07/24/2020 $1000 Mid-Level Gaming and Production

For the list today we only have a few changes over yesterday. Most were due to availability. I was also able to get an RTX 2060 Super on the list today over yesterday's RTX 2060.

CPU: 

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($158.97 @ 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 PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard ($163.38 @ 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: 

Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB GAMING X Video Card ($456.45 @ Amazon*) 

Finally got an RTX 2060 Super back in the $1,000 list. Grab them before they are gone. The Turing NVENC is a separate chip on the Graphics card which takes stream encoding stress off the GPU and CPU allowing you to run your games at max performance while having a nice smooth stream. Furthermore, for you production users, NVIDIA's new Studio Driver has changed the game allowing your hardware accelerated programs to better utilize the computing power the GPU provides. You can find the Studio Driver here.

Case: Thermaltake Versa J25 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.98 @ Amazon*)

Switching it up today with this case from Thermaltake. I love the sleek black look along with easy cable management. This case comes with a single 120mm exhaust, you could also grab 3 120mm or 2 140mm fans for the intake at the front of the case.

Power Supply: 

Power Supply: EVGA BQ 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($66.16 @ Amazon*)

This PSU is a good choice for this budget. It’s semi-modular, 80+ Bronze Rated, and 500w 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: $1108.90**

Total w/o WIFI: $1078.91**

*Post contains Amazon Associate links.

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