AMD has launched a huge amount of disruptive hardware recently. Here’s the official Logical Increments™ analysis you have all been waiting breathlessly to absorb.
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 “Glorious PC Gaming Master Race” term originated as an insult in this Zero Punctuation review of the Witcher.
Here at Logical Increments, we love advocating on behalf of the PC. But as devoted to the PC as we are, our enthusiasm is continually overshadowed by that of the PC Master Race (PCMR). With more than 800,000 members and growing, this Reddit community is one of the leading hubs of PC-related activity on the internet, and the PCMR has since spread its influence to Steam, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Discord. You can see everything they’re up to at pcmasterrace.org.
We recently had the opportunity to interview Pedro19, the founder of the PC Master Race community. Read our discussion below:
The Gigabyte RX 580, which is… Basically the Gigabyte RX 480.
This week, AMD releases two new graphics cards: the RX 580 and RX 570. Actually, calling them “new” is an overstatement. AMD has taken two cards from last year (the RX 480 and RX 470) and is now selling them with new names and a small overclock.
This week, AMD launched their exciting Ryzen 5 CPUs, which include two 6-core hyperthreaded chips (the 1600X and 1600) and two 4-core hyperthreaded chips (the 1500X and 1400). These CPUs are now among our recommendations on the Logical Increments homepage, marking a welcome return for AMD to the mid-range CPU space.
Long story short: We have added the the R5 1500X and 1600 to our Great tier, while the R5 1600 and 1600X now appear in our Excellent tier. As a result, the Ryzen chips have shaken up our once Intel-dominated mid-range CPU recommendations, and knocked the Intel i5-7400 completely off our list.
Here it is… The Ryzen 7 update. This is going to be a long one.
AMD has released the first three CPUs in its Ryzen lineup: The Ryzen 7 1700, 1700X, and 1800X. Currently, you will find all three CPUs occupying our Enthusiast tier.
Now, read on to get our full impressions and explanation for our placement of the Ryzen 7 chips.
After months of delays and years of waiting, AMD’s Ryzen CPUs have finally… almost launched. The top three Ryzen CPUs are now available for pre-order and will be releasing on March 2nd, 2017.
Kaby Lake continues its takeover our CPU recommendations.
Kaby Lake has now replaced all of the Skylake CPUs except for some low-end Skylake Celerons in our Minimum tier. (Since H210 motherboards are not out yet, we cannot find suitable motherboards for Kaby Lake Celerons.)
Kaby Lake is the first CPU series under Intel’s new Tick-Tock-Tack strategy (a.k.a Process, Architecture, Optimization). Previously, Intel would shrink it’s last generation’s CPU (a Tick), and then introduce a new microarchitecture at that size in the next generation (a Tock). Now Intel shrinks a CPU (Tick), makes a new microarchitecture (Tock), then “optimizes” it. What does “optimize” mean? That is left up to the reader to decide, as “optimize” is not defined by Intel.
The craziness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are long behind us, but Newegg has Christmas Week sales! Though less extensive, these sales are great for some last minute pre-New Year shopping. There were no monitors on a good enough sale to include, so we were forced to abandon the “What is your new year resolution?” joke opportunity.
Please note: The best deals are dependent on rebates. Such rebates are reliable, but only if you follow the instructions exactly and submit everything on time, so better be careful!