Upgrades, upgrades, upgrades

LENGTH OF TIME: 1-2 hours

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: Easy

Let’s face it, Intel’s latest launch has been a little lackluster. At least at the top end. The Core i9-11900K is, technically, a fantastic piece of engineering (a compliment we keep having to throw Intel’s way these days), because it circumvents a lot of the limitations of 14nm and the previous architecture design. However, when it comes to outright performance and pricing, Rocket Lake sort of falls flat on its face rather swiftly – at that aforementioned top end, anyway. That’s not good. We really need Intel to break through that 10nm barrier, and deliver, en masse, newer chips for the health of the industry as a whole. Regardless of whether you’re a fan of Team Red or Team Blue, having two competitive chip makers means that we, the consumers, will see significant improvements, generation to generation. And that’s something that, apart from meaning faster, better-performing rigs for us, also extends to benefiting society. Heck, we don’t want to see this all boil down to ARM versus AMD, RISC versus x86, in 10 years’ time. That would be sad indeed.

So, was everything a dud in Intel’s latest launch? Well, no. Bizarrely, and in perhaps the biggest turn-around in history, Intel’s budget-oriented chips are actually far more interesting than those at the top of the stack, and even more so than AMD’s. The Core i5-11400 and Core i5-11600K in particular are quite interesting, especially for those who only have one ambition for their rigs: gaming. In fact, in many cases, they entirely outpace their red rivals at the lower end of the spectrum. Long gone are the days of “If you’re on a budget, go AMD.” Yet there’s a catch….

The impossible task

There’s just no way of getting out there and buying modern components today. It’s almost impossible