Budget

Spending wisely.

Although we considered properly swapping out the motherboard in our AMD Budget build this issue, Asrock’s Phantom Gaming 4 remains a most affordable full-ATX scale B550 motherboard. Stock availability has seen it come off sale though, so we’ve made a slight swap over to the AC model, adding Wi-Fi to this machine. We’ve got a new chip too; high demand for the Ryzen 5 3600 has seen it jump in price, while its big brother the 3600X is just a few dollars more so we’re not resisting that temptation. We’ve left the GPU as is: MSI’s RX 5600 XT is still the best-value version of the card.

The AMD build has been peeking at the Intel build’s notes, and is following suit with the same GeiL Evo Spear memory kit at a higher 3,000MHz frequency. Inexplicably, this kit is slightly cheaper than the 2,400MHz kit in the Intel system. Both systems now have upgraded SSDs too: Team Group’s GX2 model as opposed to the GX1 we were using previously.

Although the Core i5-10600K and its ilk are now available, we’re holding off on upgrading our CPU in the Intel budget build until they’re at least a little bit cheaper. In the meantime, the pricing on our chip-motherboard combo here remains steady, with no change at all from last issue. We were left with a slight price discrepancy between our builds here due to several parts from the AMD system climbing in price, so we’ve decided to spring for a little upgrade.

The upgrade in question? Well, we did contemplate jumping up from a 1660 Super to a 1660 Ti, but the performance improvement is negligible (less than 5fps in most games) for the price jump. Instead, we’ve opted for a new

PSU: The CX450M from Corsair, a semi-modular power supply to help keep our system free from cable clutter. Even with this improvement, our Intel system is the cheaper machine this month. Both are still a lot more expensive than a new Xbox Series S, though… we’re saying nothing about that.

“Our Intel system is the cheaper machine this month. Both are still a lot more expensive than a new Xbox Series S, though… we’re saying nothing about that.”