JAN 2022 MAXIMUMPC 97
Sponsored byWE HAVE SOME BIG CHANGES for the mid-range builds this issue.
We have GPUs for both Intel and AMD, however, keep in mind that
these are at a street value price. For team Intel, we can bring in the
Gigabyte Aorus Radeon RX 6800 XT card, which is plenty of power
for this rig. We also have something exciting to pair with this GPU.
Approximate Price: $1,8 15 or $2,0 75 Approximate Price: $2, 000 or $2, 601AMD INGREDIENTS INTEL INGREDIENTS
PART PRICE
STREET
PRICE
Case Lian Li PC-O11-Dynamic $150PSU 750W EVGA SuperNOVA
GA 80 + Gold NEW
$94Mobo Asus AM4 TUF Gaming X5 70 - Plus WiFi $195
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 56 00X $289Cooler 280mm Cooler Master
Masterliquid ML2 80 RGB
$55GPU MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3070 8GB
GDDR6 NEW
$780
$1,0 40RAM 16GB (2x 8GB) Team Vulcan Z CL1 8
@ 360 0MHz
$63SSD 500GB Samsung 980 Pro NVME
M.2 PCIe 4 .0 SSD
$110HDD 2TB WD Blue 7200 HDD $47
OS Windows 10 Home 64 -bit OEM $32PART PRICE
STREET
PRICE
Case Lian Li PC-O11-Dynamic $150PSU 750W EVGA SuperNOVA
GA 80 + Gold NEW
$94Mobo MSI PRO Z690-A LGA 1700 NEW $209CPU Intel Core i5-1 26 00K NEW $300Cooler Enermax Liqmax III 240 RGB $80GPU Gigabyte Aorus Radeon RX 6800 XT
Master 16GB GDDR 6 NEW
$899
$1,5 00RAM 16GB (2 x 8GB) Corsair Vengeance
RGB Pro SL RGB CL 18 @ 360 0MHz
$99SSD 500GB Corsair Force MP60 0 M.2 PCIe 4 .0 $90HDD 2TB WD Blue 7200 HDD $47OS Windows 10 Home 64 -bit OEM $32Intel’s new Alder Lake 1 2th-gen chips are finally in the builds,
specifically the i5- 126 00K which is a pretty sweet CPU. It comes with
10 cores combined with Intel’s new hybrid architecture. Split into
performance cores (6) and efficient cores (4), foreground tasks are
allocated to the performance cores and background tasks are set to
the efficient cores. The Alder Lake chips also integrate a new one-
click overclocking feature to the BIOS that will help users get more
out of their systems. The maximum turbo frequency of this new
chip is 4 .90GHz too, which is pretty decent considering the 12 600k is
around $5 0 cheaper than the previous Intel Core i7- 117 00K.
Talking of the BIOS, the motherboard has to change to support
the new CPU. MSI’s PRO Z 690 board arrives with its fancy new
LGA1 700 socket. It’s a decent board but quite pricey. At an extra
$80, it’s the best we could do with the new chips. Other than these
changes and a change of PSU to the EVGA SuperNOVA GA, the rest
of the Intel build remains the same.
Things aren’t quite as exciting for the AMD system, apart from
the graphics card. MSI’s 8GB Ventus GeForce RTX 3070 finds itself
in the AMD mid-range build this issue, again at street price.
The only other change is the same as on the Intel build, out with
Corsair’s RM (2 019 ) PSU and in with the 75 0W EVGA SuperNOVA.
They are both 8 0+ Gold rated but, due to stock issues, the EVGA
model slots in. It is 75 0W this time instead of 6 50W from the Corsair
offering, so this helps a little with future-proofing. There is good
news about AMD’s Ryzen 5 56 00X, as this is down another $ 20 from
the last issue at $29 0 on Newegg. And we can’t resist a good sale.