With the launch of Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X, we finally have a full range of Ryzen CPUs to choose from. Before you get building, you need to know what these new Ryzen 3s can do, and that’s where I come in. So read on to view some awesome PC’s for a tiny cost!
The cooler heatsink of a 290X Tri-X from Sapphire.
Choosing a graphics card can be time consuming – some of them can have over 30 different models – so picking the right one can be understandably difficult. It is important to note that before actually buying something you should determine what type of cooler fits your case best in terms of airflow.
In June, Intel released its new Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X CPU architectures based on the X299 platform. We talked about the current flagship 10-core, 20-thread i9-7900X, comparing it to the previous Broadwell-E flagship, the i7-6950X, and the AMD Ryzen 7 CPUs. Alongside the flagship 10-core, Intel released an 8-core, 16-thread i7-7820X, which costs “only” $599, compared to the previous $1000+ of last generation’s i7-6900K. Alongside these processors there are also the AMD Ryzen 7 8-core 16-thread CPUs, costing from ~$320 to ~$499, depending on the model.
Intel’s new Skylake-X CPUs have taken over our top two tiers, Extremist and Monstrous. They have effortlessly dethroned Intel’s previous line of high-end CPUs, Broadwell-E.
The new additions to our highest-end CPU recommendations are the i9-7900X (10 cores; $1,000) and i7-7820X (8 cores; $600). They replace last generation’s i7-6950X (10-cores; $1,700), i7-6900K (8 cores; $1,100), and i7-6850K (6 cores; $600).
In a recent Letter from the Producer LIVE from Square Enix’s Naoki Yoshida, we found out that graphics improvements are coming to Final Fantasy XIV. These will be a part of the new expansion Stormblood, releasing June 20, 2017.
With such a change in PC requirements, I wanted to design a PC build to handle it. So in this article I take a look at both the minimum and recommended system requirements and try to build the best PC for your money. So read on to find out more.
The GT 1030
Three lower-end graphics cards have released recently, but you may not have heard anything about them. AMD and NVIDIA generally do not throw major parties when they release ~$70 products, so do not worry about it if these launches slipped under your radar!
The three new-ish cards are:
The truth is out there: Earlier this month we learned the specifications for Project Scorpio, the new 4K Xbox from Microsoft. I couldn’t really just let such knowledge pass me by, so I sat down to see just what sort of PC would be needed to beat it!
This article will propose two sample builds capable of standing toe-to-toe with Project Scorpio for roughly the same price. Read on to see for yourself.
(Note: If you want to skip to our recommended 4K monitors below, scroll down to “Our favorite 4K monitors.”)
For desktop PC users, 1080p (1920×1080) monitors are ubiquitous today, but that was not always the case. A little more than ten years ago, they were just starting to hit the market. Monitors with an aspect ratio of 16:10 (for instance, 1920×1200) first started appearing back in 2004, with 16:9 (1080p) monitors coming a year or two after.
A few months ago, Logical Increments reader Nintenrax built an incredible water-cooled PC for himself, and shared with us a very detailed recap of the build. (See all pics on PCPartPicker.)
Here’s Nintenrax:
