My opinion on the 'starter PC' in the guide

[Car712]

So I was watching the PC buyers guide and I was surprised to see what was being recommended to people, not even an SSD, and overall I thought I could make a far better build under the same budget ($300), and I kinda did..

 

I realize the 3000G can also overclock, however I feel that the 2200G is a solid CPU that performs far better at stock (what most people will be using anyway), I also realize the case I chose is not very expensive, in my opinion, it does not matter to me, however it may matter to some, again, this is all opinion. And lastly I realize some people may think that a $18 SSD will not perform well, however this particular PNY SSD I chose, I personally used for about a year in my personal rig before I upgraded it, and honestly it worked perfectly and gave just the performance I would except from an SSD.

 

Love the motherboard choice however, ASRock is great!

 

And yes, I do realize these are all from different stores, and that to be under budget you would need to do the Mail In Rebates, but for me this is a no-brainer, tons more performance at stock, an SSD, double the ram, etc, etc, for only a few dollars extra. Much more expandable in the future.

 

There is also other opinion based things on here that I didn't cover above such as the SSD capacity, as well as if people actually need 16GB of ram (in my opinion, why not), and the 400W PSU, but, one again, its all opinion..

 

That being said, here it is: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/TDYC8M

 

But hey, just throwing that PNY SSD into the recommended build and getting a 7200RPM HDD instead would also do it for some people  (for dear god, please DO NOT use a 5400RPM HDD, you will regret it, I learned this the hard way...)

[Jurrunio]

PSU that's more of a bomb and board that cant really hold upgrades? I dont like your list, but I havent watched LTT's budget buy guide you're referencing so no comments for that

 

Also for SSD, I'd rather omit thr HDD and spend that money all on the SSD instead, they offer more per dollar up to about $100-120

[FlpDaMattress]

No dedicated Graphics? I can do you one better as well

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$61.36 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$49.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$25.99 @ Newegg
Storage	PNY CS900 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$17.98 @ Amazon
Video Card	ASRock Radeon RX 550 - 512 2 GB Phantom Gaming Video Card	$85.99 @ Newegg
Case	Rosewill FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA 400 W ATX Power Supply	$30.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$319.28
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$299.28
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-18 22:25 EST-0500

 

[Car712]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

PSU that's more of a bomb and board that cant really hold upgrades? I dont like your list, but I havent watched LTT's budget buy guide you're referencing so no comments for that

I mean, I figured EVGA is pretty solid for anything, but maybe not, idk.

 

As for the motherboard, this is the same one that was recommended on the video, could do better, sure, idk about this budget though.

[Jurrunio]

5 minutes ago, Car712 said:

I mean, I figured EVGA is pretty solid for anything, but maybe not, idk.

Customer service sure, they'll still happily sell garbage like other companies for a single dollar.

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, FlpDaMattress said:

No dedicated Graphics? I can do you one better as well

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$61.36 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$49.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$25.99 @ Newegg
Storage	PNY CS900 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$17.98 @ Amazon
Video Card	ASRock Radeon RX 550 - 512 2 GB Phantom Gaming Video Card	$85.99 @ Newegg
Case	Rosewill FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA 400 W ATX Power Supply	$30.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$319.28
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$299.28
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-18 22:25 EST-0500

 

Single channel memory, that's disappointing. Might as well buy used if you have to live with only 120GB storage for something that's supposed to game a bit

[RonnieOP]

33 minutes ago, FlpDaMattress said:

No dedicated Graphics? I can do you one better as well

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$61.36 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$49.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$25.99 @ Newegg
Storage	PNY CS900 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$17.98 @ Amazon
Video Card	ASRock Radeon RX 550 - 512 2 GB Phantom Gaming Video Card	$85.99 @ Newegg
Case	Rosewill FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA 400 W ATX Power Supply	$30.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$319.28
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$299.28
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-18 22:25 EST-0500

 

A rx 550 for $85 is beyond dumb at any budget. The 3200g performs about the same as the 550.

[amdorintel]

36 minutes ago, FlpDaMattress said:

ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard

that is a rock bottom of the barrel motherboard

I wonder if the vrms even have any metal on them at all.

Seems like a waste of hard earned money to cheap out that badly.

Why not just get a half decent mobo with the ability to upgrade the cpu later on.

Atleast spend $100 on the mobo

 

[BigRom]

3 hours ago, amdorintel said:

that is a rock bottom of the barrel motherboard

I wonder if the vrms even have any metal on them at all.

Seems like a waste of hard earned money to cheap out that badly.

Why not just get a half decent mobo with the ability to upgrade the cpu later on.

Atleast spend $100 on the mobo

 

New flash, this is $300 budget build. Whats the point of spending 1/3 of the budget on the motherboard. You still need the CPU, RAM, storage & PSU at minimum and thats assuming you're running on the integrated graphics and the case is a shoebox or something

[LogicalDrm]

Uhm, please link to video you are referencing to. Is it this:

 

[HumdrumPenguin]

6 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

PSU that's more of a bomb and board that cant really hold upgrades? I dont like your list, but I havent watched LTT's budget buy guide you're referencing so no comments for that

 

Also for SSD, I'd rather omit thr HDD and spend that money all on the SSD instead, they offer more per dollar up to about $100-120

For a $300 you can’t be really thinking about upgrade capabilities.

[kaiju_wars]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$92.98 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$59.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Patriot Viper 4 Blackout 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$32.99 @ Newegg
Storage	PNY CS900 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$17.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Ultrastar 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$34.95 @ Amazon
Case	Rosewill FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Rosewill RD-Z 450 W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply	$29.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$295.87
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-19 06:03 EST-0500

It's not impressive, not even that great.  Not a great motherboard, but it'll work.

Not the best SSD or hard drive, but they'll work.

Cheap case that again, will work.

As for the power supply, it's not good at all.  Really crappy PSU, but, and I'm saying this as a but, PCs are upgradeable.  This will get you started, first thing I'd personally spend money on is a better PSU.  With these specs it should run this PC fine.  Once you get more money for an upgrade, spend that on a reputable power supply.  After that, I'd focus on a better GPU and more ram.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, BigRom said:

New flash, this is $300 budget build. Whats the point of spending 1/3 of the budget on the motherboard. You still need the CPU, RAM, storage & PSU at minimum and thats assuming you're running on the integrated graphics and the case is a shoebox or something

And to be fair you don't need an expensive mobo,  mine was pretty cheap (€70 iirc)  and it's been pretty solid... Like it far better than the b450 tomahawk I had for a week or so,  which only gave me issues (random reboots etc) 

 

The only thing you should really never cheap out on imo is PSU... 

 

 

 

[Car712]

2 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

Uhm, please link to video you are referencing to. Is it this:

 

Le video:

(yeah my title for this post didn't necessarily even hint at what video I was watching, sorry lol)

[Princess Luna]

9 hours ago, FlpDaMattress said:

Video Card ASRock Radeon RX 550 - 512 2 GB Phantom Gaming Video Card $85.99 @ Newegg

You can get a RX 580 4GB for 100 bucks if you're okay with used... for ultra tight budgets there's absolutely no reason not to go second hand.

[Jurrunio]

8 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

A rx 550 for $85 is beyond dumb at any budget. The 3200g performs about the same as the 550.

RX 550 still has about 20% advantage in most cases, that's after you overclock the 3200G and its memory aggressively.

 

8 hours ago, amdorintel said:

I wonder if the vrms even have any metal on them at all.

They must use some metal for the soldering and the inner circuitry

 

4 hours ago, BigRom said:

New flash, this is $300 budget build. Whats the point of spending 1/3 of the budget on the motherboard. 

Pro4-F has a 50% bigger VRM for $20 more, so you can at least upgrade it with a 6 core.

 

4 hours ago, BigRom said:

the case is a shoebox or something

That's normal isnt it? why buy a case when a hair dryer in no-heat mode can solve the dust problem already? No one's gonna use something this cheap as a show piece anyway so looks dont matter

 

2 hours ago, HumdrumPenguin said:

For a $300 you can’t be really thinking about upgrade capabilities.

Of course I can, havent dipped into used market yet.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$77.98 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M Pro4-F Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$71.00 @ Amazon
Memory	Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$49.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Team T-Force VULCAN 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$35.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA GD (2019) 600 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply	$50.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$305.94
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$285.94
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-19 07:33 EST-0500

 

1 hour ago, kaiju_wars said:

Not a great motherboard, but it'll work.

it wont, the bios is likely not compatible with 3rd gen right away.

[kaiju_wars]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

 

it wont, the bios is likely not compatible with 3rd gen right away.

It will.  

And if it won't out of box, iirc, AMD is still providing APUs so you can update your BIOS to work with Zen 2.

[GoldenLag]

1 hour ago, kaiju_wars said:

Motherboard Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard $59.99 @ Newegg

bad mobo, has bad QC and might not support the CPU out of the box. leading to you having to pay extra to ship a boot kit. 

 

2 hours ago, HumdrumPenguin said:

For a $300 you can’t be really thinking about upgrade capabilities.

for 300$ that is what you want to look at. 

 

and prefereably you want to dip into used market. prebuild + good PSU + possible ram increase to 8GB or 240GB SSD + something like a HD 7850 as a GPU is a good system for about 250$

[RonnieOP]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

RX 550 still has about 20% advantage in most cases, that's after you overclock the 3200G and its memory aggressively.

Thats $85 bucks for 20% over an APU. Not a good deal at all imo.

 

 

[DoctorNick]

That SSD is great! Got it for 11 dollars and gave it to my neighbour for his all-in-one thinkcentre, worked well so far.

[FlpDaMattress]

Drop the dgpu i gave it earlier and use a 2200G, you can get down to $230.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$77.98 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$49.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$25.99 @ Newegg
Storage	PNY CS900 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$17.98 @ Amazon
Case	Rosewill FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA 400 W ATX Power Supply	$30.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$249.91
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$229.91
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-19 11:37 EST-0500

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

You can get a RX 580 4GB for 100 bucks if you're okay with used... for ultra tight budgets there's absolutely no reason not to go second hand.

If we're arguing about comparing prices between builds, I would argue the used market should be out of the question simply because there's no reliable figure.

 

What if I knew a friend who happened to have an RX 580 they're willing to just give? And then I could also just dumpster dive an office that threw out their computers recently and find myself something decent for almost no cost. And we can make arguments like "The RTX 2080 Super is a good deal because you can find it for ~$500"

[Mark Kaine]

35 minutes ago, FlpDaMattress said:

Drop the dgpu i gave it earlier and use a 2200G, you can get down to $230.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$77.98 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$49.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$25.99 @ Newegg
Storage	PNY CS900 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$17.98 @ Amazon
Case	Rosewill FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA 400 W ATX Power Supply	$30.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$249.91
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$229.91
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-19 11:37 EST-0500

 

Wow ok that seems pretty good but I think you should like at least get dual channel ram with that CPU/GPU - which is really solid for at least 720p btw.

[Jurrunio]

6 hours ago, kaiju_wars said:

It will.  

And if it won't out of box, iirc, AMD is still providing APUs so you can update your BIOS to work with Zen 2.

It wont out of the box for sure, that's what I'm talking about

 

Besides, it costs too much over the 2200G

 

5 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

Thats $85 bucks for 20% over an APU. Not a good deal at all imo.

20% for aggressive overclock, so for example 1600MHz GPU (on older 2200G/2400G) and 3466 CL16 memory. It's not that I find an RX 550 any appealing when I used to get good RX 570s brand new for $120 each, but it's not a silly choice either.

 

3 hours ago, FlpDaMattress said:

Drop the dgpu i gave it earlier and use a 2200G, you can get down to $230.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$77.98 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$49.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$25.99 @ Newegg
Storage	PNY CS900 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$17.98 @ Amazon
Case	Rosewill FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA 400 W ATX Power Supply	$30.98 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$249.91
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$229.91
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-19 11:37 EST-0500

 

Single channel memory and explosive PSU, yuck

[RonnieOP]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

It wont out of the box for sure, that's what I'm talking about

 

Besides, it costs too much over the 2200G

 

20% for aggressive overclock, so for example 1600MHz GPU (on older 2200G/2400G) and 3466 CL16 memory. It's not that I find an RX 550 any appealing when I used to get good RX 570s brand new for $120 each, but it's not a silly choice either.

 

Single channel memory and explosive PSU, yuck

I actually misread your part list and thought it was a 1200 not a 2200g. Thats my bad 

 

But for a starter build thats meant to be upgraded down the road the 550 is still a horrible value at $85. 

 

Much better to just use the apu until you can save up for a decent video card. The 550 isnt even going to get you anything when you go to resell it. Since you can find 580/480 for $100 used in the US i dont see a 550 bringing in more then $40 if anyones interested in it at all.

 

The 550 is basically just a waste of money.