BUDGET

Approximate Price: $634

THERE ISN’T MUCH IN THE WAY OF CHANGES this month, as our budget system sees a couple of price hikes, but little in the way of options to see us switching out for cheaper components. The one area where we did see a better deal is on the graphics card front, where our previous selection of the Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti saw a $10 price increase, prompting us to move over to MSI for the same GPU. We also saw a price increase on the Enthoo Evolv ITX, but we’re so sold on this case at the moment, that we just absorbed the $5 hike. The story of DDR4 pricing continues to frustrate, with the Patriot Viper Elites seeing an $11 increase in just a month. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anything cheaper, so ultimately had to accept that increase as well. Overall, we’re looking at a total price increase of $16 compared to last month, for the exact same performance.