Market snapshot
A sampling of PC systems available this month.
$4,399 | tinyurl.com/APC483AFT Aftershock PC Ultracore
Set in a showy Lian Li O11D, this system has all the underpinnings of a great gaming rig. A water-cooled i7-10700K has much of the speed of an i9 for gaming and with some minor overclocking tweaks, equal performance. With eight cores you’d think it wouldn’t be as competitive in multi-threaded productivity tasks, but with such high clock speeds it does rather well. A speedy RAM pairing is nice to see, as is a comfortably sized 1TB NVMe SSD for all your OS, gaming and project needs plus a 2TB hard drive for everything else. With ample custom cosmetic choices at checkout, this could be the glitzy system you’ve been waiting for.
CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K, COOLER: Aftershock Spectra Glacier 240mm, MOTHERBOARD: Asrock Z490 Steel Legend, GRAPHICS: Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080 Super 8GB, MEMORY: 16GB DDR4 3600MHz Gigabyte Aorus RGB, STORAGE: 1TB M.2 NVME SSD, 2TB 7200RPM HDD, POWER SUPPLY: FSP / EVGA 850W, CASE: Lian Li O11D
$5,439 | tinyurl.com/APC483PLE PLE Computers Gen10 Electro
Wanting a no compromise ultimate gaming experience? This is what you should be looking for. Sporting Intel’s new top of the line 10th-gen Core i9 processor, not only will it rip through frame rates quickly, it’ll perform well in production heavy multi-threaded tasks too thanks to its deca-core design. The perfect pairing of an RTX 2080 Ti will further satiate your frame rate desires, be it at 1440p or 4K resolutions. Storage is an all SSD affair – 500GB of fast SSD storage for your OS and games plus a slower but still nimble 1TB SSD drive for everything else. With RGB everywhere including the power connectors, this looks as good as it performs.
CPU: Intel Core i9 10900K, COOLER: Nzxt Kraken X53 240mm AIO, MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC, GRAPHICS: Gigabyte GeForce RTX2080Ti Gaming OC 11GB, MEMORY: GeIL 16GB Kit DDR4 Super Luce RGB C16 3000MHz, STORAGE: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB, Samsung 860 QVO 1TB SSD, POWER SUPPLY: eVGA Supernova G1+ 850W, CASE: Nzxt H510i
$4,499 | tinyurl.com/APC483PCC PC Case Gear Lightning 2080 Ti
This rig sports Intel’s 10th-gen eight-core 10700K paired with a top of the line RTX 2080 Ti, so will be no slouch when it comes to high FPS gaming.
One thing that seems odd is the 240mm AIO radiator – it looks diminutive relative to the size of the case. A 280mm AIO would’ve fit nicely instead and would do a better job of cooling this power hungry and hot processor. Overclocking mileage may vary. The power supply wattage is ok for stock running but keep an eye on power draw if overclocking. Apart from that, PC Case Gear is shoehorning in an impressive amount of compute power for the price.
CPU: Intel Core i7 10700K, COOLER: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240R ARGB AIO,
MOTHERBOARD: MSI MAG Z490 Tomahawk, GRAPHICS: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Ventus GP OC 11GB, MEMORY: Team T-Force Delta RGB 16GB 3200MHz CL16 DDR4 Black, STORAGE:
Adata XPG SX8100 M.2 NVMe SSD 512GB, Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD, POWER SUPPLY: Super Flower Leadex III 650W, CASE: Cooler Master MasterCase H500P