The January CES exhibition has brought a lot of announcements across the industry. Let's dive into assembling the best $/performance configurations across 3 different budgets.
Entry Gaming PC
Intel/Nvidia
AMD
Price
CPU
Intel Core i3-12100F
AMD Ryzen 5 5500
$110 / $100
MB
Intel B660 (LGA1700)
AMD B450/B550 (Socket AM4)
$100 / $85
GPU
GeForce RTX 3050 8GB
Radeon RX 6600 8GB
$330
RAM
16 GB (2×8 GB) DDR4-3600
$50
Drive
SSD 512 GB
$30
PSU
550 W
$60
Total
$680
$655
CPU
While Core i3-13100F is available for $130, overpaying $20 for 100-200 MHz is not worth it for a PC on a budget.
Between similar priced Ryzen 5 5500 (3.6/4.2 GHz) and Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6/4.2 GHz), it is worth going for a newer one.
MB
B660, while costing $25 over H610, offers DDR-4 3600 support. It will bring a few additional FPS for the same price when compared to DDR-4 3200 kits.
AMD B550 is worth considering over B450 if you need PCI-E 4.0 support. It will come at an extra $20-25 cost though.
GPU
8 GB RAM is the minimum requirement for graphics cards this year.
Nvidia's GPU looks a little better when ray tracing is activated while AMD's one is noticeably more productive (+20%-30%) in gaming and is a clear winner here.
Modest Gaming PC
Intel/Nvidia
AMD
Price
CPU
Intel Core i5-13400F
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
$230 / $205
MB
Intel B660/B760 (LGA1700)
AMD B550 (Socket AM4)
$140 / $110
GPU
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB
Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB
$470
RAM
16 GB (2×8 GB) DDR4-3600
$60
Drive
SSD 1000 GB
$110
PSU
650 W
$130
Total
$1140
$1085
CPU
Core i5-13400F has got same architecture and IPC (performance per clock) as the previous generation but splitting the cores into performance and energy-efficient ones has demonstrated around a 20-30% increase in multi-threaded loads.
Ryzen 7 5700X now priced a little above $200 is a well-balanced 8-core CPU. Consider 5800X if you find it on a discount or special promo.
MB
B760 chipset comes with DDR5 support and that's the only justification to pay for over less expensive B660. Remember, DDR4 memory is still way cheaper than its DDR5 equivalent too.
AMD B550 once again is a great $/value offer for the team red.
GPU
Both 3060 TI and 6700 XT are great options for their price.
On paper, that extra 4 Gb memory offered by AMD feels like a better value. However, performance-wise they are within a 10% margin on average.
Decent Gaming PC
Intel/Nvidia
AMD
Price
CPU
Intel Core i5-13600KF
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
$330 / $360
MB
Intel Z690/Z790 (LGA1700)
AMD B650 (Socket AM5)
$230 / $200
GPU
GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB
$1,200 / $1,100
RAM
32 GB (2×16 GB) DDR5-5600/6000
$175
Drive
SSD 2000 GB
$220
PSU
750 W
$210
Total
$2365
$2265
CPU
The $50 more expensive Core i7-13700F has 30 MB of the L3 cache and 8 performance cores over the i5-13600F with 24 MB and 6 cores respectively. However, the gaming performance difference is only 10% on average.
Ryzen 7 7700X is an optimal choice while we wait till April for the recently announced 7800X3D.
MB
Inte's Z690/790 chipsets would be primarily interested to overclockers, if you are not into one - feel free to save by going for more affordable B660/760 chipsets.
AMD B650 starting at $170 is a huge pain for those waiting to upgrade from AM4. However, there's not much choice if you consider the newest platform and would be interested in DDR-5. Fingers crossed for both motherboards and RAM pricing will go down asap.
GPU
You'll be paying more for the RTX 4080 than the RX 7900XT, but the performance increase is inconsistent, with some games seeing as little as no increase (Far Cry 6) and others seeing considerable jumps, especially at 4K.
Ray tracing, as expected, is a different story. NVIDIA's GPUs handle it better across the board.
