PC of the month (November 2024)

Closer to the end of 2024, we return to the classic PC builds of the month. This time, we’ll look at several typical configurations with the latest (or most rational, but not the latest) components for all occasions. Should you upgrade to LGA 1851 right now, what can you buy for up to 30,000 UAH, and what platform should you choose for professional work? Let’s take it one step at a time.

Budget PC for UAH 30,400

Gaming PC «Budget+»		Price, UAH
Processor	Intel Core i5-12400F	4800
Motherboard	Asus PRIME H610M-A WIFI DDR4	4400
RAM	32 GB Patriot Memory Viper Steel 3200CL16	2300
Drive	1 TB Patriot Memory P400 Lite PCI-E 4.0	2300
Video card	8 GB MSI GeForce RTX 4060 VENTUS 2X	14000
Cooler	BOX	0
Power supply	450 W Deepcool PF PF450	1600
Body	Mini-Tower PrologiX E112	1000
The entire PC		30400
Power consumption in games	150-200 W

Processor Intel Core i5-12400F a few years after its release, is more relevant than ever. The low cost makes it a good choice, including for budget PCs. The newer versions of 13400F, 14400F are more productive (who would have thought?), but the performance difference is not so great that it is worth paying extra for them when the build budget is formed from a limited amount.

Beginners often make the mistake of choosing a motherboard by its appearance and think that huge radiators are literally necessary for any gaming PC. In fact, the cheapest board for 3000-3500 UAH will be enough for this build, but we added a slightly more expensive (well, almost exemplary) one Asus PRIME H610M-A WIFI DDR4because it has wireless interfaces.

DDR4 RAM has fallen in price considerably, but it still remains relevant. For 2300 UAH you can buy a set of 2×16 GB Patriot Memory Viper Steel 3200CL16 with large heatsinks and a balanced latency-to-frequency ratio. Given the poor optimization of ports from consoles (and now they only port, not develop for PC), there will be no extra memory.

Modern PC video games take up a lot of memory, even exclusive masterpieces that are not available for consoles (League of Legends, DOTA 2, Counter Strike 2, Valorant, World of Warcraft, Harrys Mode – real AAA PC gaming) often take up 50+ GB of storage, so we don’t spare 2300 UAH for 1 TB Patriot Memory P400 Lite PCI-E 4.0. A faster SSD is definitely not needed here.

Video card MSI GeForce RTX 4060 VENTUS 2X with 115W power consumption is the best budget choice for PCs. It has no compromises like the AMD Radeon RX 7600 (higher TDP and lower performance, no DLSS, weaker in RT, etc.) and currently looks like a bargain. For 1080p/1440p, it’s just what you need, and there’s no need to talk about eSports – it’s enough for any popular PC discipline, even in combination with Intel Core i9.

It’s easy to remove heat from Intel processors, not like modern AMD AM5s. The Intel Core i5-12400F can be handled by a box cooler. There will not be perfect silence, but the fan will definitely not be as loud as the AMD Wraith Prism with AMD Ryzen 7 7900 90W. It is worth noting that the box coolers in the 13th generation of Intel are slightly better than in the 12th.

For some UAH 30400 (a little over $700), you can buy a PC with a good 32 GB + 1 TB memory subsystem, a modern graphics card with DLSS + FG, and a six-core processor. It is equally important that all this will consume a little more power than a powerful gaming laptop – about 200 watts.

If the budget is still tight, you can get into the 20 000 UAHby making such changes and staying out of the used component market with all its lottery consequences:

• Intel Core i5-12400F is replaced with Intel Core i3-12100F;
• Asus PRIME H610M-A WIFI DDR4 is being exchanged for an even cheaper board without Wi-Fi;
• Instead of 32 GB of RAM, we put 16 GB in two strips;
• 1 TB PCI-E 4.0 SSD is for «majors», so we add 480 GB SATA;
• We buy an AMD Radeon RX 6600 video card, but you can also restoredbut with a guarantee;
• We buy the cheapest case, even for 500 hryvnias, but you shouldn’t save too much on the power supply;

The optimal gaming PC for 63 100 UAH

Gaming PC «Optimal»		Price, UAH
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X	13000
Motherboard	MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI	7400
RAM	32 GB GOODRAM IRDM DDR5 5600CL30	5000
Drive	2 TB Kingston KC3000 SKC3000D	6800
Video card	16 GB Asus Radeon RX 7800 XT Dual	24000
Cooler	200 W be quiet! Dark Rock 4	2800
Power supply	700 W Chieftec EON ZPU-700S	2500
Body	Midi-Tower QUBE Carnival RGB	1600
The entire PC		63100
Power consumption in games	350-450 W

The best AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D gaming processor has risen in price due to its popularity and demand, so it’s not the best solution right now. It’s a shame to pay more than 20,000 UAH for a CPU for fun, and AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is almost «ten times cheaper and will still deliver insanely high FPS in any game.

Motherboard MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI will cope with much more demanding processors. For the money, we have a full complement: 15-phase power supply, 7.1 sound, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, four 7200 MHz DDR5 and two M.2 connectors. In the 7000 UAH price category, it’s hard to find something fundamentally better.

For the AMD AM5 platform, it makes no sense to take flagship RAM with high frequencies, but latency is a big deal. The best choice is GOODRAM IRDM DDR5 5600CL30. If you’re lucky, you can reduce the latency even further with manual settings, but there’s no point in raising the frequency too high.

Drive Kingston KC3000 SKC3000D is one of the most popular in Ukraine, and deservedly so. It has some of the best features in its price range. Reliable, fast, high-quality 2 TB «disk» for all occasions. The optimal SSD for the optimal PC for the optimal price.

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is considered the best among all AMD Radeon RX 7000 models. Inexpensive but successful Asus Radeon RX 7800 XT Dual has good cooling, quiet fans, and is in no way inferior to the Sapphire models. Yes, the Asus Dual RTX 4070 consumes less power, is quieter and faster in work tasks, but for gaming, the more affordable RX 7800 XT is still a better choice, at least until the RTX 4070 prices rise.

PSU Chieftec EON ZPU-700S seems ideal if we take into account its price of 2300 UAH. For this amount, the user gets almost 640 watts of power over a 12 V line, an efficiency of at least 80%, and as many as four PCI-E 8 pin cables. This unit can handle the RX 7900 XTX, not to mention the relatively economical RX 7800 XT.

If you look solely at TDP, then cooling the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X will not be difficult at all, but this is not entirely true. It is difficult to remove heat from the new AMD AM5 processors, very difficult. It is imperative to use high-quality thermal paste, and for silence, it is recommended to purchase a cooler with a good margin. Almost a kilogram air cooler be quiet! Dark Rock 4 will easily tame the Ryzen 7 7700X with minimal noise. Although the price bites, it is a benchmark, exemplary in its class, literally.

Body QUBE Carnival RGB It’s a little too affordable for a $1500 computer, but is there any point in spending a lot of money on a chassis? It looks good, has a side cover, USB 3.2 gen1, and a whole set of four case fans. A real gift for 1500 hryvnias, although demanding aesthetes will definitely take something of a higher class.

The cost of such an optimal gaming PC at the end of 2024 is UAH 63,100which is about $1500. It does look expensive in hryvnias, but this build didn’t skimp on the hardware (except for the case): a fast 2TB drive, high-quality DDR5 RAM with low latency, a power supply with a large margin, and a balanced CPU + GPU combination.

Workstation «Universal» 104,700 to 121,000 UAH

Workstation «Universal»		Price, UAH
Processor	Intel Core i7-14700K	17000
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z790 AERO G	9800
RAM	48 GB G.Skill Ripjaws S5 6400CL36	6300
Drive	2 TB Samsung 990 PRO MZ-V9P2T0GW PCI-E 4.0	8400
Video card	16 GB Palit GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER JetStream	50000
Liquid cooling	300 W ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 360	3800
Power supply	850 W Deepcool PN-M PN850M	5800
Body	Midi-Tower MSI MPG QUIETUDE 100S	3600
The entire PC		104700
Drive Plus	4 TB Crucial P3 Plus PCI-E 4.0	10000
RAM Plus	96 GB G.Skill Ripjaws S5 DDR 6400CL36	12600
All PC + Plus		121000
Power consumption in games	400-500 W
Power consumption max.	550-650 W

The new Intel Core Ultra processors are still too expensive due to poor availability in Ukraine (although the recommended price is lower than the previous generation), and AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D has not yet been released. If you are building a PC exclusively for gaming, then AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is definitely the best solution, although it is currently overpriced.

High demand has forced the price of this «3D cache» hit to rise, so now it is much more expensive than Intel’s competitors. Why did we put it in the table Intel Core i7-14700KIn work tasks, it tramples the 7800X3D into the ground, leaving no chance, loses only slightly in games (and not all of them), is 25-30% faster with DDR5, and costs significantly less (17,000 UAH vs. 22,000 UAH).

On the other hand, we have a considerable TDP and the need to properly configure it after purchase, be sure to use the latest BIOS for the motherboard and preferably limit power consumption to at least 250 watts. The advantages include the ease of heat dissipation – despite the high TDP, its temperatures are lower than those of AMD AM5 analogs.

The motherboard was chosen Gigabyte Z790 AERO G and there are a number of reasons for this: five slots for M.2 NVMe drives, a top-of-the-line Z790 chipset with no overclocking restrictions, PCI-E 5.0 support, fast wireless interfaces, and an adequate price/performance ratio. The optimal motherboard for high-end PCs, and not too expensive.

Despite the availability of ultra-fast PCI-E 5.0 models SSD Samsung 990 PRO MZ-V9P2T0GW is a more rational solution. The speed may not exceed 7,500 MB/s, but the 990 Pro has the best stability among flagship PCI-E 4.0 drives and shows uniform read/write performance across the entire capacity, unlike cheaper competitors.

Non-binary RAM kit G.Skill Ripjaws S5 DDR5 2×24 GB with a frequency of 6400 MT/s is the golden mean for the Intel LGA1700 platform. Although the motherboard supports faster RAM, these kits offer the best price/performance ratio.

For the most extreme professionals, we double the amount of RAM in the «Plus» computer version. With 96 GB of RAM, no program, neural network, or dozens of virtual machines are afraid of anything. We also added another SSD to this configuration Crucial P3 Plus CT4000P3PSSD8 4TB for storing personal files, software, work materials, and something else (maybe video games?).

The flagship NVIDIA RTX 4090 can only be used in PCs of the «Full Stuff» class, because the video card alone will cost almost as much as the entire computer in the proposed configuration. AMD’s top-of-the-line solution is also not an option for work, because RTX 4080 is still faster, much faster, in professional software. That is why we took Palit GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER JetStream OC as an example, although there are other inexpensive versions of the 4080 Super available on the Ukrainian market that can be purchased unofficially at more reasonable prices.

All these components require approximately 500-600 watts of power in the most severe stress tests, and in typical heavy-duty use scenarios (including gaming), the computer will draw 400 watts from the outlet. Deepcool PN-M PN850M ATX 3.1 standard is almost a perfect fit for this PC: 90% efficiency, 16-pin NVIDIA graphics card slot, modular design, and a 10-year warranty.

Body MSI MPG QUIETUDE 100S It has good noise insulation, thick metal, and a strict look. We reviewed this model a while back, but the price was almost twice as high! Currently, for 3600 hryvnias, it is a very good option despite its nuances, which can be found in the editorial review.

Cooler ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 360 has the best price/performance ratio on the market, although it will not appeal to modern gamers. This is the most strict and simple liquid cooling without backlighting, a built-in screen, and other features typical of fashionable counterparts. This SRO will cope with Intel Core i7-14700K without any difficulties.

Pros UAH 104,700 (in the currency of no more than $2500) managed to assemble a flagship PC for work that will also cope with video games in Ultra HD resolution. If you don’t have enough memory, you can use the UAH 121,000 will have the same configuration with an additional 4 TB SSD and 96 GB of RAM. Obviously, this PC is not for the mass consumer, but it will satisfy the needs of the most demanding professionals in any field.