a part-by-part guide to building a better pc
THE BUILDS
THIS MONTH’S STREET PRICES...
BUDGET
WITH A TOTAL PRICE
generally around the $1,000 mark, our budget builds regularly see components changing due to sales of cheaper parts. Luckily, both builds continue this trend with our most expensive of the bunch costing just over $1,200. Kicking off with our AMD budget rig, we have a change in the motherboard.
Out goes the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite and in comes MSI’s B550M Pro-VDH. The previous board was no longer on sale and, at $125, the MSI alternative was too good to pass. Regardless of it being a Micro-ATX, it’s still compatible with our components.
Prices fell slightly across the AMD machine, including on our GPU. For $15 less, we upgraded our 6650XT to ASRock’s 6650 XT Challenger D OC card for some easy out-the-box overclocking. At $360, it’s a brilliant budget-end GPU with more than enough power for a solid 1080p gaming experience. All other components on the AMD side remain the same, with a few price fluctuations. Overall, we saved $13 from last month—that’s not much, but to have upgraded our GPU to an OC model makes it a good change.