Black Friday budget gaming build

[v.zollner]

Hi everyone! 

I'm planning to build a budget gaming PC for a friend, and i want to use black friday/cyber monday to get a good bang for the buck. I'll stick to the the template provided by Windspeed36 for now. 

 

1. Budget and Location

I live in Germany, so i'll be spending Euros. My budget is relatively flexible. I was looking to spend somewhere in between 500 and 800 Euros. I have no idea what the different components will cost on black friday, so planning with a fixed budget in mind probably doesn't make too much sense. 

 

2. Aim

As far as I know, my friend will use the PC only for gaming and internet access. He doesn't stream, edit videos or anything like that. He studies pharmacy, so i can't imagine he'll need to do any heavy workstation use in the next few years either. 

As for the performance I have in mind: It would be great if the new PC would allow him to play all (or most) current games at 1080p at 60 or more fps without dropping the settings to less than medium. He really enjoyed Borderlands 2, so I want to provide a solid Borderlands 3 performance at the very least. The only game he plays competitively right now is League of Legends, which really shouldn't be an issue to run. 

 

3. Monitors

He currently owns a single monitor, which is quite dated. It's probably 1080p 60hz or lower. It might even be 720p, im not sure. My aim is to provide a solid 1080p gaming experience. 

 

4. Peripherals

I don't intend to buy any peripherals. He has a working desktop PC. If he wants to upgrade anything else, he can buy those himself. I have a remaining Win10 License from a three license package I bought a while ago. Maybe i'll include one or two games, if i get good deals on the hardware. 

 

5. Why upgrade 

He's running a prebuilt system with a 950 and an AMD 8300, which is struggling with most newer titles. 

 

What i've been looking at so far:

 

GPU

-I've been looking at the RTX 2060. I read that it gets about 100 FPS in Middle Earth shadow of War at 1080p Ultra, 111 FPS at Far Cry 5 at 1080p Ultra and performs far above 60 FPS at Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p. I expect the RTX 2060 to be discounted at least a littlr bit over black friday since it is succeeded by the super variant. 

-The RX 5700 seems to outperform the RTX 2060 by a few percentage points.

Here in Germany, the prices of the two cards are essentially the same (356€ vs 357€). Should i just go for the one with the better discount? 

 

CPU

-I think the i5 9400f might be a decent combination for an rtx 2060 or an rx 5700. It's priced at 147€ right now. Maybe it'll go even lower with the rumored Intel price cuts. According to userbenchmark.com it significantly outperforms the ryzen 7 2700x (about 180€) in gaming, while the ryzen CPU is far better at workstation use. But as I said, workstation use is not a priority.

I don't intend to overclock the CPU

 

Motherboard

I don't know a lot about motherboards. I was thinking about an mATX board. It doesn't need any bells and whistles. RGB is not required either. It should have WiFi, and four RAM slots would be good. Maybe i'll just get the motherboard as a bundle with the CPU. I don't really know. 

 

Main storage

Here in Germany the price difference between SATA and nvme SSDs is not significant. I got my 

Crucial P1 CT1000P1SSD8 1TB for 107€. The intel p660 1TB is at 104€ right now. If there's space in the budget for a 1tb ssd i'll go for that, otherwise i'll go for a smaller one and maybe reuse his 1tb hdd. 

 

RAM

If the motherboard has 4 RAM slots, i'll probably just go for two 4 gb sticks and leave upgrading tp 16gb to him. 

 

PSU

Is 500 watts enough? Nvidia reccomends 550 watts for their rtx 2060, while Asus sais 500 watts is enough for their 2060 super. What about the RX 5700? What brands/models do you reccomend? Is anything wrong with the evga 500 b1 for 50€?

 

Case

Does the type of case really matter, if i'm not overclocking the system? I might just reuse his case, or go for a cheap case with up to date io. 

 

 

Did i miss anything? 

 

I'd really appreciate your expertise in this. Since I don't really know how much the different components will cost during black friday/cyber monday it would be great if you could recommend some other hardware I should keep my eyes open for. 

 

 

[TheBean]

buy amd ryzen 3600. it might be cheaper, perform better, and has future upgradeability to better cpu's if he ever wants to do that in the future. for now, intel i5 is dead

 

Here is a link for UK pricing:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	£172.38 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	MSI B450 Gaming Plus MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard	£93.90 @ More Computers
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	£42.78 @ Aria PC
Storage	Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	£59.99 @ Box Limited
Video Card	Palit GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB StormX Video Card	£289.98 @ Aria PC
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 5 ATX Mid Tower Case	£48.97 @ Scan.co.uk
Power Supply	SeaSonic M12II EVO 520 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	£49.99 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£757.99
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-10-27 18:27 GMT+0000

 

[v.zollner]

Hey Saksham! 

Thanks for your advice. Yes, the ryzen 5 3600 is undoubtedly the better processor, and with todays prices i would definitely go for that chip. I was thinking of the i5 9400f because of the speculated Intel price cuts. Right now, the i5 gives slightly more FPS per Euro than the Ryzen 5 3600 (at least here in Germany) and since the chip is dead, as you said, retailers might drop the price even further to move their stock. As I said, i'm also keeping an eye open for the 2nd gen ryzen CPUs. Maybe retailers will use black friday to sell the remainder of their outdated stock giving discounts that wouldn't be possible with a 3 month old ryzen 5.

[v.zollner]

I found RAM is relatively cheap at the moment, with a 16gb dual kit of ddr4 ram setting me back just over 50 Euros, so I don't really need more than two RAM slots. Is anything wrong with cheaper motherboards like the Gigabyte B450M SH2 (55€) or the H310M S2V 2.0 (52€)?

[v.zollner]

24 minutes ago, v.zollner said:

I found RAM is relatively cheap at the moment, with a 16gb dual kit of ddr4 ram setting me back just over 50 Euros, so I don't really need more than two RAM slots. Is anything wrong with cheaper motherboards like the Gigabyte B450M SH2 (55€) or the H310M S2V 2.0 (52€)?

Oh, there's no WiFi on both of them. 

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

25 minutes ago, v.zollner said:

Is anything wrong with cheaper motherboards like the Gigabyte B450M SH2 (55€) or the H310M S2V 2.0 (52€)?

these are the lowest end  barebone ones from each brand, they just works, nothing more to expect.

eg slightly one tier above, B450 AORUS M is much better in all aspects

[Meganter]

20 minutes ago, v.zollner said:

I found RAM is relatively cheap at the moment, with a 16gb dual kit of ddr4 ram setting me back just over 50 Euros, so I don't really need more than two RAM slots. Is anything wrong with cheaper motherboards like the Gigabyte B450M SH2 (55€) or the H310M S2V 2.0 (52€)?

Hello, 

 

Yeah those are pretty bad motherboard.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	€199.00 @ Caseking
Motherboard	MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX AM4 Motherboard	€143.16 @ Mindfactory
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	€57.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Storage	Crucial MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	€65.50 @ Amazon Deutschland
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon RX 590 8 GB NITRO+ Video Card	€199.00 @ Caseking
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox MB510L ATX Mid Tower Case	€46.94 @ Amazon Deutschland
Power Supply	Cooler Master MasterWatt 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	€48.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€760.49
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-10-28 10:10 CET+0100

 

Here under 800€, decent everything, though the motherboard has Wi-Fi you will need to flash bios so it can run Zen 2. If you don't want to be bother, just get the 2600 for now. It's still a good CPU and cheaper  

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

12 minutes ago, Plouffe said:

though the motherboard has Wi-Fi you will need to flash bios so it can run Zen 2

better get the BT/ wifi card separately, more flexible mobo options

 

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/6Zs8TW/asus-pce-ac55bt-b1-none-wi-fi-adapter-pce-ac55bt-b1

 

[v.zollner]

So with the aorus I get two additional RAM Slots, an additional PCIe 2.0 Slot, two more SATA connectors, four additional Audio jacks (why would i need so many? ), two more USB3s, as well as parallel and serial ports (no clue what those are good for)

 

I can see the use of the additional RAM slots and the additional PCIe slot. But shouldn't four SATA connectors be enough? I also don't really see a need for the two additional USB connectors, considering the monitor and the case also have some io. Am I missing any key differences between the two motherboards? 

[v.zollner]

13 minutes ago, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

better get the BT/ wifi card separately, more flexible mobo options

 

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/6Zs8TW/asus-pce-ac55bt-b1-none-wi-fi-adapter-pce-ac55bt-b1

 

Ok, so i'll need a motherboard with an additional PCIe slot for the WiFi card. Thanks, thats very helpful. Will the WiFi card work with a PCIe x1? 

 

EDIT: oh, it says PCIe x1 on the product, so it should work 

Edited October 28, 2019 by v.zollner

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

6 minutes ago, v.zollner said:

So with the aorus I get two additional RAM Slots, an additional PCIe 2.0 Slot, two more SATA connectors, four additional Audio jacks (why would i need so many? ), two more USB3s, as well as parallel and serial ports (no clue what those are good for)

take the extra ports as a bonus/ gift, will come in handy when trouble shoot is needed.

the value comes with better quality, power delivery, cooling for OC.

[Meganter]

26 minutes ago, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

better get the BT/ wifi card separately, more flexible mobo options

 

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/6Zs8TW/asus-pce-ac55bt-b1-none-wi-fi-adapter-pce-ac55bt-b1

 

Are they better than https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/product/jPR48d/netgear-wireless-network-card-a6100100pas ? I actually use this one for my wife computer and it works well and it's also cheaper.

[Meganter]

22 minutes ago, v.zollner said:

Ok, so i'll need a motherboard with an additional PCIe slot for the WiFi card. Thanks, thats very helpful. Will the WiFi card work with a PCIe x1? 

 

EDIT: oh, it says PCIe x1 on the product, so it should work 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	€199.00 @ Caseking
Motherboard	MSI B450M MORTAR MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	€97.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	€57.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Storage	Crucial MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	€65.51 @ Amazon Deutschland
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon RX 590 8 GB NITRO+ Video Card	€199.00 @ Caseking
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox MB510L ATX Mid Tower Case	€46.94 @ Amazon Deutschland
Power Supply	Cooler Master MasterWatt 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	€48.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
Wireless Network Adapter	Asus PCE-AC55BT B1 PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter	€38.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€754.23
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-10-28 11:01 CET+0100

 

Here, the motherboard is Zen 2 ready, better than the Aorus one too (any MAX version will be better so feel free to change it to your needs) and there is a Wi-Fi  adapter