Chris Cunningham' Post





Building a PC with the Intel i7-8700 and i7-8700K

Like the other new 8th Generation CPUs from Intel, the i7 CPUs have proven extremely popular, continuously selling out as soon as they come in stock. The i7-8700 and i7-8700K are a jump up to 6 core/12 thread chips, which represents a significant improvement over the previous generation’s 4 cores and 8 threads.

That jump in core count means major improvements to performance, which means new possibilities the workloads we can expect from a new PC build. If you can manage to find one of these new i7 chips your local store or online, let’s have a look at what you’ll be able to build with them.

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Building a PC with the AMD Athlon X4 940, X4 950 and X4 970

The final piece in AMD’s 7th generation CPU refresh for the AM4 platform comes in the form of three new Athlon processors: the X4 940, X4 950, and X4 970. Unlike the two sets of A-series CPUs (see our 35W and 65W builds), these new Athlons do not come with onboard GPUs.

The advantage, however, is that these are unlocked cores and can be overclocked much harder. So read on to find out exactly what you can build with the new AMD Athlon chips!

 

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Building a PC with the Intel i5-8600K and i5-8400

The new 8th Generation Intel CPUs have launched with much-appreciated increases in core count. The new i5-8400 and i5-8600K both upgrading to 6 cores, from the previous generation’s 4. The upgrade has proven quite popular, as the CPUs are currently selling out everywhere. Let’s see what kind of PC you’ll be able to build with these chips, assuming you’re able to get your hands on one!

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What is Hyper-Threading and Simultaneous MultiThreading?

With the newly released 8th Generation CPUs from Intel, one feature has gone missing from the Core i3 models: Hyper-Threading (HT). For example, the new Intel i3-8100 features 4 physical cores and 4 threads, whereas the previous generation’s i3-7100 featured 2 physical cores and 4 threads.

What is Hyper-Threading, and is it any different from AMDs Simultaneous Multi-Threading?

What is the difference between having a 2-core Hyper-Threaded CPU or a 4-core CPU without Hyper-Threading?

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Building a PC with the Intel Core i3-8100 and i3-8350K

Competition is great. If you can, think back to a year ago. AMD’s CPU selection consisted of several outdated options, and Intel were happy issuing small incremental improvements over the previous generation. What a difference a year makes! Like them or hate them, AMD has massively shifted the market with the release of the Ryzen architecture. That’s what brings us to today and the launch of the brand new 8000 series Coffee Lake processors from Intel — the biggest upgrade to the Intel lineup in years.

This article looks at the new Core i3 CPUs, which are lower-midrange chips still very capable of great performance for the price. What sort of PC should you build with the i3-8100 or i3-8350K? Read on to find out.

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Building a PC with the AMD A6-9500, A8-9600, A10-9700, and A12-9800

AMD recently refreshed their entry-level CPU range, and we’re quite happy with the results. We’ve already taken a look at their new 35W CPUs, and now we’d like to turn our attention to the more powerful (and power hungry) range from AMD. Interestingly enough, a number of these CPU’s have a configurable thermal design power (cTDP) of 45W from the default 65W.

This article will suggest a number of builds that could best utilize these new 65W CPUs. Prices for these builds come in between $313 and $424. So, read on to see for yourself!

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