PRICE VERSUS PERFORMANCE

So, where do you begin with a build like this? Well, for us it all started with the processor. Knowing Coffee Lake to be the beast it is – and in a lot of ways, we have AMD to thank for this – means that we know those single cores can hammer out some seriously strong IPC. What that translates to is plentiful frame rates in game, and a smooth desktop outside of it. Thanks to the Coffee Lake core count bump, the Pentiums of today easily match the Core i3s of 2016 and earlier. In the process, they’ve become an ideal part for some low-end gaming.

Now, you could technically do something similar with an AMD build, but you’d be laying down a lot more cash in the process. Yep, we never thought we’d say this, but Intel’s budget offerings are actually pretty incredible right now, and AMD currently can’t match them on price.

Next on the list was the notion that prior to working for this magazine, this journo was only using a GTX 660 2GB to game on back in 2015. All in all, it was a pretty comfortable experience, especially at 1080p. Games have come a fair way since then, but the reality is that game developers always cater to the largest portion of the community, meaning they need their title to look awesome on the high-end settings, but be accessible at the mid-range, too. The GTX 1050 2GB is the perfect fit, then. It’s the successor to the GTX 950, which, in turn, supplanted the GTX 760 and the GTX 670. So it must, by default, be a capable gaming GPU.

Combine that with 8GB of DDR4 and a decent-sized SSD for your OS install, and you’re suddenly looking at a very appealing platform for anyone who’s looking at getting into PC gaming or building their kid a system to go back to school with, or simply someone who wants a good all-around machine.