Ryzen on a Reasonable Budget

An affordable counterpoint to this month’s feature build, we put the Ryzen value proposition to work

- Alan Dexter

THE CONCEPT

It’s not often we get to build a machine around a brand new architecture. With the release of AMD’s Ryzen 7 chips, though, that’s exactly what we’ve done. In fact, we’ve done it twice. Turn to page 26, and you’ll discover how to build a nocompromise monster, with the top-end Ryzen at its heart. The problem is, that machine rolls in at over $5,000, which puts it out of range of lots of potential system builders. To be fair, there are some liberties with that machine on the storage and memory front, but even so, what if your pockets are not quite so deep? Can you build a decent Ryzen PC for considerably less?

Of course you can, which is why we’ve dedicated this month’s “Build It” to the humble task of seeing what you can do with the most affordable Ryzen chip, the AMD Ryzen 7 1700. This is a mainstream machine that doesn’t need a do-anything storage subsystem, or a graphics card that costs more than some entry-level systems. It’s a machine that can handle rendering, video editing, and image manipulation, and even turn its hand to a bit of gaming. The kind of system that none of us would be embarrassed to own, even if we might want something with a little more oomph as our main machine.

BUILDING ON A SOLID CORE