Posts Tagged Under: RYZEN

AMD Conquers the High-end CPU Tiers

AMD Ryzen 9000 CPU lineup

It has been a while, but here we are with AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series launched and ready for purchase!

AMD’s new CPU series starts with a serious set of excellent high-end CPUs. We are not going to analyze all of them individually in this post, but as a quick summary:

    • Ryzen 5 9600X: 6 cores and 12 threads for $250.
    • Ryzen 7 9700X: 8 cores and 16 threads for $320.
    • Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Also 8 cores and 16 threads, but with extra cache for $480.
    • Ryzen 9 9900X: 12 cores and 24 threads for $380.
    • Ryzen 9 9950X: 16 cores (!) and 32 threads (!!) for $550.

So, how do these new CPUs measure up? Do they belong in our chart?

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What Logical Increments Tier is Required to Run the Most Popular Steam Games?

Top Games Header

(Information on Steam’s top games were gathered for this article from Steam Charts)

Back in January 2020, I crafted a neat little piece discussing the Logical Increments tier needed to enjoy each of the top games on Steam at the time. Fast forward to now, and oh, how the scene has shifted! Back around that period, we were seeing trade tariffs causing a good bump in prices for PC hardware​. As we ventured into late 2020, high demand meant the cost of PC parts kept climbing, and 2021 brought even higher prices—especially for graphics cards due to a cryptocurrency boom. Oh, and let’s not forget, the world was just getting acquainted with Covid-19, adding a whole new level of complexity to tech market dynamics through supply chain issues.

Now, at the tail end of 2023, with prices and availability having normalized in some (though not all) component categories, and just a week left until Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s about time we take a fresh look at what Logical Increments PC building tier you’d need to dive into the most popular Steam games today. Let’s see what changed in the last few years, and whether that ol’ system still has some life in it, or whether it might be worth a little upgrade. Stick around as we unpack the current gaming demands and discuss today’s tech landscape.

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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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Steam Deck Specifications – Comparing Valve’s Deck to PC Gaming Hardware

Steam Deck Performance

Valve has released the Steam Deck specifications, and they have spawned a storm of excitement. Essentially, the Steam Deck is a handheld gaming PC built around SteamOS. The Steam Deck is poised to be a fairly unique product, looking like a hybrid of a handheld console like the Switch and a conventional desktop PC (like the ones found in our main chart). Indeed, Valve’s Deck is being marketed as a “Gaming PC” with the intention of providing all the features that framing entails, for everyone from tech enthusiasts to gamers.

It’ll have a native SteamOS interface with (mostly) complete support for your pre-existing Steam library (limited to games that have either been ported to Linux or which can be run with Proton and Steam Play), and it’ll also have the ability to replace SteamOS with another option, such as Windows, in order to run just about any other title you can think of.

The Steam Deck specifications and features allow you to run anything and everything on it—and its the combination of that openness; controls including a touchscreen, capacitive pads, and back-grip buttons; the ability to ‘dock’ it to play on a TV or monitor; and a priority placed on ergonomics that (altogether) makes the device more interesting than something like a Nintendo Switch or a GPD Win3. There are just so many features all at once!

As for the hardware itself, Valve has released a very comprehensive spec sheet on the Steam Deck website. We’ll know exactly how this hardware will perform in games once the first units make it into the hands of reviewers, but until then we can take a close look at the provided specs and discuss how they stack up against current desktop hardware!

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The Ryzen 7 5700G and Ryzen 5 5600G Release

With the release of the Ryzen 7 5700G and the Ryzen 5 5600G, AMD have once again spiced up the CPU market. They feature similar specifications compared to their 5600x and 5700x counterparts, but have iGPUs in them too, and at a lower MSRP! The rise in price for the 5600x and 5700x shocked some people, so it is nice to see that it is going back down again.

These chips might change the market and create new possibilities for PC builders. Thus, in this article, I will discuss potential uses for these new chips, and talk about their specifications.

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Budget Gaming Revisited: R3 3200G vs. Low-tier CPU and Graphics Card in 2021


Thanks to chip scarcities and high demand due to people working at home, computer part prices have skyrocketed. And that includes the price of the Ryzen 3 3200G. Once upon a time, the 3200G was a solid budget option for anybody looking to build a budget gaming PC to get started with PC gaming.

But it cost about 100 USD before the prices starting jumping, and it is now either out-of-stock or costs over 200 USD! Still, thanks to people still being stuck (or content) at home and prices on higher-tier components ballooning even higher, lots of people are planning to build a budget PC right now. So, should they overpay for the 3200G, or does it now make more sense to step back in popularity and/or age to buy an ultra-budget graphics card and CPU combo?

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How to Get the Best AMD CPU Performance with Clock Tuner for Ryzen (CTR) 2.1 and Alternatives

In the never-ending hunt for performance and efficiency, the free software Clock Tuner for Ryzen (CTR) will soon be making a big update for Zen 3 available to the public.

CTR 2.1 brings a whole host of updates, so in this article I’ll provide you with some of my own thoughts and recommendations—including comparisons to AMD’s native offering with Precision Boost 2 and Curve Optimizer!

Let’s get tuning!

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How Many CPU Cores Do You Need?

CPU Core Count

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?

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Budget Showdown: R3 3200G & GTX 1650 Self-built PC vs. Upgraded Prebuilt PC from eBay

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?

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