TechSpot PC Buying Guide: Holidays 2023

[Amir Shoam]

For gamers and mainstream users, it's a great time to build a PC. The TechSpot PC Buying Guide includes four builds for different budgets and purposes.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2765-pc-buying-guide-23-24/

 

[PaladinNH]

Caught that 1TB T500 deal for $57 last week to double my storage to 2TB. Had never even heard of the drive until I did a filter of the SSD spreadsheet and noticed it was one of the top drives. Not sure why the 990 Pro is getting so much love at $130 when the 2TB T500 is at $102 and proven SN850X is at $115 though...especially considering the 990 issues (may have been solved through firmware).

 

[Amir Shoam]

Caught that 1TB T500 deal for $57 last week to double my storage to 2TB. Had never even heard of the drive until I did a filter of the SSD spreadsheet and noticed it was one of the top drives. Not sure why the 990 Pro is getting so much love at $130 when the 2TB T500 is at $102 and proven SN850X is at $115 though...especially considering the 990 issues (may have been solved through firmware).

When the guide was written, the 2TB SN850X was $150, and the T500 was $120. The 990 Pro is more consistent in long writes and hasn't had known issues in a while.

 

[mbk34]

I recently built a system just like your value gaming build but wanted to mention that the AMD 7600 comes with a reasonable cooler so you can save $45 not buying another. I'm not sure it's worth buying 32GB RAM for such a PC, actually I'm not sure it's worth getting 32GB for any PC. I cheaped out and bought the MSI A620M-E PRO motherboard but I wouldn't recommend that to others - it works but the cramped position of the GPU restricts airflow.

 

[Atmajaya2020]

If we can find cheaper alternatives for cpu cooler, m'board, and storage.. could we have a better gpu than 6700xt..?

 

[Julio Franco]

If we can find cheaper alternatives for cpu cooler, m'board, and storage.. could we have a better gpu than 6700xt..?

The Radeon 6700 XT is a solid GPU choice for that price bracket, but of course, what you're saying is going with the min/max strategy, as described here:

Faster GPU or Faster CPU: Ryzen 7600 + RTX 4070 Ti vs. Ryzen 7800X3D + RTX 4070

Usually we recommend PC gamers on a budget to adopt the min/max strategy. This means spending as little as possible on almost everything, except the GPU, where...

www.techspot.com

So sure, mix/matching between builds to maximize GPU performance is one way to go.

 

[UdyrL]

Mix/matching aside, the "value" gaming rig should reflect that: value.

Pure Rock 2 for $40? The Phantom Spirit 120/SE provides better performance for $36, and even a $20 120mm tower cooler should be enough for a 7600.

The 990 Pro is a horrible value choice at $180. Solidigm P41 Plus 2TB goes for $90-110, or the Teamgroup MP33 for $85-100.

The H5 Flow includes a single rear fan for an almost $100 case. You'd need to spend extra on fans (singles or 3-pack). The Montech Air 903 Max includes four fans for $75.