Maximum PC

BUILD IT

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

- ALAN DEXTER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

An in-depth guide to building a more affordable Ryzen PC.

BUILDING ON A SOLID CORE

THE RYZEN 7 1700 may sit at the bottom of the current Ryzen stack, but it still boasts eight physical cores, and is capable of handling 16 threads at once—it’s still designed with heavy lifting in mind. That makes it a fine bedfellow for high-end parts, but what if your needs are less demanding? Or your bank balance less gregarious? That’s where this month’s build comes in. We wanted a machine that would deliver where it counts, but wouldn’t cost the earth, so we’ve chosen components that offer good value for money, while still helping with overall performanc­e.

One of the first choices is on the motherboar­d front. At the time of writing, we haven’t seen enough AM4 boards to have any definitive answers, but you know where you are with Asus, and the Prime X370-PRO has plenty of features on offer. Likewise, the memory landscape isn’t fully formed yet, which means we don’t quite know the best kits to recommend right now, so we’ve picked a kit that has served us well previously.

Given that we want this machine to be an all-rounder, we’ve opted for an Asus ROG Strix RX 480 to provide the graphical grunt. It’s a great card for 1080p gaming, with smooth frame rates in all the latest games. The fact it boasts 8GB of onboard memory means you should have room for games going forward as well.

Note that, after feedback, we now include the cost of the OS in our builds, although you’re free to choose whatever OS you want.

 ??  ?? LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: EASY
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: EASY
 ??  ?? LENGTH OF TIME: 2-3 HOURS
LENGTH OF TIME: 2-3 HOURS

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