— The RTX 3050-Ti is Nvidia's newest Ampere-based mobile GPU. It aims to bring ray tracing, DLSS, and other RTX features to average consumers. The 3050-Ti is now commonly found in laptops around the $800 range, which is about $200 less than most RTX 3060 laptops. With the price decrease comes compromises, namely the reduction of VRAM. 4GB of VRAM is quickly becoming obsolete for newer AAA games. Without a sufficient amount of VRAM, games can have unstable frametimes and lower framerates, as well as blurry or choppy scenes in game. Compared to the Turing-based 1650-Ti, the 3050-Ti does offer a ~35% increase in performance, as well as ray tracing and DLSS. This is a healthy increase in performance, and means that the 3050-Ti will be able to tackle some newer games. However, with that being said, the 3060 6GB does offer a near 50% increase in performance compared to the 3050-Ti, and it makes more sense for most users to spend a few hundred more dollars for a laptop with a RTX 3060.

— The Intel Core i9-10850K is one of the best valued high-end CPUs from Intel in the past few years. Essentially, the 10850K is a worse binned 10900K, meaning that it may be a hundred or two megahertz slower than the 10900K and may not overclock as well as a standard 10900K. Otherwise, the 10850K is nearly identical to the 10900K. The 10850K is a very strong gaming and workstation CPU. With a sub-$400 price-tag, the 10850K has a similar pricing to the Ryzen 7 5800X. Gamers who want the faster overall gaming performance should go with the Ryzen 7 5800X, while users who want the best overclocking and a slightly better workstation/multi-core performance may want to stick with the 10850K. Note that Intel will be switching to a new chipset with their 12th generation Alder Lake processors, so the upgrade path is limited to Intel's 11th generation Rocket Lake processors, which is mostly not worth the upgrade. Also, as of Q1 of 2020, the 10900K remains $75-100 more expensive than the 10850K. There is just not enough performance gain for most users to justify the extra cost, so most users would be better off with a 10850K. At the end of the day, the 10850K is still a very solid choice for anyone who wants a high-performing intel processor that will last for a good few years before really needing a upgrade.

— The Intel Core i9-10980XE is a mostly obsolete choice in 2021. This processor goes for around $1,000 and has a poor overall value. If a high multi-core performance is needed, it is better to go with the Ryzen 9 5950X processor, which is about $200 cheaper and delivers a significantly higher single-core and multi-core performance. In terms of gaming, users will find more success with lower-core, but faster IPC processors such as the Intel i5-11400 and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X. Users looking for the top HEDT performance should consider AMD's Threadripper lineup, which has significantly more cores and threads, albeit at a higher cost. Intel's current HEDT i9 lineup is also on a dead-end platform, meaning that the 10980XE is the fastest processor you can have with the X299 chipset. All in all, the Intel Core i9-10980XE can be a decent processor to upgrade to if one already has a X299 chipset board. However, with that being said, many users many have to buy Intel HEDT for some Intel-exclusive features.