How AMD's Combat Crate Could Jump-Start Your Gaming PC Build

Building a new PC is an exciting time in any gamer's life, but at the moment, it can be a frustrating process. Trying to track down graphics cards at manufacturer-suggested prices can feel like a fool's errand at times, thanks to increased demand for GPUs from cryptocurrency miners. In addition, rounding up all of the parts you need can be a stressful process, but AMD may have found an answer to both problems with its new Combat Crate.

AMD has put together a new retail package that's meant to jump-start your gaming PC build. While the AMD Combat Crate – as these packages are called – doesn't have everything you need to build a PC, it does offer some critical components for your build, bundling a CPU, GPU, and motherboard together in one box. They're available today, too, so if you have a build in your future, you might want to consider picking one up.

So, what comes in the box? The Combat Crate includes an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 CPU, an MSI Radeon RX 580 ARMOR OC 8GB graphics card, and an MSI B350 TOMAHAWK AM4 motherboard. While those aren't top-of-the-line components by any means, they're powerful enough to build a capable gaming rig.

At $549 from Amazon, the Combat Crate also takes care of some of the most expensive parts of a new build at a decent price, too. In fact, taking a quick look at Amazon listings for all of these components show that by purchasing the Combat Crate, you save about $50 over buying all of included hardware separately.

The nice thing about the Combat Crate is that we won't see its price increase due to demand from cryptocurrency miners. Since the package also includes a motherboard and CPU – two things you'd need if you're building a gaming PC but not necessarily if you're looking into crypto mining – miners will probably leave these bundles alone, allowing gamers to get hardware their builds require without having to worry about price gouging.

Of course, you need more than just a CPU, GPU, and motherboard to build a computer, and at the moment, RAM is another component sporting high prices thanks to a shortage. Still, if you're looking to build a rig, you could do a lot worse than what AMD is offering here. Here's hoping we see more variations on the Combat Crate in the future, because this seems like a pretty good idea.