THIS MONTH’S STREET PRICES...

OVER THE PAST FEW ISSUES, we’ve been focusing on bringing the overall price tag of both budget builds down back to a more reasonable ‘budget’ level. Last month, we got them below the $1,000 mark and with some further changes, they’re down to around $800 this time. The challenge is maintaining the performance level while finding cheaper or older components that are still in stock. At the time of writing, everything is in stock but this can soon change after we go to print, so we apologize in advance if it isn’t. The same applies to any sale items that find their way into our builds as they run out quickly. Though correct at the time of press, sale prices can change rapidly too.

After changing lots of components in our Intel build, we were hit by a few price hikes this month. The Asus GeForce GTX 1660 Ti TUF Gaming EVO OC 6GB increased by $30, the Intel Core i3- 12100 by $10, and the EVGA 450 BR Bronze 80+ Gold PSU by $15. Individually, these increases aren’t too bad, but together, it all adds up to $55, which would be enough to double our RAM at least. Talking of RAM, we actually saved $10 here, so it’s just a $45 increase. To reel back some of that cash, and partly due to a stock shortage of the EVGA 450W PSU, we swapped this out for an equivalent Corsair CV450W 80+ Bronze PSU that came in at $6 lower. That’s enough for a few snacks to keep you happy while building this thing. Other than that, the build remained the same.