Building The Ultimate Zwift PC
The Problem
Matt Curbeau has dialed-in everything about his indoor setup: his bike sits atop a Saris MP1 Nfinity motion platform attached to a Saris H3 direct drive smart trainer, with a Saris TD1 trainer desk which has power and USB plug-ins built-in, and some seriously strong fans keeping him cool.
However, the one aspect of the indoor setup eluding Matt was that his rides were plagued with connectivity issues. His Macbook Pro laptop struggled to handle the stress of Zwift, Spotify, streaming software, and all the other signals broadcast throughout his Zwift space.
The various signals from his Quarq power meter, Wahoo Tickr heart rate monitor, Saris H3, wireless internet, smart outlets for fan control (“Hey Alexa, turn on the fans!”), and more were causing constant cadence and power dropouts during races and rides on Zwift.
After months of troubleshooting and tinkering, Curbeau threw in the towel, making the only decision he had narrowed down to be the solution: building the ultimate gaming and streaming PC for Zwift.
The Solution
In his pursuit, Curbeau enlisted help from a friend with experience in building PCs — adding all the components necessary to his PCPartPicker shopping cart as directed. By gaming standards, the build isn’t anything too powerful, but for Zwift this setup is more than enough! The parts include:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock B450M/AC Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Flare X 16 (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
Storage: Kingston A400 480 GB 2.5'“ Solid State Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce 1660 6GB Gaming X Video Card
Case: Cooler Master Masterbox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA BR 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10
The Result
After initial rides, and a seriously painful Pro-Am race under his belt, the issues seem to have been solved. While this may seem like an expensive fix for some common indoor training issues, dialing in your setup to be as perfect as possible for your experience is everything.
Especially during these times when our outdoor races and rides are put on hold — if you’re going to be inside all the time, you might as well make that experience as good as it possibly can be!
Have you built up a PC for Zwifting or gaming? Shoot us some photos and parts lists below! Our whole team is eager to jump into the world of custom PC building.
