It begins! Discounts on the current gen intel CPUs now the next gen are coming (6 days away; no benchmarks yet, but the cheapest of the next gen intels, i3-10100 is already listed for $249 on CPL, and obviously won't be anywhere near twice as fast - the flagships are only a bit faster than the current flagships).
Paired with basic H310 motherboard (from around $95), and a budget GPU, this could make an great little gaming PC for a super tight budget (there won't be any games you can't play, just not always at higher res and/or 60+ FPS).
See it running in actual games:
Beside the popular Ryzen 5 3600: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX2s5ANjVFc
2600 and i5-9400f: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSfURH7w7Yw
A couple of caveats:
Watch out for slightly-too-high benchmarks: While it actually gets similar FPS to the $205 Ryzen 3 3300X in some game benchmarks, those are usually done with a pricier Z370/Z390 motherboard (starting around $150 AUD) that can overclock the RAM, so cheaper boards will be a bit slower. Check the benchmarks. E.g.: in the Linus Tech Tips 3300X review, this i3-9100f is only 2 FPS slower playing GTA V at 1080p high, and actually 5 FPS faster in RDR, though 20 FPS lower in some other games. See: https://youtu.be/vD8Yk7JrBL8?t=163). But the $95 mobos won't quite get those kind of numbers. The video above uses a Z370, all I could find.
4 cores: Only 4 cores, 4 threads. There are finally a couple of major games now that benefit from 6 cores or more. 6 cores may become important for gaming in the coming years (though of course there are no 6+ core parts in this price range, even the 1600AF is around $180 right now)
Weak upgrade path: This is the last gen on this mobo chipset. If you want an upgrade path, you are looking at waiting a few years until prices fall on the pricer CPUs from the same gen.