Budget

When beans matter.

Welcome to the new-andimproved APC Blueprints! We’re happy to announce that we’re shaking things up in this section, and from now on we’ll be including both an Intel and an AMD build for each tier. To kick things off, let’s take a look at our new budget builds. Our AMD build has changed only a little from last month, with the big change here being the jump away from Nvidia to AMD’s Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB, specifically Asrock’s Challenger D model. Now, we’re not going to be sticking rigidly to only using AMD GPUs in the AMD builds each issue, but it felt appropriate this time around. This AMD machine was cheaper overall than the budget Intel build, so splashing out on the 5600 XT was an easy choice, giving it a small graphical performance edge over its Intel counterpart, which uses the GTX 1660 Super.

Motherboard pricing was tricky here. B450 boards make building budget AMD systems relatively easy, while the only sensible option for Intel is a Z300-series board, which is a bit pricier. Without one of these, you’ll forgo the ability to overclock the Core i5-9600K processor we’re using. Speaking of the processor, its performance runs close to the Ryzen 5 3600; it struggles in some areas due to its six threads (versus the 3600’s 12), but it’s still a very competent gaming CPU.

Overall, we’d give the lead to the AMD build this issue, but the Intel build’s performance isn’t to be sniffed at. The Intel system isn’t so affected by memory frequency, so you should be able to save some cash by sticking at 2,400MHz, but a sweet sale on the 3,000MHz T-Force Vulcan Z memory puts the AMD build in excellent standing this month. The final key advantage of the Ryzen 5 3600 is support for PCIe 4.0 SSDs, but it’s a dubious victory in the budget arena since you’ll need a B550 motherboard.

“Motherboard pricing was tricky here. B450 boards make building budget AMD systems relatively easy, while the only sensible option for Intel is a Z300-series board, which is a bit pricier. Without one of these, you’ll forgo the ability to overclock the Core i5-9600K processor we’re using. ”