IN A SIMILAR VEIN as last issue, we wanted to tackle the same MO but switch from Team Blue to Team Red. That’s right, we’re moving to the AMD side of the fence with this build, but sticking with the sub-$1,000 budget. This gives you the latest AMD GPU, a very competent budget-friendly AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, and plenty of RGB lighting. The latter is the least important, especially if you’re sticking to a budget, but it’s a good way of adding to a room’s theme. You can change the lighting to suit your needs, and if you aren’t a fan of the Rainbow Road from Mario Kart aesthetic, don’t worry—we aren’t either. We prefer keeping the lights to a static color or, if feeling adventurous, we might push the boat out and apply a breathing effect. How fancy!
Lighting aside, we’re pushing for similar, or if not better, performance as last month’s budget Intel machine. We’re still aiming for solid 1080p gaming, but with the help of AMD’s latest tricks, we may be able to push our frame rate up and enter the QHD domain. Elsewhere in the build, we’re using a microATX motherboard. Last time, we avoided any motherboards other than standard ATX for future-proofing reasons, but microATX still offers enough room to add more components going forward, and is more versatile than a Mini-ITX board. We’ve gone with the Asus TUF Gaming B560M Plus Wi-Fi— at under $150, it fits the rest of the machine and sticks within our budget, too.
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Denne historien er fra October 2023-utgaven av Maximum PC.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
NZXT C1500 Platinum
Top-tier performance and efficiency
Nvidia DLSS vs AMD FSR
Which AI upscaling technique has the edge?
World of Goo 2
Goo-d enough for two
BenQ X300G 4K Short Throw Projector
Priced high, yet punchy
Hyte Thicc Q60
Almost more mobile phone than CPU cooler
Remove stalkerware from your PC
ACCORDING TO KASPERSKY’S LATEST ‘State of Stalkerware’ report, over 40 percent of those surveyed worldwide said they’d experienced stalking or suspected that they were being stalked.
BUILD AN IT SUPPORT HUB
Discover how to use RustDesk to provide remote assistance and control your own devices remotely with Nick Peers
AMD's turn to drop the ball?
WITH INTEL'S RAPTOR LAKE CPUs falling over, the company firing around 15,000 employees, and cancelling its 2024 innovation event, AMD must have been enjoying the view - until its new Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs rolled out. So, is AMD's CPU a minor stumble or game-changing fumble?
Intel issues fix for Raptor Lake degradation
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I wrote about difficulties I was having with a Core 19-13900K processor (see MPC230 Tech Talk). Little did we realize that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. While most complaints have involved the unlocked Core i9 Raptor Lake CPUs, it appears the instability problems build up and potentially impact many Raptor Lake-13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs, with Intel identifying 22 different desktop parts.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The new Zen 5 CPUs are here—time to benchmark!