TURBO

WE’VE SEEN GREAT SAVINGS on AMD’s more affordable processors this month, but the memo clearly didn’t reach the Thread ripper lines, which haven’t seen any price shifts. Still, the 2950X in this “Turbo” build represents impressive value for money, so we see no need to swap it out yet. If you’re looking for serious multithreaded performance, you’re going to be pushed to come up with anything that can beat the 16-core, 32-threaded monster we have here.

There aren’t many changes elsewhere; even fluctuations with pricing haven’t had much impact, with the biggest saving appearing on the RAM front (surprisingly), although a price increase on the case wiped most of this out. There were a few savings to be had on the SSD and motherboard, though. As ever, there are bargains to be had on processor, motherboard, and RAM bundles, which are worth checking out at the time of purchase.

A quick look at the overall price will reveal that this machine is $122 more than last month’s build, so what gives? The big change here is the inclusion of the GeForce RTX 2080, which costs considerably more than the GTX 1080 Ti we had last month, and is something of a contentious addition, even in the office. The team is split evenly between sticking with the 1080 Ti for now, and saving a big chunk of cash, and those backing the potential of what RTX may bring. Ultimately, it’s your call.

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