Posts in Category: pc builds


Building an Insane Gaming PC with the i9-12900KS

The i9-12900KS is now among us, and it computes its way across the land like a fearsome giant. Until the next generation of chips releases in the (not-too-distant) future, this is the best CPU for gaming that is available.

It is also a CPU with a massive power draw and large thermal requirements . . . but fear not! If you are considering the route offered by this beefy component, you don’t have to walk the path alone. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how to build an absurdly powerful top-tier gaming system with the 12900KS—all while maintaining system balance and even room for upgrades (many years down the line, when an “upgrade” might once again become possible for this system in a really noteworthy way).

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Building a PC for Office Work or School

Availability and pricing issues have stirred up the PC market in general, and the GPU market in particular. But that doesn’t mean that every type of builder is affected equally!

Today, for example, we will demonstrate that it is still possible to build a computer with a good ‘bang for the buck’ and robust performance that is entirely suitable for office and school tasks.

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Building a VR-Ready PC with the Intel i9-12900K

i9-12900k

Virtual Reality is an amazing thing. It lets you temporarily escape whatever mortal problems you grapple with in life: politics, expensive GPUs, your in-laws… the list is endless! But in order to power an entire virtual universe for you to freely explore and withdraw into, you’ll need quite a beefy computer to handle it.

That’s why, in this article, we’ll be taking a look at building a PC with Intel’s new flagship CPUthe powerful i9-12900K. Building around that new chip, we’re aiming to put together a computer that will crank out VR performance with incredibly high fidelity.

Before we start looking at all the bits and pieces, though, let’s closely examine the heart of this beastly PC: the i9-12900K!

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Building a Compact Gaming PC with the i5-12600K

After spending the last several generations playing it safe and letting AMD enjoy the CPU spotlight, Intel finally decided to provide a more robust competition with their recent 12th-generation Alder Lake chips. New DDR5 RAM support, much smaller lithography, and lots more cores await to provide plenty of gaming and multitasking performance this holiday season.

Today, we’ll be looking at a build including the i5-12600K that focuses on being compact yet powerful—capable of fitting in a tight space, or moving with relative ease from house to office (or from home office to entertainment room). As we’ll see, the i5-12600K is a multitasking master for a great price, so this will be a gaming-workstation hybrid in a nice tight package.

Before we begin, let’s explore the 12600K in a bit more depth so we know what we’re working with!

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Building a Quiet Gaming PC with the Intel i7-12700K

 

With Intel releasing their new 12th-generation chips into a market still saturated with scalpers peddling $2000 GPUs, it’s fair to say that most people interested in this new hardware are looking to upgrade just their CPU (and motherboard) rather than putting together an entirely new build.

But it’s a lot easier to conceptualize what to upgrade when you see how the part fits into an entire build. And maybe some wild people out there are looking to build an entirely new PC regardless of the difficulties. For those reason, the ongoing graphics card woes won’t stop us from having a little fun and planning a handful of creative builds with Intel’s Alder Lake series of CPUs! For this specific build, we’ll be looking to make a quiet PC capable of letting you game in peace (without it sounding like a passenger jet is preparing for takeoff right on your desk).

First, let’s take a close look at the star of the PC: the i7-12700K!

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Building a Workstation PC with the i9-11900K

The i9-11900K is a somewhat confusing component. On the one hand, it compares unfavorably with its own predecessor, the i9-10900K: it has 8 cores (down from its older sibling’s 10), yet has the same top speed. And indeed, benchmarks by Gamers Nexus show that performance is very similar, with the i9-11900K sometimes slightly behind its predecessor.

On the other hand, 8 cores (and 16 threads) is likely to be more than enough for the vast majority of both gaming and workstation users, 5.3 GHz is still an excellent native top speed, and the two fewer cores do make a slight positive difference in favor of cooler temperatures on the 11900K. Thus, although the core count has been ‘downgraded,’ this i9 remains a powerful processor.

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Building a Gaming PC with the i7-11700K

Intel recently launched a new lineup of chips, and one of them was the i7-11700K, an 8 core/16 threaded powerhouse with a boost clock of 5 GHz. With such specifications, this processor runs any game smoothly. As a result of the high core count, it would also be fit for workstation purposes such as video rendering.

It does have a noticeably high TDP: 125 Watts! This already tells us the processor might get a little hot under high loads. Nevertheless, the performance is astounding and makes up (slightly) for the high TDP.

In this article, we’ll be building using the new i7 to build a PC for high-tier gaming. Let’s dig in:

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Building a Gaming PC with the RTX 3060

The RTX 3060 was recently launched. It is an improvement compared to the previous-gen RTX 2060, while (as expected) falling behind its faster RTX 3060 Ti brother. With seemingly promising benchmarks and an MSRP of 330 USD, it seems like a great card.

But the RTX 3060 is not available for its MSRP of 330 USD. In fact, right now it goes for around 1000 USD—if you can find it in-stock, of course. The demand is incredibly high, which results in prices of about three times the MSRP (or, again, the card simply being out-of-stock).

Nonetheless, we are undeterred! We will try and see if you can build a decent rig with it, despite the overpriced and rare status of this new GPU.

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