ISSUE 380|COMPUTER SHOPPER|OCTOBER 2019 53
MID-RANGE PCsPREMIUM PCsMSIB350MMortar
★★★★★
£112•www.amzn.to/2zuBbF1AMD Ryzen71700
★★★★★
£170•www.amzn.to/2RhQGHpINTELCorei9-9900K
★★★★★
£479•www.ebuyer.comBoth AMD and Intel
have recent mid-range
chips, but with the
erstwhile high-end Ryzen 71700 dropping
below £200, it’s agreat wayofadding
octa-core power to aPCthat might otherwise
have had to make do with six cores.Anear-perfect
motherboard for
AMD Ryzen-based
microATX systems. It’s remarkably well
equipped forconnectivity and upgradability,and comes close to
much more expensive mobos in performance benchmarks.Intel’s 9th-gen chips see
it finally joining the
octa-core club,including
the flagship Core i9-9900K. With Turbo
Boost speeds hitting 5GHz straight out of
the box, it’s ajust as potent in single-core gaming as it is in
serious multithreaded workloads.PROCESSORSOCKETAM4•DIMENSIONS244x244mm•CHIPSETAMDB350•MEMORYSLOTS (^4) • PCI-EX16SLOTS (^2) • PCI-EX1SLOTS (^2) • PCISLOTS (^0) • USBPORTS2xUSB2,3xUSB3.1,
1xUSBType-C•VIDEOOUTPUTS1xHDMI,1xDisplayPort,1xDVI-D•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•
DETAILSwww.msi.com•PARTCODEB350MMortar•FULLREVIEWJul2018
SOCKETAM4•CORES (^8) • FREQUENCY3.0GHz•INTEGRATEDGRAPHICSNone•
WARRANTYThreeyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.amd.com•PARTCODEYD1700BBAEBOX•
FULLREVIEWJul2017
SOCKETLGA1151•CORES (^8) • FREQUENCY3.6GHz•INTEGRATEDGRAPHICSIntelUHDGraphics
(^630) • WARRANTYThreeyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.intel.com•PARTCODEBX80684I99900K•
FULLREVIEWJan2019
COOLERMASTERMasterBoxK500
★★★★★
£50•www.scan.co.uk
MSIGeForceRTX2070Armor8G
★★★★★
£480•www.scan.co.uk
NVIDIAGeForceRX2060
FoundersEdition
★★★★★
£300•www.nvidia.com
THERMALTAKEView37
★★★★★
£110•www.scan.co.uk
Great looks, afull set of
pre-installed fans, high build
quality and aspacious interior:
the MasterBox K500 is acommendable
all-rounder.It’s not the best on storage capacity,
but you can still add at least acouple of SSDs
and hard disks each.
Whereas the RTX
2080 and RTX2080
Ti charge exorbitant
amounts fortheir fancy ray-tracing
and anti-aliasing tech, the RTX2070
delivers the same features at a
much more reasonable price.Itcan also handle 4K gaming without
much fuss, and MSI’s version stays very cool under load.
Aspacious, feature-rich
chassis forboth ATX- and
EATX-based builds, the View
37 comes with agull-wing side window that’s
perfect forshowing off your handiwork.
CASETYPEMid-tower•MOTHERBOARDTYPEATX,microATX,
Mini-ITX•SUPPLIEDFANS3x120mm•MAXDRIVEBAYS3x3.5in,
2x2.5in•DIMENSIONS260xx190x280mm•WEIGHT6.2kg•
WARRANTYTwoyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.coolermaster.com•
PARTCODEMCB-K500D-KGNN-S00•FULLREVIEWJan2019
GPUNvidiaGeForceRTX2070•MEMORY8GBGDDR6•GRAPHICSCARDLENGTH155mm•
WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.msi.com•PARTCODERTX2070Armor8G•
FULLREVIEWMar2019
GPUNvidiaGeForceRTX2060•MEMORY6GBGDDR6•GRAPHICSCARDLENGTH229mm•
WARRANTYThreeyearsrepairandreplace•DETAILSwww.nvidia.com•PARTCODEGeForce
RTX2060FoundersEdition•FULLREVIEWMay2019
CASETYPEMid-tower•MOTHERBOARDTYPEATX,EATX,
microATX,Mini-ITX•SUPPLIEDFANS2x140mm•MAXIMUM
DRIVEBAYS7x3.5in,11x2.5in•DIMENSIONS525x261x538mm•
WEIGHT11.8kg•WARRANTYThreeyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.
thermaltake.com•PARTCODECA-1J7-00M1WN-00•
FULLREVIEWDec2018
This is expensivefor a
mid-range GPU, but it’s
also very powerful fora
mid-range model. Besides borderline
4K-ready core performance,this comes with the same ray-tracing
and DLSS bells and whistles as Nvidia’s premium RTXcards, so it’s
still pretty good value in the end.
nge
ropping
M
★★
£11
rtarr
sed
bly wellMSIMPGZ390GamingEdgeAC
★★★★★
£140•www.scan.co.uk
From built-in 802.11ac
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to
high-end audio connectivity,
the MPG Z370 Gaming Edge AC is stuffed with
features. Addinagood price,easy overclocking and awell-designed
BIOS, and it’s perfect forpremium Intel-based builds.PROCESSORSOCKETLGA1151•DIMENSIONS305x244mm•CHIPSETIntelZ390•MEMORYSLOTS (^4) • PCI-Ex16SLOTS (^3) • PCI-Ex1SLOTS (^3) • PCISLOTS (^0) • USBPORTS2xUSB2,2xUSB3,
1xUSB3.1,1xUSBType-C•VIDEOOUTPUTS1xHDMI,1xDisplayPort•WARRANTYOneyearRTB
- DETAILSwww.msi.com•PARTCODEMPGZ390GamingEdgeAC•FULLREVIEWApr2019
ggity,
with