TURBO

THIS ONE IS TRICKIER to compare. It goes without saying that the Threadripper chip wipes the floor with the i9-9900K in most CPUintensive tasks, although the Intel processor is both cheaper and often the better choice if you’re gaming. It also keeps the build from getting too pricey in other areas. Cheaper, lower-speed memory is more viable than with the Threadripper 2950X, and X399 motherboards are almost universally on the steep side, while Z390 boards vary significantly in price, allowing us to pick out something good but still sensible. We’ve opted for the Asus TUF Z390-Plus Gaming, a high-quality board at a reasonable price, while the AMD build retains the ASRock X399 Taichi.

We’ve taken those savings and reinvested them, aiming to keep the price points of these two builds as close together as possible. We splashed out on a slightly more expensive RTX 2080 Super on the Intel build, going with EVGA’s factory-overclocked model rather than the Gigabyte card still sitting in the AMD build. In another bold move, we’re also using the excess cash to upgrade to Gigabyte’s super-flashy 280mm Aorus RGB AIO cooler. Yes, it’s definitely expensive for a two-fan AIO cooler, but it brings RGB-lit fans and a full-color LCD display atop the pump block, which can be customized to display live stats, such as your CPU temperature. It’s a seriously cool product, and you can consider it our Upgrade of the M—no, wait, we’re not doing that anymore, are we?

The Intel build keeps the RGB lighting coming with its memory: The Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro, to be precise, with 32GB of capacity and a frequency 2,666MHz. The AMD build has rainbow RAM too, but the need for higher memory speed means that the G.Skill TridentZ kit we used is more expensive. Both builds are using BarraCuda SSDs and HDDs from the ol’ reliable that is Seagate, making for 7TB of storage per build. Again, watch this space, as we’ve got big plans. The 3rd gen of Threadrippers is finally calling, and 10-series Intel chips are knocking on the door too.