Blueprints

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APC’s best-value builds, updated monthly

We’re starting to dread putting these build lists together, especially when it comes to the GPU situation. So let’s address that first and foremost. We wrote this piece over a period of 24 hours. Two working days. In that time, the GPU we picked for the AMD build went out of stock overnight, and the GPU we had from last issue for the Intel build skyrocketed in price. The closest available graphics card, the four-and-a-halfyear-old GTX 1050 Ti that’s actually in stock, is now $250.

We don’t know what to tell you. Right now, if you’re building these systems, you just have to be on your toes and hope you can pick up a GPU at a reasonable price when it’s available. Between the crypto-boom, the miners, the scalpers, and ordinary folk just trying to buy a damn graphics card, the likelihood of actually being able to get one of anything is near impossible. Fortunately both systems here are configured with integrated graphics as standard, so if you desperately need a rig, you can pick one of these up and run it through integrated, much like our feature build this issue.

Aside from that, we’ve swapped out our power supply in the AMD build for our Corsair pick from this month’s main build (as the EVGA BR is now the same price), and plumped up for some slightly better spec memory. On top of that we’ve swapped back to the Core i3-10100 for the Intel setup (integrated graphics, and slightly more affordable), and managed to pick up this dirt-cheap mobo from Asus, to shave off a bit of price from the last issue.

So technically each build has saved around $245 for the AMD build compared to last issue, and $120 for the Intel PC – theoretically true if you can get that 1050 Ti at $250. Technically we’ve gone down from a ridiculously overpriced GTX 1660 at $370 (last issue, now $450-500 of course) to a 1050 Ti at $250. But as neither of the cards are easily found, really the true street prices of these builds are variable, and undoubtedly higher than what we’re printing today.