PC of the month (August 2024)

Over the past few months, Ukrainians have been increasingly interested in laptops rather than desktops. As a result, prices in stores are changing in favor of PCs, so in this edition of the PC of the Month, we’ll take a look at classic configurations again, but with a focus on energy efficiency. We’ll select the most economical components that will help your computer deliver the highest possible performance per unit of energy consumption, as well as run for a long time from a charging station or uninterruptible power supply.

For those who like the highest energy efficiency and long battery life, we suggest that you check out the previous PC of the Month issue on laptops, where we reviewed both gaming and work machines for all occasions.

PC of the Month — special issue on laptops (July 2024)

Budget PC for UAH 21100

Gaming PC «Budget» 120 W		Price, UAH
Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 8600G	8300
Motherboard	Gigabyte A620M S2H	4300
RAM	32 GB Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5 6000CL38	4000
Drive	1 TB SSD Kingston NV2 SNV2S/1000G	2800
Video card	iGPU Radeon 760M	0
Cooler	BOX	0
Power supply	SFX Aerocool PGS CS-101 400W	1700
Body
The entire PC		21100

When it comes to maximizing energy efficiency, there are two options: NVIDIA RTX 3050 6 GB or powerful APUs from AMD. Of course, a 75W discrete graphics card is much more powerful than the best integrated solutions, but the setup shown in the table has its advantages.

The heart of the PC is the processor AMD Ryzen 5 8600G, review which was made not so long ago. The CPU is powerful and has good AMD Radeon 760M graphics, which is more than enough for popular video games. AAA games are almost no one plays. Therefore, a system unit based on this CPU can be confidently called a modern gaming computer.

A budget motherboard is enough for an economical processor. Simple Gigabyte A620M S2H can easily cope with the 8600G’s power supply and also supports fast memory, which is important for integrated graphics. In a budget PC, where every hryvnia counts, there’s no point in chasing the best motherboards.

DDR5 RAM has become quite cheap, so you can put 32 GB Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5 6000CL38 two 16 GB slots. This will allow you not to close hundreds of tabs in the browser, clogging up your chaotic workspace, or set ultra-textures in any video game because the iGPU takes memory from the RAM.

For the system and everything else, the drive will do 1 TB SSD Kingston NV2 SNV2S/1000G. An inexpensive, reliable, and moderately fast SSD at a very attractive price.

To cool the 8600G, we will use a box cooler. It’s important to note that the processor will always have a high temperature during the operation of such a build because it is difficult to remove heat from this crystal, so don’t be alarmed by 80+ °C on the sensors.

When idle, this computer will consume 40-50 Watt under high game load 100-130 Watt. If you take a case with a gold or platinum power supply, this figure can be reduced to 90-110 Watt. This computer can operate for 5-6 hours from an uninterruptible power supply with a medium-capacity GEL battery and an economical IPS monitor.

In total, you will have to pay for a budget PC UAH 21100. For this money, we get a modern processor, 32 GB of fast memory, 1 TB of storage, and powerful integrated graphics that will allow you to play the most popular games: WoW, DOTA, Counter Strike, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, Fall Guys, Valorant, LoL, GTA V, and many others.

As an even more energy-efficient option, we recommend taking a look at ready-made mini-PCs based on laptop components. There are not many of them on our market, but abroad you can find good nettops with integrated Radeon 780M graphics. Given the power consumption and cooling limits, it may be weaker than the proposed Ryzen 5 8600G with Radeon 760M, but the power consumption of the PC will be even lower.

The optimal PC is from 41300 to 52300 UAH

Gaming PC «Optimal» 300 W		Price, UAH
Processor	Intel Core i5-14400F	9500
Motherboard	ASRock B760M PG Riptide	5800
RAM	32 GB Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5 6000CL38	4000
Drive	2 TB GOODRAM PX600 SSDPR-PX600-2K0-80	5000
Video card	12 GB Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 WINDFORCE OC	24000
Cooler	BOX	0
Power supply	550 W MSI MAG A550BN	2200
Body	Mini Tower Montech Air 100 Lite	1800
The entire PC		52300
ECO video card	8 GB MSI GeForce RTX 4060 VENTUS 2X OC	13000
Entire PC ECO 200 W		41300

This will be the first PC release of the month without AMD Radeon discrete graphics cards, as they are very inferior to NVIDIA ADA in terms of energy efficiency, although they have a good price/performance ratio.

At the heart of the computer we put an extremely economical and easy to cool Intel Core i5-14400Fwhich can easily handle the most demanding video games. It also has significantly higher performance than AMD competitors thanks to its 10 cores.

Motherboard ASRock B760M PG Riptide It leaves room for upgrading to a more powerful processor in the future, supports RAM up to 7200 MHz, has good power supply and a heatsink for the drive. For the money, it’s a very good option.

We take the RAM 32 GB Team Group T-Force Vulcan DDR5 6000CL38but with a bigger budget, you can buy even faster modules. The Intel LGA 1700 platform is better friends with high-speed RAM than AMD AM5.

A 1TB drive is enough for the system, games, and everything else, but why not take 2 TB GOODRAM PX600 SSDPR-PX600-2K0-80if it costs only 5000 hryvnias (20% of the video card price)? It will fit everything at once, and as a bonus, TBW’s working life is even longer.

Everything is simple with video cards: Nvidia RTX 4060, 4060 Ti, 4060 Ti 16 GB, 4070, 4070 Super. You can choose any variant of these models, but in order not to overpay, it is better to follow a few rules.

The cheapest options are actually the best because these graphics accelerators are cold, hardly heat up, and are extremely reliable. It only makes sense to overpay for the three-fan versions of the 4070/4070 Super if you want an even quieter PC.

Pros  Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 WINDFORCE OC are asking for UAH 24,000, and MSI GeForce RTX 4060 VENTUS 2X OC will cost 12700 UAH. Both graphics cards are excellent, well suited for work and AAA video games (at 1440p and 1080p, respectively), and most importantly, they have high performance at 1W.

An entire «Optimal PC» with RTX 4070 will consume approximately 250-320 W, a «Optimal ECO PC» with RTX 4060 within 180-220 W. In esports and casual projects (read popular games), power consumption will be even lower.

In popular video games, it will not be easy to load the RTX 4060 at 100%, even with the fast Intel Core i5-14400F. Most successful computer gamers have their video card resting at 20-50% utilization because they play only with the lowest graphics settings to gain an advantage over the enemy.

The box cooler can handle heat dissipation from 14400F 65W without any problems, but those who like silence should spend another 1000-1500 UAH on an air cooler. It’s up to you because the 14th generation Intel BOX cooler is not bad.

Power supply 550 W MSI MAG A550BN will cope with its work with a huge margin. In gaming scenarios, it will be loaded by about 50%, which gives the highest efficiency. If you choose an RTX 4060 video card, you can take a high-quality branded 400-450W PSU.

Chassis Mini Tower Montech Air 100 Lite was added as an example of a modest, stylish, and neat case with a good level of ventilation for little money. We’ll leave the cool cases costing 3000-5000+ hryvnias for computer enthusiasts who are willing to spend significant amounts on the aesthetics of their PC.

Pros 41300 UAH you can assemble a «esports» computer with a good margin for future upgrades and power consumption of no more than 200 W. The optimal PC with RTX 4070/4070 Super is well suited for AAA gaming in Quad HD and consumes only 300 W under high load. Although it will cost in 52300 UAH.

Progressive PC from UAH 95300 to 119300

Gaming PC «Progressive» 400 W		Price, UAH
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D	16200
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING B650-E WIFI	9000
RAM	48 GB Patriot Memory Viper Elite 5 6000CL36	7000
Drive	2 TB Samsung 980 PRO MZ-V8P2T0BW	7000
Video card	16 GB Palit GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER GamingPro	40000
Liquid cooling	260 W Deepcool AK620 Zero Dark	5300
Power supply	750 W be quiet! Pure Power 12 M	6000
Body	Midi Tower Cougar MX600 RGB	4800
The entire PC		95300
RAM Pro	96 GB Patriot Memory Viper Elite 5 6000CL36	14000
Pro drive	4 TB Samsung 990 PRO MZ-V9P2T0BW	15000
Video card Pro	16 GB MSI GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER EXPERT	49000
The entire PC Pro 450 W		119300

While Intel processors are successful and energy efficient in the budget segment, we choose only AMD Ryzen for a cost-effective high-end PC. Since the chosen system unit is gaming, it remains to AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Only best a modern game processor, nothing more.

In work tasks, it loses to the Intel Core i5-14600K, not to mention the 14700K, and it is also difficult to remove heat from it. However, the 7800X3D is stable, consumes little power, and has a huge cache, which gives it the best gaming performance.

Any motherboard can power this economical CPU, but somehow it’s not a good idea to put the cheapest components in a computer that costs thousands of dollars. Asus TUF GAMING B650-E WIFI is a good option with an optimal price/feature ratio. The board is strong, has fast connectors in abundance, is covered with heatsinks, and looks good.

RAM 48 GB Patriot Memory Viper Elite 5 6000CL36 is a balanced option for the AMD AM5 platform. Ideally, the owner can lower the frequency to 5600 MHz, which will lower the CL score even further, perhaps to CL26-CL28. Computers with AMD Ryzen don’t necessarily need as high a RAM speed as Intel, so we don’t chase the top RAM.

Drive 2 TB Samsung 980 PRO MZ-V8P2T0BW has an unquestionable reputation and is considered one of the best on the market. Due to its stable speed, reliability, and adequate price, Samsung’s PCI-E 4.0 flagship is the best solution. Unfortunately, there are no 4TB models available on the Ukrainian market, so we’ll limit ourselves to the 2TB version.

Video card Palit GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER GamingPro (Black Myth: Wukong game as a gift) has a huge margin for Quad HD and good potential for Ultra HD resolution. The advantage of the Super version is the 4 GB of video memory and a faster chip, which makes this model almost on par with the RTX 4080.

There are alternatives from AMD Radeon, and they are quite profitable, but high-power consumption does not allow them to compete in this release of energy-efficient PCs.

Despite its meager TDP, AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is hard to cool. The processor is made using 5 nm technology, so it is difficult to remove heat from the distribution cover. The proposed air cooler Deepcool AK620 Zero Dark is enough for a good temperature/noise balance. A liquid cooling system will consume more power for obvious reasons (pump), so we do not consider them in this case.

The power supply is twice as powerful as the typical power consumption of a computer under high load. PSU 750 W be quiet! Pure Power 12 M will work at maximum efficiency during intensive video games on such a system. It’s important to choose a model with a modern NVIDIA 16 pin connector to avoid using a variety of adapters. In games, the proposed system will consume approximately 400 W.

The case is always a subjective choice when choosing among the top models because it’s really hard to find a bad one in this price category Cougar MX600 RGBLike all other premium chassis, it has good ventilation, thick metal, excellent ergonomics, and enough space for the selected components. We choose the case to our liking, considering the dimensions of the video card and the height of the CPU cooler.

If the amount of ROM, RAM, and video card power is not enough in the proposed configuration. We suggest considering the PRO option with twice the amount of RAM, twice the SSD higher-end and more powerful graphics card MSI GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER EXPERT. The power consumption of this system in games will be 350-450 Wand in popular games 200-250 W.

This is an ultimatum option for those who want to get everything at once UAH 119300 It’s a lot, but the power of this system cannot be compared (it’s much higher) with the best laptops of today for 200-250 thousand hryvnias, at least in games.

The standard configuration of a progressive PC with AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 48 GB of RAM, 2 TB of storage, and a 16 GB Palit GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER GamingPro graphics card will cost UAH 95300.