BUDGET
IN OUR BUDGET BUILDS last issue, we made a handy $5 upgrade on our RAM to boost this from 3200MHz to 3600MHz—well worth the price of a slice of cake and a coffee. This RAM kit was PNY’s XLR8 Gaming EPIC-X RGB 16 GB sticks, a choice of RAM we’ve used for a while now and are big fans of. It’s affordable, snappy, and looks great. This is being used in not only our Intel budget machine, but also our AMD budget build.
Another component that is shared across both teams is the SSD, and we’ve decided to upgrade that, too. Out goes the PNY CS2140 and in comes the Corsair MP600 PRO NH. For an extra $13, we are improving our read speeds from 3600MB/s up to 7000MB/s. Our write speeds are also increasing from 3200MB/s up to 6500MB/s. As for our backup drive, the Seagate Barracuda Compute, this 2TB 7200 RPM HDD is plenty of storage for these budget machines. At $50, it’s well worth adding to the mix.