A sampling of PC systems available this month

An overview of typical systems in today’s market.

JW Computers GMR Hawk 3070

$3,098 | tinyurl.com/APC495JWC

This is a system for those who want quality. While this will perform exactly the same as the $2,549 Centre Com system in this month’s round up, as the CPUs are the same and the GPUs are basically equivalent (ignoring ray tracing), this system justifies the extra $549 with the quality of the rest of the system. It has a higher-specced X570 motherboard offering more IO connectivity and bandwidth, higher-rated memory modules, and a larger SSD and PSU, making this ideal for anyone who will be wanting to tinker and upgrade their PC over time. The only real shortcoming is the use of the stock AMD CPU cooler. Invest in a good cooler as part of the upgrades and you are off to the races. A great build for those who know what they want.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, Cooler: OEM,

Motherboard: MSI Mag X570 Tomahawk WiFI, Graphics: MSI Gaming X Trio Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 8GB, Memory: G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16GB DDR4 3600MHz RGB, Storage: 1TB M.2 NVME Samsung 970 EVO PLUS SSD, Power Supply: CoolerMaster MWE 750W, Case: Nzxt H511.

PC Case Gear Bolt 1650 Super

$1,499 | tinyurl.com/APC495PCC

With a rare-as-hens-teeth CPU in the 3300X, this system should be something of a prize to those that can get one. This is one of AMD’s rarer quad-core Ryzen CPUs, equivalent to the i3-10100 found in the PLE system. The big difference here is the word ‘Super’ at the end of GeForce GTX 1650 Super. That equates to a solid 40 percent uplift in performance capability over the non-Super variant. Currently, 1650 Supers run about $150 dearer, so why might this system be another $100 more over the PLE system? It appears to be a larger 2TB HDD and higher rated 3200MHz RAM. Not worth the extra money really, but these are hard times for supply. A great system for 1080p gamers that is a fraction too costly.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3300X, Cooler: OEM, Motherboard: Asus Prime B450M-K, Graphics:

Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1650 Super OC 4GB, Memory: Team T-Force Delta RGB 16GB 3200MHz CL16 DDR4, Storage: Kingston A400 SATA SSD 240GB, Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD, Power Supply: Aerocool Aero 550W, Case: Aerocool Bolt RGB.

PLE Computers Orbit

$1,249 | tinyurl.com/APC495PLE

This entry-level system sticks with the basics of many modern systems, with 16GB of system memory, a 250GB SSD for the system drive, and 1TB of hard drive space. All quite common and most importantly, cheap. With the quad-core CPU at its heart, it will run most games at 1080p with the paired GTX 1650 (non-Super), but don’t expect performance beyond 60fps in most titles. In fact, closer to 30fps will be this system’s norm. If you are looking to dip your toes into PC gaming, this might be a system worth testing the waters with. The number of fans in this system is kind of hilarious for the small amounts of performance on offer here, but at least it’ll look nice and will give any budding PC enthusiast the warm and fuzzies.

CPU: Intel Core i3 10100, Cooler: OEM, Motherboard: Gigabyte B460M D2V, Graphics:

Asus GeForce GTX 1650 OC 4GB, Memory:

Geil 16GB DDR4, Storage: WD Blue SN550 250GB NVMe SSD, WD Blue 1TB HDD, Power

Supply: Not specified, Case: SilverStone FARA B1 Pro RGB.