Budget gaming build for a family member

[steelo]

31 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Still mad I wasn’t authoritative enough?

I’m not a manufacturer.   I don’t buy cases with included PSUs.  I do know the OP is trying like mad to get as much power out of as little money as possible, and meeting budget is cutting deep.  That’s about all I know.  

additional pontification:

I laid off commenting on the AMD apu option, as I laid off commenting on most of the first build.  OP did research.  I didn’t.  I might have an opinion but it’s not an informed one.  His might very well be better.

 

what little information I have on Vega apus says that while they’re faster than intel iGPUs they’re still not very good.  OP just posted a new build with a 3400g 4/8, Vega 11 apu.  I think the earlier one might be better because there might be (I don’t know one way or the other) more power in the pcie GPU than the Vega.  The CPU will probably perform better than the 1200, but the GPU is stuck to the CPU now, and the GPU may or may not be able to handle things.  LTT did a Christmas special which I wish i knew how to link. The $300 one made some interesting choices. They had a 2/4 vega11 apu they overclocked with a big cooler.  I don’t remember much about it other than that.  The 3400 has more cores at the same speed with the same gpu for 3 times the price.  I don’t know though.  I’m wary, but I don’t have enough info, so I’m laying off.  You go ahead though.

Thank you for the honest and kind response. Yes, my nieces fiance doesn't have a lot of money (both work as EMT's earning $13 an hour and he can contribute about $250 max) My wife and I really cannot contribute much more than $100 for her birthday...she enjoys gaming and many of the games she enjoys are not offered on the xbox one (a we bought her a few Christmas' ago)

 

 

[Lorant]

Just now, steelo said:

Thank you for the honest and kind response. Yes, my nieces fiance doesn't have a lot of money (both work as EMT's earning $13 an hour and can contribute about $250 max) and my wife and I really cannot contribute much more than $100 for her birthday...she enjoys gaming and many of the games she enjoys are not offered on the xbox one (a gift we bought her a few Christmas' ago)

Dude, straight up.. you don't have to list your reasons or finances.  F anyone who has issues with your budget. (not that Bomb has any issues, so don't think I meant him).

 

We get it.  

[steelo]

10 minutes ago, Lorant said:

Dude, straight up.. you don't have to list your reasons or finances.  F anyone who has issues with your budget. (not that Bomb has any issues, so don't think I meant him).

 

We get it.  

I do have a spare RX 570 I can donate to her, but from the looks of things, we would still need to donate about $100...she did say that she doesn't care about her system being able to provide the highest detail graphics. She is currently playing games not offered on her xbo on a laptop from 2008...I think a 2 ghz athlon x2. Pretty much any component manufactured in the past 5 years would be a HUGE upgrade.

 

[boggy77]

I did come up with a $380 build 

[steelo]

6 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

I did come up with a $380 build 

Yes, thank you for your help. So far, that is the most reasonable system. I appreciate your help rather than bantering me for the 'pos' system I was considering. Money definitely is an issue in this build and as I've mentioned, pretty much ANYTHING would be an upgrade from what she's currently using.

 

I don't consider myself to be an expert, but generally I have a good idea of the capabilities of components. Even a Ryzen 3 1200 is about 10 times more powerful than the 11-12 year old Athlon she's using right now. A Ryzen 5 1500X 4c/8t for $10 more is a wise decision...I believe the most important component to this build is the ability to upgrade in the future. 

[boggy77]

2 minutes ago, steelo said:

Yes, thank you for your help. So far, that is the most reasonable system. I appreciate your help rather than bantering me for the 'pos' system I was considering. Money definitely is an issue in this build and as I've mentioned, pretty much ANYTHING would be an upgrade from what she's currently using.

 

I don't consider myself to be an expert, but generally I have a good idea of the capabilities of components. Even a Ryzen 3 1200 is about 10 times more powerful than the 11-12 year old Athlon she's using right now.

It was most a reply to the other guys. I know you saw my build and are considering it. One thing to think about is that second hand pc parts are usually good, especially cpu's and gpu's. I wouldn't get second hand storage, but you can save a bit of money with sh cpu, mobo, ram and gpu.

[steelo]

5 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

It was most a reply to the other guys. I know you saw my build and are considering it. One thing to think about is that second hand pc parts are usually good, especially cpu's and gpu's. I wouldn't get second hand storage, but you can save a bit of money with sh cpu, mobo, ram and gpu.

I just scanned ebay and you are absolutely correct. Used GPU's in general scare me though (thinking about the tons of faux 1050ti's out there) I did see a Ryzen 5 1600 for $30 I put a bid in for...I don't think I'd pay more than $40, especially for a used one though. I see plenty of used RX 570's for around $50-75. I would not think twice about buying second hand storage.

[boggy77]

2 minutes ago, steelo said:

I just scanned ebay and you are absolutely correct. Used GPU's in general scare me though (thinking about the tons of faux 1050ti's out there) I did see a Ryzen 5 1600 for $30 I put a bid in for...I don't think I'd pay more than $40, especially for a used one though.

Agree. Go for reputable sellers or people that look like people, not fakes from china. Don't be afraid of gpu's that were used for minining. They usually take good care of them, keep them cool and undervolted.

[steelo]

2 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

Agree. Go for reputable sellers or people that look like people, not fakes from china. Don't be afraid of gpu's that were used for minining. They usually take good care of them, keep them cool and undervolted.

Don't mining GPU's need to be reflashed though? I'm weary of messing with that, especially when there's the potential of bricking it...

[boggy77]

3 minutes ago, steelo said:

Don't mining GPU's need to be reflashed though? I'm weary of messing with that...

They usually mention on the listing if the bios was changed and usually offer to get it back to stock themselves. If they don't, don't bother with them, find another one with stock bios.

[steelo]

7 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

They usually mention on the listing if the bios was changed and usually offer to get it back to stock themselves. If they don't, don't bother with them, find another one with stock bios.

I do see what look to be great deals on CPU's and GPU's on ebay. That should easily save me about $50...I think we may be out of options unless I consider a few used components.

[boggy77]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

I do see what look to be great deals on CPU's and GPU's on ebay. I don't see as good of deals on mb's though.

Yes, people more readily change their cpus and gpus than their motherboards. Get new mb and ram and used cpu and gpu.

[steelo]

2 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

Yes, people more readily change their cpus and gpus than their motherboards. Get new mb and ram and used cpu and gpu.

That's what I was thinking too...the mb I'm looking at is generally pretty cheap around $60-70. I could go for a a320 mb but that limits future upgrades (and I don't want to risk an older mb needing to be reflashed to work with a recent Ryzen)

[boggy77]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

That's what I was thinking too...the mb I'm looking at is generally pretty cheap around $60-70. I could go for a a320 mb but that limits future upgrades (and I don't want to risk an older mb needing to be reflashed to work with a recent Ryzen)

Yeah try to get a b450, even if the cheapest one

[steelo]

15 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

Yeah try to get a b450, even if the cheapest one

Alright, well at least now I have an idea...a used ryzen 1500x or 1600 and a rx 570. My old rx 570 was absolutely terrific for the cost...1080 gaming on med-high settings @ 60 fps for ~$100 is amazing. I even used it for VR and it worked pretty darn well for a budget GPU.

[boggy77]

6 minutes ago, steelo said:

Alright, well at least now I have an idea...a used ryzen 1500x or 1600 and a rx 570. My old rx 570 was absolutely terrific for the cost...1080 gaming on med-high settings @ 60 fps for ~$100 is amazing. I even used it for VR and it worked pretty darn well for a budget GPU.

Sounds like a plan

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, boggy77 said:

Sounds like a plan

Only thing I can think to add is to ask if/how much overclocking was done on a particular 1xxx chip.  Those things did overclock pretty well which means someone could have done so.  Seller might not know, and if they were clocked on it might not matter if they were still kept cool.

[steelo]

12 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Only thing I can think to add is to ask if/how much overclocking was done on a particular 1xxx chip.  Those things did overclock pretty well which means someone could have done so.  Seller might not know, and if they were clocked on it might not matter if they were still kept cool.

Problem with that is they could just say, "It's never been overclocked" and you have zero evidence to show otherwise unless it doesn't work properly or there are visible signs that it has overheated for some reason.

[Shahnewaz]

1 hour ago, steelo said:

Problem with that is they could just say, "It's never been overclocked" and you have zero evidence to show otherwise unless it doesn't work properly or there are visible signs that it has overheated for some reason.

CPUs have overheat protection nowadays.

 

Anyways, good on you for going used route. Always make sure you can test the part yourself before you buy it from a seller.

That automatically rules out eBay.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Shahnewaz said:

CPUs have overheat protection nowadays.

 

Anyways, good on you for going used route. Always make sure you can test the part yourself before you buy it from a seller.

That automatically rules out eBay.

Does and doesn’t.  eBay/PayPal together form a certain amount of protection.

[steelo]

50 minutes ago, Shahnewaz said:

CPUs have overheat protection nowadays.

 

Anyways, good on you for going used route. Always make sure you can test the part yourself before you buy it from a seller.

That automatically rules out eBay.

True but worse comes to worse ebay offers your money back for defective merchandise and scams

[VEXICUS]

There you go mate....

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($69.00 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: GeIL EVO POTENZA 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($32.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: TCSunBow X3 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($27.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 570 4 GB RS XXX Video Card  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 3.1 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($34.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($47.97 @ Newegg) 
Total: $382.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-28 02:06 EST-0500

[LienusLateTips]

9 hours ago, Shahnewaz said:

CPUs have overheat protection nowadays.

 

Anyways, good on you for going used route. Always make sure you can test the part yourself before you buy it from a seller.

That automatically rules out eBay.

eBay has an immense amount of buyer protection. eBay is more safe than local markets.

37 minutes ago, VEXICUS said:

Storage: TCSunBow X3 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($27.99 @ Amazon) 

Might be a bit of a better idea to get an SSD with an actual brand?

This even has DRAM! https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kh9tt6/silicon-power-ace-a55-256-gb-25-solid-state-drive-sp256gbss3a55s25

 

Other than that, this build is great. OP, I'd go with this one.

[boggy77]

1 hour ago, VEXICUS said:

There you go mate....

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($69.00 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: GeIL EVO POTENZA 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($32.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: TCSunBow X3 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($27.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 570 4 GB RS XXX Video Card  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 3.1 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($34.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($47.97 @ Newegg) 
Total: $382.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-28 02:06 EST-0500

Haha good build. If you look on the first page, you'll see I suggested the exact same one. Good to see the confirmation.

[VEXICUS]

10 hours ago, LienusLateTips said:

 

Might be a bit of a better idea to get an SSD with an actual brand?

This even has DRAM! https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kh9tt6/silicon-power-ace-a55-256-gb-25-solid-state-drive-sp256gbss3a55s25

 

Other than that, this build is great. OP, I'd go with this one.

Silicon Power Ace a55 is based on a SMI SM2258XT controller which is a DRAM-less controllers. So, there's no dram cache on the a55 drive.

 

On the other hand, TCsunbow X3 uses a SMI SM2258 controller with DRAM cache. It is the same controller used in Crucial MX500.

 

So, I guess, I have justified my part selection.