Maximum PC - USA (2022-02)

98  FEB 2022

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Maximum PC (ISSN 1522-4279) is published 13 times a year,

monthly plus a Holiday issue following the December issue, by

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PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

LAST MONTH, the Alder Lake Core i9-12900K chip entered our high-

end build and it’s likely to stay there for a while. Right now, it’s the

world’s fastest gaming chip, featuring a new hybrid architecture

with performance and efficiency cores—16 in total with a 50/50

split between performance and efficiency. Compared with Intel’s

previous top offering, the Intel Core i9-11900K, it has double the

core count and eight more threads than the 11th-Gen’s 16 threads.

This chip is claimed to be up to 50 percent faster than the old

Rocket Lake model. Even running on DDR4, it is still the world’s

best gaming CPU, so we had to put it in the build. The good news

is that prices of the 12900K are normalizing near the 1000 unit tray

price of $589 that Intel quotes. So, non-GPU component pricing is

now near normal, with the exception of DDR5 memory.

We introduced a Z690 board last month but with some tasty

DDR5 RAM. These two additions bump the price up, as is always

the case with a new generation of memory. The Corsair Vengeance

sticks come in at a hefty $300, but we hope this will drop soon. DDR5

is currently in short supply, so prices and availability are volatile.

As for the mobo, there’s no change from the MSI PRO Z690-A

WiFi LGA1700, an efficient board to support the new CPU and DDR5

memory. The same applies elsewhere, bar a few price tweaks, but

the graphics card has changed. Out goes the ASRock OC Formula

Radeon RX 6900 XT GDDR6 16GB, in comes the marginally cheaper

PowerColor Red Devil RX 6900 XT Ultimate Gaming 16GB.

On the AMD side, we still can’t justify the Ryzen 9 5950X at $720,

so we stick with the Ryzen 9 5900X, albeit for a few dollars more

than last month. Both machines come with Corsair’s iCUE H150i

Elite Capellix AIO, this 360mm cooler does a great job of keeping

both of these high-performance chips cool. Also found on both

setups are the same 6TB WD Blue 5400 HDDs—a great way to get a

huge capacity secondary storage on both systems. The mid-range

PSUs also stick around in the turbo builds. At $108, the 750W PSU

offering from EVGA is hard to ignore with its 80+ Gold efficiency.

Approximate Price: $2,248 or $3,048 Approximate Price: $2,973 or $3,473

AMD INGREDIENTS INTEL INGREDIENTS

PART PRICE

STREET

PRICE

Case Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2

Tempered Glass

$220

PSU 750W EVGA SuperNOVA GA 80+ Gold $108

Mobo Gigabyte X570 GAMING X $188

CPU AMD Ryzen 7 5900X $499

Cooler Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE

CAPELLIX AIO 360mm

$169

GPU MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3080

LHR 10GB NEW

$700

$1,537

RAM 32GB (2x 16GB) G.Skill Ripjaws V

32GB @ 4000MHz

$135

SSD 1TB Samsung 980 Pro M.2 PCIe 4.0 $160

HDD 6TB WD Blue 5400 HDD $106

OS Windows 10 Home 64-bit OEM

(Windows 11 Compatible)

$32

PART PRICE

STREET

PRICE

Case Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2

Tempered Glass

$220

PSU 750W EVGA SuperNOVA GA 80+ Gold $108

Mobo MSI PRO Z690-A WiFi LGA1700 $240

CPU Intel Core i9-12900K $619

Cooler Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE

CAPELLIX AIO 360mm

$159

GPU PowerColor Red Devil RX 6900 XT

Ultimate Gaming 16GB NEW

$999

$1,499

RAM 32GB (2 x 16GB) Corsair Vengeance

DDR5 @ 5200MHz

$300

SSD 1TB Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s

M.2 PCIe 4.0

$190

HDD 6TB WD Blue 5400 HDD $106

OS Windows 10 Home 64-bit OEM

(Windows 11 Compatible)

$32

TURBO