I'm in the process of building a budget gaming rig for my daughter and wanted to see if anyone could help me out with build advice. We're trying to keep the cost down to $400 including Win 10. To ease some of the costs I have an old case, DVD drive (if we end up installing one) and a 500GB SSD to help keep costs down. I still need to find the following:
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
The cheapest that will play games would be an AMD APU based system. The APUs will get a significant update this Fall.
If going discrete GPU. Here are ideas.
CPU: Articles are recommending the 7nm 4core/8thread Ryzen 3 3100 or 3300X for a good budget gaming system (attachment). $99 or $120. Will include needed cooler, I think. Not on market yet -- expected in May.
Motherboard: Shop sales for B450 motherboard. Try to get Gigabyte or Asus. Today, GIGABYTE B450M DS3H at Newegg for $77 delivered. Gigabyte MB
Memory: 8GB minimum (16GB is the norm these days). AMD CPUs respond to faster memory. Get 2666MHz (or faster). Approximately $40 to $44 for 8GB.
GPU: The hard part. Shop sales for older models. Radeon RX570s were $120 today at Newegg.
PSU: With above parts a 500W supply will work okay. Shop the sales. Today $50.
W10: You can buy a legitimate "key" to W10 for under $15.
Adding mentally: Comes to around $400 to $430 so far (depending on items selected). Need a case for around $20. Need a drive for the OS -- no time this morning to look.
Shopping sales over a period of a month can get the price down.
Not as thorough as I'd like but, a quick look at things -- as I have to "move on" this morning. Hope it helps some.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 Review: Low-End Gaming Gets a High-End Boost
$120 scores a potent chip
Our Verdict
The Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 bring a new class of gaming performance to the low end, serving up enough performance for high-end gaming while leaving room in the budget for a better GPU.
you get hyper-threading on both chips .., a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler .., and unlocked multipliers that enable overclocking on almost all AM4 chipsets
Allen apologies for the delay in response (been working on the road a lot) but wanted to say thanks for the suggestions. I ended up going with most of the items you recommended. Made a few changes since it was her birthday a few weeks back we contributed for a few upgrades. Have it put together but still haven't installed the OS, again appreciate the advice.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Thanks for the update. Hopefully, she'll like the finished product.
If you can find time when its finished and she's enjoying it, please list the build items you finally went with. Just interested in how things turned out
P.S. By the way, if your build differs strongly from my suggestions in some ways, no problem. No wrong answers. I'm never offended if someone does things differently than I would.
Last edited by Allen; 08/13/2012:37 PM. Reason: post script