070 Ti begin to emerge at 4K. Assassin’s Creed Shadows proves heavier still, but the system does at least keep north of 30fps across all resolutions.

Of course, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti doesn’t need to run games at native resolution. Both DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation can prove transformative to frame rates, compounding the already-impressive performance of games like Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail but also bolstering the more-demanding examples of our test suite like Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Cyberpunk 2077	FPS @ 1080p (Min. / Avg.)	FPS @ 1440p (Min. / Avg.)	FPS @ 2160p (Min. / Avg.)
Native	50 / 56	29 / 33	14 / 16
DLSS 4 (Quality)	83 / 93	56 / 63	29 / 33
DLSS 4 (Q) + FG x2	151 / 167	96 / 106	54 / 60
DLSS 4 (Q) + FG x3	217 / 239	137 / 152	78 / 87
DLSS 4 (Q) + FG x4	278 / 304	175 / 193	100 / 111

The greatest test for graphics cards and performance enhancements alike remains the ‘RT Overdrive’ path tracing preset in Cyberpunk 2077. DLSS is practically a necessity for such a demanding gaming workload, giving GeForce RTX 5070 Ti the performance leg up to enjoy the RPG at its best.

GeForce RTX 5070 Ti can brute-force playable performance at 1080p and 1440p, but isn’t powerful enough to keep head above water come 4K tides. The effect of turning on DLSS Super Resolution ‘Quality’ alone is immediately appreciable, as frame rates double across the board, netting 60+fps averages at FHD and QHD, and salvaging UHD with 33fps.

With 60+fps averages at 1080p and 1440p, DLSS Frame Generation can cast its frame smoothing without incurring massive penalties to latency. As 4K runs below this target, the feature doesn’t have a strong enough base to work from and the experience is noticeably sluggish.

Note that I’m using DLSS Super Resolution ‘Quality’ across all three resolutions. However, given the massive uptick in frame quality that Nvidia’s Transformer model brings, I’d recommend trialling ‘Balanced’ and ‘Performance’ modes, particularly at 1440p and 4K. Doing so will provide stronger base frame rates, for use with Frame Generation or otherwise, with minimal noticeable differences to image fidelity.

Vitals

Sitting idle or under load, Reign Sentinel runs pleasantly cool and quiet. Better still, there’s a healthy amount of room to tweak fan curves in favour of superior thermals or acoustics.

	Idle	Load (Max.)
CPU temperature	37.2°C	66.6°C
GPU temperature	31.5°C	64.6°C
Noise	43.1dBA	47.4dBA
Power consumption	97W	224-388W

Faced with a gaming workload via Cyberpunk 2077, Reign Sentinel feeds GeForce RTX 5070 Ti plenty of cool air resulting in peak operating temperatures of 64.6°C. The rendering pressures of Cinebench 2024 don’t see the system heat up much more, as Ryzen 7 9800X3D reaches 66.6°C at most during the benchmark.

Noise levels are reasonably low, ranging between 43.1-47.4dBA out of the box. While Reign Sentinel is audible regardless of system usage, it’s never abrasive to the ear. That said, were this my system, I’d definitely create a custom curve for better acoustics given how much thermal headroom both CPU and GPU have.

Leaving Reign Sentinel to its own devices, the prebuild sips 97W from the wall. An all-core workload will see power consumption rise to 224W, with gaming requiring more ‘leccy still at 388W. Entirely agreeable wattages for the specifications at play.

Conclusion

Reign Sentinel is a pretty and powerful prebuild, whose acoustic, gaming, and thermal performance are sure to please practically any would-be owner. While there is room to improve noise levels, the out-of-box experience is more than palatable.

My only qualm with the system comes down to USB connectivity. Once you connect your keyboard, mouse, and headset, there’s not much bandwidth to go around for other peripherals that benefit or outright require USB 3+ speeds.

If you can confidently manage that constraint, though, there’s little reason not to pick up Reign Sentinel. Whatever your preferred resolution and refresh rate, you can expect to get a great gaming experience. It’s a cool showpiece too, with a finish so clean that only back-connect could provide.