It's not what it used to be that's for sure ... they used to be THE place for gaming content back in the 90ies and early 2k. Then they started to give 9 to pretty much every Activision games and fired Jeff for a Mario review and eventually Greg left and things went downhill from there. Now it's just a generic ZDnet web site for boomers stuck in the web 2.0 era.
@mike1964: Sorry but the 80ies to early 90ies were great years for music. The alternative and grunge rock movement was awesome. There was still some very good punk rock back then too. Even early 2k had Linkin Park you can hate them but they were awesome.
They are both outdated in 2021. Buy the cheapest i would say. This said if you buy a b550 motherboard for amd then you'll have a path for upgrade. You would have a path with a b560 mb for intel too but they are usually either more expensive or more crappy (can vary depending on your territory). It's easier to find a good b550 mb for a good price i would say and there's usually no limitation outside of vram quality. If you pair the i3 with b460 though your path of upgrade will be limited since as far as i know all b460 will run the ram at the supported speed by the cpu which would cripple any upgrade to a higher end cpu in the future (could be wrong here not 100% certain). What is the price difference between a Core i5 10400F or Ryzen 5 3600 and those cpus in your area? 4c/8t in 2021 wont cut it for long (it's already struggling in newer titles) you would be much safer in the long term with a 6c/6t cpu. If the price difference is small (under 80$ usd) i would definitely consider buying a 6c/6t one. But as always when buying a new computer to play games a good rule is spend more on the gpu than the cpu.
What kind of monitor do you have? If you have a 1080p monitor i would wait. You card is still fine. If you have a 2k144Hz monitor and can't stand the 1060 anymore then the 5700xt is a good option along with the 2600 Super but the 5700xt is the better card between the two. But i would wait for ray tracing to mature before upgrading if you can.
I would recommend a RTX 2060, your CPU is on par with a 3770K which is still good enough for gaming and more than enough to keep up with a modern mid range GPU like the 2060.
Now before the AMD fan boy's get to you, the RTX 2060 has better price to performance than a 5700 AND it supports Ray Tracing which the game you want most and are upgrading for has.
he RTX 2060, get better thermals/noise levels with a card that is cheaper and offers 4% less performance than a loud stock 5700 which has no ray tracing support.
let then fool you, performance isn't everything when you lack features and cost more while sounding like a hair dryer.
If you can get a after market card then for the same price then sure consider the 5700 but when that Cyberpunk game comes out and you spent $350 on a GPU that doesn't support a feature the game has you will be kicking your self.
RTX 2600 6GB will very likely not be powerful enough for RTX moving forward. I would definitely not buy this card for ray tracing. BTW no it doesn't offer a better value than the 5700.
Cost per frame is close. Hardware Unboxed had the 5700 having a lower cost per frames than the 2600. It depends on the games tested but HU usually test lot more games than other publications.
He should buy the best deal he can find. Tying yourself to a company is stupid. If he can have a great deal on a 2600 then he should buy a 2600. If he can have a great deal on a 5700 then he should go this route. They are both decent (but imo overpriced in Canada) cards.
For 1080p gaming he should take a look at the 1660 Super. Less expensive. No RTX taxe. More than good enough for 1080p.
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