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Intel’s Core i3-9100F is a quad-core 9th generation Coffee Lake desktop processor. It features base / boost clocks of 3.6 / 4.2 GHz, 6 MB of cache, a 65W TDP and it ships with a cooler. Gamers should pair the 9100F with a Z390 motherboard and unlock higher XMP RAM speeds. This will deliver up to a 15% fps boost which is well worth it considering that many Z390 boards are available for around $100 USD (here is one of the builds from our EFps test lab). The 9100F has great single core performance coupled with a strong memory sub system. This enables it to deliver excellent all round performance, easily holding its own against far pricier CPUs for the majority of use cases. The heavily hyped 12 threaded 6 core Ryzen 3600 barely pulls ahead in any of the top five games. ^{[Oct '19 CPUPro]}

AMD’s Ryzen 5 3600 is one of five new processors based on the latest Zen 2 7nm microarchitecture. This 6-core, 12-threaded processor is priced at $199 USD and succeeds the Ryzen 5 2600 improving upon it by 18% in terms of average effective speed and 12% in terms of overclocked performance. The 3600's base / boost clocks of 3.6 / 4.2 GHz match the previous gen hex-core Ryzen 5 2600X and therefore indicate an 11% clock for clock (IPC) improvement over the previous generation. The Ryzen 5 3600 is in competition with Intel’s hex-core i5-9600K. AMD continues to push the multi-core performance envelope: benchmarks show that the 3600 has a 27% overclocked 64-core advantage over the 9600K but that the i5-9600K leads by 14% on single, quad and hex core workloads which translates to 14% higher fps for gamers. Additionally, the 3600's memory controller, although significantly improved over previous Ryzen iterations, still has limited bandwidth and high latency which can impact gaming. Although the Ryzen 3000 will be launched alongside the new X570 chipset, they are backwards compatible with 400 and even the 300 series motherboards. At $198 USD, the 3600 offers reasonable value for workstation users. ^{[Jun '19 CPUPro]}

AMD’s mid-range RX 590 is the latest refresh of their Polaris-based RX 580, which in turn was a refresh of the RX 480. This iteration yields 10% higher clock speeds compared to the RX 580 which is fuelled by an increased power draw from 185W to 225W. The 590 does not have a 4GB variant which is good for longevity. At launch the 590 was priced at $280, which was 20% more expensive and 7% faster than Nvidia’s then popular 6GB 1060. In today’s market the 590 can be found for little as $170. For more than 90% of gamers (≤1080p, 60Hz Monitors) the RX 590 (at $170) represents the best value for money available. Since the GPU is by far the most important component in a gaming PC, it is usually worth spending more on it. The next step up from a 590 would be to Nvidia’s comparable $230 1660S. The 1660S is a more refined card, less heat results in less fan noise, but both are capable of delivering silky smooth 60+ EFps in almost all of today’s popular games at 1080p with maximum details. ^{[Nov '19 GPUPro]}

The GTX 1660 Super has a launch price of just $230 USD with comparable performance to the $280 USD 1660 Ti. The 1660 Super has 14 Gbps GDDR6 (versus 12Gbps GDDR6 for the 1660 Ti and 8Gbps GDDR5 for the 1660). The 1660 range of cards sit in the sweet spot for many gamers because they offer superb 1080p EFps in popular titles and they are relatively hassle free in terms of noise, compatibility and stability. Shop prices will determine which 1660 series card represents the best value over time but at today's prices the 1660 Super effectively undercuts the 1660 Ti by $50 USD thus challenging the RX 590 in terms of overall value at 1080p. The next step up from the 1660S would be to the $325 RTX 2060. ^{[Oct '19 GPUPro]}

The MX500 is Crucial’s current flagship consumer SATA SSD featuring their latest second generation 64-layer 3D TLC NAND. It’s available in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB capacities in a 2.5-inch form factor. All but the 2 TB version will also be available in M.2 (2280) form in the future. The MX500 features a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller which is a change from the Marvell 88SS1074 controller featured in the MX300 (it’s nearly two year old predecessor). Performance is around 30% better than on the MX300 which currently retails at the same price. The MX500 has an SLC cache which increases with drive capacity. Consequently, the larger capacities are better able to sustain high sequential write speeds. The 250 GB version has 250MB of SLC cache, the 500 GB has 512 MB, the 1 TB has 1 GB and the 2 TB has 2 GB. Extended sustained write performance tests show that even though speed does drop off after the cache has been exhausted, it is still maintained at very respectable levels. The MX500’s five year warranty is in line with Samsung’s 850 Evo and exceeds it in terms of endurance (just 75 TBW for the 250 GB 850 Evo versus 100 TBW for the 250 GB MX500). It doesn’t quite match up to the Samsung’s 850 Evo’s performance (effective speed 8% slower), however at current prices it is about 20% cheaper, and on balance offers better value for money. ^{[Mar '18 SSDrivePro]}

Adata’s XPG SX8200 offers NVMe PCIe SSD performance at SATA SSD prices, thereby offering outstanding value for money to casual and power PC users alike. Adata have combined two high performance commodity components: a Silicon Motion controller (SM2262) and Micron’s second generation 3D TLC 64 layer flash memory. The XPG SX8200 also includes a generous SLC cache and a DRAM cache buffer. Adata have not specified the exact size of the SLC cache in each model but it’s clear from our 60 second sustained write tests that the buffer is sufficient for more than 60 seconds of continuous writes which equates to over 60GB (60s x 1 GB/s) for the 240GB model and over 90GB (60s x 1.5 GB/s) for the 480GB and 960GB models. Unlike many other drives with SLC caching, the SX8200 has a large enough cache to ensure that consumers will almost always operate the drive within the cache and therefore experience no write degradation at all. Adata offer a 5 year warranty and a limited TBW warranty (160 TBW for the 240 GB version, 320 TBW for the 480GB and 640 TBW for the 960GB) on these SSDs, which is in line with other premium manufacturers. The NVMe PCIe SSD consumer market has been dominated by Samsung in recent years but the 240GB SX8200 beats Samsung’s 250GB 970 Evo hands down on both price and performance (the 250GB 970 Evo is let down by a relatively small SLC cache which allows for less than 10 seconds of writes before saturation after which the write speed on the Evo drops to mere sub SATA 300 MB/s). The SX8200 is the new value leader and heralds a new era of competition for the mainstream segment of the NVMe SSD market. ^{[Jul '18 SSDrivePro]}

The new 3TB Seagate Barracuda 2016 (ST3000DM008) replaces its hugely successful predecessor, the 3TB Barracuda 7200.14 2011 (ST3000DM001). Comparing performance between the two models shows that the newer drive has 12% faster sequential speeds, comparable 4K speeds, improved mixed sequential speed and reduced mixed 4K speed. Overall, the effective speed is 12% faster on the 2016 model. Since there is normally little price difference between the two models the 2016 version is the clear winner especially for use as a backup drive with its impressive sequential read and write speeds of nearly 200 MBps. See the current value leaders here. ^{[Feb '17 HDrivePro]}

The 1TB Seagate Barracuda 2016 (ST1000DM010) has an impressive performance profile. With Sequential read/writes averaging 173 and 159 MBps respectively, the Barracuda can make short work of even moderately large backups. The small file (4K) performance profile is less impressive but still adequate with average read/writes coming in at 0.87 and 1.53 MBps respectively. For use as OS drives, rotational disks are quickly loosing market share to SSDs which offer orders of magnitude faster 4k read/write speeds. On the other hand cheap TLC based SSDs often have slower sustained write speeds than their rotational counterparts. Reasonably good overall performance can be achieved by using a TLC SSD to host the OS and a larger rotational drive such as the Barracuda for backups and media files. Larger capacity variants of this drive offer both better performance and better value for money. ^{[Feb '17 HDrivePro]}