Elixir | Gaming PC

Solid bars are CPUBLD in-house test results. We test every build we sell. The exact figures come from our own testing of this configuration at the settings listed: native resolution, no upscaling or frame generation, ray tracing off unless the preset says otherwise. Every CPUBLD build is optimized for its use case; the Elixir's use case is gaming, so it is tuned and tested as a gaming machine before it ships.

Striped bars marked ≈ are estimates. They cover combinations we have not tested: most Competitive, Medium and High presets, some 1080p results, and every DLSS 4 and frame-generation figure. They are derived from our tested results using each game's own scaling where we have it and typical preset scaling where we do not. A dash means we have not tested that preset. Real-world results vary with drivers, game patches, settings and the scene you are in.

How the DLSS estimates work. DLSS 4 Quality renders at 67% resolution on each axis (4K renders internally at 1440p, 1440p at 1707×960), so each figure is modelled from our tested lower-resolution result plus the upscaler's own cost, and capped where the CPU becomes the limit. Frame generation is modelled at 1.75× the upscaled frame rate. Frame generation raises the displayed frame rate, not responsiveness — input latency follows the base frame rate — so it is best used when the base is already around 60 fps. Titles without DLSS 4 or frame generation (Counter-Strike 2, Valorant) show their native figure in every mode.

Streaming estimate. The Streaming toggle assumes OBS at 1080p60 using the graphics card's NVENC hardware encoder (H.264, HEVC or AV1). Hardware encoding runs on dedicated silicon, so the cost to the game is capture and compositing rather than encoding: we model it as 7% fewer frames plus about 1 ms of capture overhead, and the added input-latency figure is the frame-time difference that comes out of that. Software (x264) encoding is not modelled; it costs a great deal more, especially in CPU-bound titles.

NVIDIA Reflex is factored in. The latency estimates assume NVIDIA Reflex is switched on in the games that support it (Counter-Strike 2, Fortnite, Valorant, Cyberpunk 2077 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2) and the driver's Ultra Low Latency mode in Forza Horizon 6. Reflex removes the render queue in GPU-bound scenes, so those titles carry the smallest streaming penalty. Ultra Low Latency trims the queue but does not eliminate it, which is why Forza Horizon 6 shows slightly more.