07/23/2020 $1,000 Mid-Level Gaming, Streaming, and Workstation.

CPU: 

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($159.97 @ Amazon*) 

For the $1,000 list, we are stepping up to the 3600. This CPU is a 6-core 12-thread Matisse Zen2 CPU on the 7nm process

Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($184.86 @ Amazon*) 

With the 3600 CPU, I wanted to go ahead and step up to the x570 Chipset. This Asus board has every feature you could want except WIFI but we address that below.

Memory: 

G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory ($65.98 @ Amazon*) 

For the memory, we are going with 16GB of DDR4-3600 Ripjaws. This ram kit is tried and true. Having put this kit in many clients builds I can say that this kit will not disappoint no matter how many Chrome tabs you have open.

Storage: 

Patriot VPN100 256 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($49.99 @ Amazon*)

This NVME has 512MB of Cache. That is double the normal amount of DRAM for this size SSD.

Storage: 

Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($58.00 @ Amazon*)

Price to performance and capacity the barracuda just can’t be beat right now.

Video Card: 

EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB KO ULTRA GAMING Video Card ($333.00 @ Amazon*) 

I would like to fit a 2060 Super in at this price point but with COVID hiking prices up the 2060 is all I could do. That being said the 2060 is nothing to scoff at offering performance better than last generation’s 1070ti. And with all the Turing GPUs it has the Turing NVENC encoder taking stream encoding stress off the CPU and the GPU.

Case: Cougar MX330-G ATX Mid Tower Case ($61.99 @ Amazon*)

SO my personal gaming build is in this case and yet this is the first time I’m, putting it on a build list. This case is really good value. Offering a tempered glass side panel, PSU shroud, awesome cable management, and a huge basement for hiding any unsightly messes this case is awesome.

Power Supply: 

EVGA 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($109.00 @ Amazon*)

This PSU is a good choice for this budget. It’s semi-modular, 80+ Gold Rated, and 650w allowing plenty of overhead for future upgrades.

Optional WIFI/Bluetooth Card:

EDUP WiFi Dual Band 5GHz/2.4GHz PCI-E with Bluetooth 5.0 ($29.99 @ Amazon*) 

I have been using these cards in both of my personal cards as well as I believe something like 32 client builds. These cards are awesome offering reliable WIFI and strong Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.

Total w/WIFI: $1057.77**

Total w/o WIFI: $1022.79**

*Post contains Amazon Associate links.

**Based on the prices and availability at the time of writing. Pricing and availability changes minute by minute.