Computer Hardware: The updates with the pros and the cons Akshat Iyer

Computer hardware has been changing a lot since the past year, with the changes ranging from price to performance. Bitcoin has been changing, RAM prices have been fluctuating, and Processors and GPUs are being created with newer technologies that are able to run programs faster, and are able to use power more efficiently. I have waited for a while to give my input on this subject because I think that I have the experience that is necessary to provide information to people who are looking to purchase a computer or computer hardware to build one yourself. I will also be giving advice based on my own experiences buying and building a working rig. Anyways, let's get into the new components that have come out recently.

CPU (Processor)
The CPU market has changed a lot in the course of this year. In this year alone, AMD released their new 2nd generation CPUs. These processors sport clock speeds ranging from 3.4 GHz to 3.7 GHz, for a price range of $100 - $180, and an estimated power usage of 65W - 105W, which is a pretty good bang for your buck if you are looking to build a budget rig. Intel still slightly outperforms AMD with its new mainstream processor that is out on the market. The Intel i7 8700k is one of Intel's new CPUs, which is a great processor if you want both productivity, and gaming performance. It's multi-threading almost has it matches that of the Ryzen 7 series, and it runs it's base clock at 3.7 GHz and is overclockable to 4.7 GHz without de-lidding. With de-lidding, however, this processor can run at a crazy fast 5.1 GHz clock speed, however, if you decide to de-lid your processor, it may void your warranty. Keep in mind, however, that this performance comes at a price, and that price isn't very pretty for most of us to pay. This CPU costs $369, which is more than double of that of the AMD Ryzen Processors. If you are willing to pay a pretty penny, however, then go for it, and purchase this CPU.

RAM (Memory)
The RAM prices have been seeing some crazy price changes, but thankfully, they have finally settled, and you can get a really nice set of 16 GB RAM sticks for $130 or less. The prices in June were about $180, which was insane, because the normal MSRP value for 2 8 GB sticks of RAM is around the range of $80 to $150, which means the maximum price you were paying for memory was $30 less than what you would have paid for the budget stick 3 months ago. Since the RAM prices dropped, building PCs is a lot cheaper now for good performance. If I were you, go ahead and grab yourself a 16 GB set for a solid gaming PC performance.

GPU
Graphics cards and their prices have been going crazy over the past couple of months, with the whole cryptocurrency mining craze and the new RTX and Vega cards coming out. I will tell you from experience that you should not buy a PC during a cryptocurrency craze in effect. This would essentially make your PC seem unreasonably expensive and may cause you to be disappointed with the performance you got with the expensive graphics card. At one point, the GTX 1060 was selling for $325, about $85 above the MSRP value. However, as of October 30th, 2018, graphics card prices have gone down enough to where it is reasonable to pay the extra $10 for 1060. The GTX 1060 is probably one of the best graphics cards when it comes to the cost/performance ratio, as it is $255 but it allows the user to play games at max settings and still stream it at 144 frames per second. The GTX series is also more advanced than AMD's graphics cards in software, with NVidia having support for OBS and other games by default. NVidia has also recently released a new strand of graphics cards, known as the RTX series, which includes the RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 TI. RTX apparently has new technologies, such as "ray tracing", which simulates the behavior of light in real life to bring games "to life," and DLSS, which is an AI that "trains the GPU to render crisp images" according to the NVidia website. This may seem pretty nice, but keep in mind that the lowest performance card of the RTX series costs about $599, which is a price that is not affordable for those who want to build a mid-range gaming PC, however, if you are truly feeling mad and want to go for it, you can buy the RTX series for that "maximum performance" of games. On the other hand, AMD hasn't really been releasing anything new. The Vega came out about a year ago, with its high potential for mining, but ever since the mining craze has died down, AMD hasn't really released anything new and fun for us to play with, however, the speeds of their RX 580 is still standing strong, at about equal performance to the GTX 1060, according to reputable GPU Benchmarks. The Vega also is matching the speeds of the 1070 and 1080, with the 56 and 64 respectively. However, NVidia's video cards are a bit more power efficient, so it reigns a little superiority there. Also, for the Graphics card prices, NVidia's cards have gone down quite a bit due to the release of their new cards mentioned above. The card you get depends on what your budget is, so if you are on an entry budget, go for one of the lower models, but if you are on a higher budget, go for something expensive, and if you really want to get the RTX cards, with its ray tracing ability, then by all means go for it, and please let me know how it feels.

This ends the review, so below I'll list some builds that you can go for that you can edit based on your price range. There will be 3 builds below, for 3 different price ranges. Click on them to go and check them out!

(Please note that this is only the chassis for the computer, you will need to buy yourself a monitor and a copy of whatever operating system you desire)
1. Entry Level Part List (Made by ThoughtA) ($400-$600):
https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/p2MnTW/entry-level-amd-gaming-build
2. Modest Gaming machine ($1000 - $1500):
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KgctHh
3. All-out Gaming machine ($2000 - $2500):
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XFLXdX