AMD has released two new graphics cards, the RX 7800 XT ($500) and the RX 7700 XT ($450). One is decently good, and the other is… standard for AMD launches.
There have not been that many major releases recently, so this will be a small update that mostly includes items we are not adding to our chart.
And before we get to those items: All three non-added items are due to bad pricing. They are great items if they were cheaper, but we at Logical Increments would probably not recommend $100 cups of coffee either.
The majority of PC part launches from established companies are successes, as professionals usually try to design good products for the purpose of attracting customers.
From time to time, however, the human beings at such companies make mistakes, or go overboard on the alcohol, or let the engineers dream a little too much. The past week gave us a rare and beautiful opportunity to see not one but two hugely entertaining slipping-on-banana-peel-tier product launch failures, with a pratfall each from nVidia and AMD.
This is a double update: one CPU, one GPU.
Let us begin with the section that contains (on balance) good news for PC builders!
A couple of weeks ago, AMD released the R9 7950X3D CPU, which they are marketing as “the ultimate processor for gaming.” That’s quite a big claim, and if true it would definitely belong in our PC building chart!
Does it live up to that title? Well, just about, yeah. Let me explain:
January brought a lot of CPU options to our attention from AMD and Intel, and as a result we’ve made a whole host of changes to the processor column of our main chart!
Since its launch many years ago, the Athlon 200GE was the refuge of the tired, the hungry, the poor and oppressed. For a tiny fee of about $55, you would get a decent-ish CPU that had a decent-ish iGPU within. All you had to do next was find a very cheap motherboard to house it, and you had yourself a very affordable computer. This made it our go-to recommendation for the absolute cheapest build in our main chart.
But recently, the price of the 200GE has been going up, and it is getting harder to find…
In the midst of a festive season, we bring tidings of good graphical cheer to some of the highest tiers of our main PC building chart!
New GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia are now making an appearance, and causing some accompanying changes for older graphics cards.
What a fantastic month it has been, with so much new hardware available! But what is this? It is Intel, who decided to add even more spice with their new Raptor Lake launch! Woohoo!
Potential CPU buyers had already had their options improved when AMD launched Zen 4 earlier this month, and from Intel’s timing, price, and performance, it is clear that this is a response. How good are the new choices from Intel?
Let us take a look.
Behold, friends-with-big-wallets: the biggest, heaviest, most expensive, most power-consuming, and *drumroll* best-performing card ever made!
Let us take a closer look.