
With the new AMD Athlon 3000G, ‘team red’ are hoping to capture that entry-level budget gaming market.
Yet have AMD hit the mark with this, or fallen short? Let’s find out!

With the new AMD Athlon 3000G, ‘team red’ are hoping to capture that entry-level budget gaming market.
Yet have AMD hit the mark with this, or fallen short? Let’s find out!

Whether you’re building a new computer or just upgrading your current one, the CPU (central processing unit)—being the ‘brain’ of the computer—is an important component to get right.
But, with all the improvements and advancements in recent years on both the hardware and software sides, how many CPU cores do you need?

The RX 5500 XT by AMD is their latest and smallest graphics card in the RX 5xxx series. The launch is mediocre, so this post is going to be small to match.

The Ryzen 9 3950X was released about 2 weeks ago, but only hit the marketplace yesterday. Do not worry about buying one: These new chips are so good that they went out of stock instantly. But why is the R9 3950X good, and what does it replace? And what other changes are coming to the top tiers of the chart?

It’s been over two decades since Intel released a discrete graphics card (the last was the disappointing Intel740, which hit the market back in 1998). That is set to change in 2020, when Intel intends to release its new discrete GPU, the Intel Xe.
Intel is being characteristically tight-lipped about what we can expect with their new cards, but if the Xe (pronounced “ex-ee”) proves to be a reliable alternative to Nvidia or AMD cards, PC builders might soon have more options at their disposal.
This article will tell you what we know about Intel Xe so far.

Up until a few years ago, the value king for gaming was the Intel i5 processor. More recently, AMD’s Ryzen APUs have stolen the show at the low tiers, and we all know that no integrated graphics from Intel can currently compete with AMD’s Vega 8 and Vega 11 iGPUs. So it’s a no-brainer for gaming builders at very low budgets (who are entirely skipping graphics cards) to go with Ryzen APUs.
But outside of such head-to-head CPU comparisons, a broader value question remains for upper-low-tier (and lower-mid-tier) builders: how would a self-built system balanced around AMD’s newest R3 (including a discrete graphics card) compare to a highly discounted prebuilt system with a few key upgrades?

We’ve previously introduced PCIe lanes in Data Transfer Rates Compared (RAM vs PCIe vs SATA vs USB vs More!). Today, we review PCIe lanes in more depth, and discuss their relevance to you as a user.

Is this RTX 2060 Super actually a worthwhile buy for builders? Let’s take a look at the specifications, and see what a balanced build would look like!

Today we’re looking at a power-efficient build with the shiny new AMD Ryzen 5 3600. Settle in as we take a look at what a low-power-draw midrange gaming PC build looks like with this CPU!

This month, we’re bringing lots of small updates to our main build chart (and reaffirming some decisions from last month):