AMD RADEON ON A BUDGET

Team AMD or Team Intel? Which sub$1,000 machine should you side with?

- SAM LEWIS

IN A SIMILAR VEIN as last issue, we wanted to tackle the same MO but switch from Team Blue to Team Red. That’s right, we’re moving to the AMD side of the fence with this build, but sticking with the sub-$1,000 budget. This gives you the latest AMD GPU, a very competent budget-friendly AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, and plenty of RGB lighting. The latter is the least important, especially if you’re sticking to a budget, but it’s a good way of adding to a room’s theme. You can change the lighting to suit your needs, and if you aren’t a fan of the Rainbow Road from Mario Kart aesthetic, don’t worry—we aren’t either. We prefer keeping the lights to a static color or, if feeling adventurous, we might push the boat out and apply a breathing effect. How fancy!

Lighting aside, we’re pushing for similar, or if not better, performance as last month’s budget Intel machine. We’re still aiming for solid 1080p gaming, but with the help of AMD’s latest tricks, we may be able to push our frame rate up and enter the QHD domain. Elsewhere in the build, we’re using a microATX motherboard. Last time, we avoided any motherboards other than standard ATX for future-proofing reasons, but microATX still offers enough room to add more components going forward, and is more versatile than a Mini-ITX board. We’ve gone with the Asus TUF Gaming B560M Plus Wi-Fi— at under $150, it fits the rest of the machine and sticks within our budget, too.