Gaming

The newer 6-core Zen 5 chip and the older 8-core Zen 4 chip game within a few percent of each other. Here's when the 7700X's extra cores are worth $65 — and when they do nothing.

Three in-stock cards, one clear 1080p pick, and an honest look at why the cheapest GPU in the catalog trails a six-year-old GTX 1660 Ti.

Four in-stock GPUs, one clear 1440p winner, and an honest look at where 8GB of VRAM and a $2,000 card stop making sense.

For gaming the i7-14700K lands within 3-6% of the pricier i9-14900K, usually a few frames. The i9 only pulls ahead about 14% in heavy multi-threaded rendering. Here's which to buy, and when a gaming-first build should look at neither.

NVMe is over 10x faster on paper, but games load only about a second quicker. Here is why NVMe still wins in 2026 — and it is not the reason you think.

4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p and costs the same GPU roughly 40% of its frame rate. A 1440p 165Hz gaming monitor is $319.99; a 4K panel that keeps that speed is $1,359.99. Here is who should pay for 4K and who is better off at 1440p.

Six cores or eight for a 2026 gaming build? The Ryzen 7 7700X is only about 3% faster than the 7600X at 1080p and no faster at 1440p, yet costs $77 more. Those two extra cores matter for streaming and heavy multitasking, not frames. Here is who should buy which.

One modern AAA game now eats 100-150GB, so a 1TB drive fills fast. Here is why 2TB NVMe is the 2026 baseline, when 1TB still works, and why Gen5 and big HDDs are the wrong place to spend.

For a pure gaming PC the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is the faster chip, costs about $200 less, and draws a fraction of the power. The Core i9-14900K only pulls ahead in heavy multi-core work. Here's how to choose.

For 1080p gaming the Ryzen 5 7600X is the faster chip and AM5 is the platform with a future, but the Core i5-14400F is a few dollars cheaper and ships with a cooler. Here's which budget CPU to actually buy.

8GB still holds up at 1080p, 12GB is the realistic floor for new AAA games, and 16GB is what you buy to keep a card for years. Here is how to tell which one you actually need.

Moving to 1440p sharpens the picture but costs 25-35% of your frame rate on the same GPU. Here is which resolution to buy and the GPU tier that makes 1440p worth it.