MSI Codex R2

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MSI designed its Codex line of gaming PCs to get you started on your gaming journey without putting a significant dent in your wallet. Starting and tested at $979.99, the Codex R2 is a mid-tower chassis with a glass side panel, plenty of RGBs, and decent midrange hardware for a starting gaming PC. Ours had an Intel Core i5-14400F, 16GB of dual-channel DDR5 RAM, integrated Wi-Fi, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card. It won’t break any frames-per-second (fps) records, but it is a competent 1080p/1440p gaming machine at a reasonable price, taking the Editors' Choice award for budget gaming PCs from the NZXT Player: One.

Design: Airflow and RGBs Aplenty

The MSI Codex R2 is housed in an attractive mid-tower chassis with the RGB-forward design we expect from a gaming PC. It has a glass panel on the side, ample room inside for expansion, and multiple RGB fans with dust filters on the main ingress/egress points (top/bottom). It may not be the most elegant or fancy design, but it looks like a gaming machine through and through.

MSI's aluminum chassis measures 19.1 by 8.1 by 16.1 inches, a typical size for a mid-tower. The tempered glass panel has a smoked tint that hides some ugly bits inside every PC, but you can still see inside, especially when all the lighting is on. The case comes with four 120 mm RGB fans, with three in front taking in air and one on the rear venting out. As configured, you'll find plenty of airflow and room for expansion.

The front panel I/O sits atop the case, yielding easy access to those ports. The Codex R2 has power and reset buttons (the former shaped like the MSI Dragon Shield) on the right, along with power and HDD activity LEDs. To the left are two 3.5 mm jacks for audio (microphone and headphones), a USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) Type-A port, and a fast USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) Type-C port. On the left side is an RGB button with 60 distinct lighting effects. You can also control them through MSI’s Mystic Light software when you press and hold the front panel button. Additionally, it has a magnetic dust filter on top and bottom of the case to prevent some particulates from entering.

Like the flagship MSI Vision Elite RS we recently reviewed, the Codex has MSI Center installed and ready to go. You can download several valuable applications here, including Mystic Light (RGB control), Frozr Ai cooling (links system fans to vary by temperature), and more. It even has a comprehensive hardware monitoring section for those who like to monitor the details like temperature and voltage. If you’re into tweaking and overclocking the system, the User Scenario applet will help you. The MSI Center application should be helpful for a wide range of users, and aside from that, the Windows installation is clean and doesn’t include bloatware.

The back of the mid-tower chassis has plenty of room for expansion with seven slots on the case. Outside of that, the motherboard's rear I/O has seven USB ports, including a 10Gbps USB Type-C and six Type-A ports (4x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1). You'll even find a legacy PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse, a 2.5GbE port, Wi-Fi 7 antenna connections, a complete set of five analog plugs, and an SPDIF audio stack. Nothing is out of the ordinary, and you'll find enough ports with enough speed to satisfy most users.

Configuration: Clean Internals With Plenty of Room for Expansion

Accessing the internals is as simple as removing the two screws in the back to take off the tempered glass panel. Once it is removed, you have full access to everything inside. The latest generation Codex sports a B760-based motherboard (in this case, a Pro B760-VC Wi-Fi II), and while this isn’t the most robust option, it does have all the necessary ports for a reliable gaming machine and room for expansion. Inside, you can access the expansion slots, including two M.2 sockets, five full-length PCIe slots, and four SATA ports. MSI does cable management well, with most wires tucked away cleanly on the back. The power supply (650W 80+ Gold) sits in its own chamber on the bottom, away from the other internals, which also helps for a clean appearance.

MSI's Codex gaming desktops come pre-configured. At the time of writing, MSI sells five Codex R2 SKUs, with our configuration being the least expensive. The top-of-the-line Codex provides a step up to an Intel Core i7-14700F and a faster graphics card in the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti (8GB). Both configurations are capable 1080p gaming machines and can even play at 1440p. If you want more power than that, you’ll need to jump to the midrange to high-end MSI Aegis RS or the top-end Vision Elite.

Overall, the Codex’s chassis looks decent, especially for the price. It has plenty of room for expansion (M.2 socket, four SATA ports, PCIe slots, etc.) and loads of RGB lighting that screams "gaming." During play, the fans ramp up and get a bit loud, but you should be able to adjust the stock fan curve.

Testing the MSI Codex R2: You Bet Your Budget It’s a 1080p Gamer

We compared the Codex R2 with a range of budget and midrange gaming desktops: the HP Omen 40L ($1,199.99) with its Ryzen 7 7700 and 4060 Ti, the Alienware Aurora R16 with an i5-13700F and an RTX 4070 ($1249.99), the Lenovo LOQ with an i5-13400F and RTX 3050 ($899.99), and finally, our previous Editors' Choice award holder, the NZXT Player: One ($829). The major system specifications are in the table below.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.

Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 renders a complex scene using the company's Cinema 4D engine. At the same time, Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. We then use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems. It uses Adobe's famous image editor, Creative Cloud version 22, to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The MSI Codex R2 showed what its midrange components could do in our first round of general tests. Compared with the more like models, it performed as expected, beating out the Lenovo LOQ Tower and, notably, the NZXT model. MSI's Codex R2 makes the most out of its budget configuration. If you need more performance, you’ll have to step up to one of the higher-tier Codex models.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

For gaming desktops, we run both synthetic and real-world gaming benchmarks. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, the more modest Night Raid (suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and the more demanding Time Spy (suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We then run two OpenGL exercises, rendered offscreen by the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which allows for different native display resolutions; more frames per second (fps) means higher performance.

Our real gaming benchmarks are those built into F1 2021, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege, tested at higher resolutions and quality settings than on gaming laptops. These three represent simulation, open-world action adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games. We run Valhalla and Siege twice each at Ultra quality (at both 1080p and 4K), while F1 2021 is run at 4K only, with and without AMD and Nvidia's performance-boosting FSR and DLSS features turned on.

As a budget gamer, the Codex R2 proved its worth in our graphics and gaming tests, notably outpacing the award winner for not much more cash. These titles aren’t the hardest on a video card, but they are still decent bases of comparison at both resolutions. And, at 1080p, you can run a high refresh rate monitor in many titles and get the most out of the system.

The web page for the Codex also lists how many fps you can expect with this machine in many games. Courtesy of UL’s 3Dmark, they list estimates across popular games like Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, Fortnite, Call of Duty: MWIII, and more at 1080p and 1440p resolutions on the Codex R2’s webpage. Those values vary by setting, but they give users a general idea of the performance of popular titles. Like our results, theirs confirm the Codex as an excellent high-refresh-rate 1080p machine or 60-plus fps at 1440p. Anyone looking for 4K play should opt for something further up the product stack.

Verdict: 1080p-Plus Gaming With Plenty of RGBs

MSI’s Codex line is a leading gaming machine in the budget category. For $979.99 (on sale for $899 at the time of this writing), you get a decent-looking chassis with four RGB fans that light up the room paired with hardware capable of gaming at 1080p and even 1440p. The tower also delivers ultra-fast networking, ample storage options, and four SATA ports. Also, it’s highly upgradable, with plenty of space inside the chassis and extra ports on the motherboard. In short, it has the performance you need for gaming or other PC work and room to grow.

If that’s not enough horsepower, MSI has other Codex SKUs with up to a Core i7-14700F and a better video card in an Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti. If you’re still wanting more, MSI satisfies that itch, too, with the Aegis (midrange) or Vision (flagship) pre-builts for an even better gaming experience. You'll find a few sub-$1,000 gaming machines, but most present similar hardware configurations at comparable prices. Warranties from many popular builders (think HP, iBuyPower, Dell, Maingear, Origin) are the same at a one-year limit, while other vendors like Corsair and Cyberpower provide two and three-year coverage.

The MSI Codex R2 line with the upgraded 14th Gen hardware is an excellent option for a starter gaming PC for under $1,000, especially if you can find it for under $900. Not only does it look like the part of a gaming machine with all the included RGBs, but you should also be satisfied with its overall 1080p and 1440p performance. For that, the MSI Codex R2 takes our Editors' Choice award for budget gaming PCs.