Buying Guides
We ran Cinebench, Blender, and real gaming tests on seven processors across four price tiers. The results aren't what the marketing would have you believe.
Benchmarks
3DMark, Cyberpunk 2077, and total system power draw at the wall. Fifteen cards tested. Here's where the real value sits in 2026.
Builds
Real parts list at October 2026 prices, real assembly photos, and real benchmark numbers. Cyberpunk at 1080p Ultra hit 78fps average. Here's every component choice explained.
Benchmarks
We've been running both platforms side-by-side for twelve months across gaming, video rendering, and productivity workloads. The answer is more nuanced than the forum wars would suggest — but there is a clear winner for most people.
The Ryzen 7 9700X at $329 is still our everyday recommendation, but Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K has closed the gap in single-thread workloads. Full breakdown across four price tiers.
The RTX 4070 Super remains the rational choice at $549 for 1440p. AMD's RX 7900 GRE at $449 is the value story. Full power draw numbers and real game fps included.
The MSI Titan 18 is fast but the fan noise is genuinely antisocial. The ASUS TUF A15 at $899 won our value award. Full thermal and fps data across six laptops.
Ryzen 5 7600, RX 7700 XT, 16GB DDR5. Full parts list, build notes, and real game benchmarks. This build destroys any prebuilt at the same price.
