$995 AMD PC
AMD BRILLIANCE FOR UNDER $1,000
Following our budget Intel build, Sam Lewis tries the AMD route
AFTER FEATURING a sub $1K Intel machine in last month’s issue, it’s only fair to turn our attention toward Team AMD and see what we can build for the same amount of money. This battle of the two main CPU competitors has left us changing teams constantly. We’ve twisted and turned about which is the better of the two, but there will always be a place in the market for both to coexist.
In the driving seat for this build, we have the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 CPU. We’re putting our faith in this budget-end processor to deliver a smooth 1080Pp gaming experience alongside an MSI GeForce RTX 3050 GAMING X 8G GPU.
As far as looks go, we’re starting strong with Corsair’s iCUE 220T RGB Airflow case. This mid-tower chassis certainly gives off a more premium appearance than its price tag might
imply. That’s what we want here, not just a PC for under $1K that can perform well enough to comfortably play games at 1080p, but also one that looks the part too. Hopefully, with this chassis, we can do just that.
When building toward a specific price tag, we have to spread our components out equally. We can’t buy a huge GPU and have a CPU equivalent to a 2010 smartphone. As interesting as that sounds, it’d be like putting a lawn mower engine in a Ferrari chassis and expecting it to perform.