$500 Budget PC Build

[Vale88]

Budget (including currency): $500USD Max but if we can stay under that that would be great

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Light Digital Painting in PS/CSP, It'd also be nice to do some light 2D animation in Blender.
For Gaming: Skyrim SE, Subnautica Below Zero, Don't Starve Together, and Yakuza on Med graphics

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I'm upgrading from my nearly decade old prebuilt home office pc. I don't need any peripherals and my current monitor is 1366x768 60hz, I'd like to upgrade to a 1440P 90-120Hz monitor in the future but that likely won't be this year. And I'm planning on buying sometime before or around May.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$169.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$82.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$76.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$0.00
Case	Thermaltake Versa H18 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$54.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA BR 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$49.99 @ Amazon
Case Fan	ARCTIC P12 PST 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan	$9.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$444.93
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-03-13 16:45 EST-0500

Here's the part list I quickly put together, the storage listed is the one I have currently and it still has over 1TB remaining on it. I'd like to continue to use if at all possible.

I don't know much about PC's and this will be my first time building a computer so any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

[LloydLynx]

You should have room in the budget to include a Samsung 860 EVO 250GB. Booting from that HDD at first will be fine, but Windows 10 has a habit of rotting away and becoming unbearably slow by about a year into the installation, especially on hard dives.

[AdamBGames]

11 minutes ago, Vale88 said:

Budget (including currency): $500USD Max but if we can stay under that that would be great

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Light Digital Painting in PS/CSP, It'd also be nice to do some light 2D animation in Blender.
For Gaming: Skyrim SE, Subnautica Below Zero, Don't Starve Together, and Yakuza on Med graphics

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I'm upgrading from my nearly decade old prebuilt home office pc. I don't need any peripherals and my current monitor is 1366x768 60hz, I'd like to upgrade to a 1440P 90-120Hz monitor in the future but that likely won't be this year. And I'm planning on buying sometime before or around May.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$169.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$82.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$76.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$0.00
Case	Thermaltake Versa H18 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$54.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA BR 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$49.99 @ Amazon
Case Fan	ARCTIC P12 PST 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan	$9.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$444.93
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-03-13 16:45 EST-0500

Here's the part list I quickly put together, the storage listed is the one I have currently and it still has over 1TB remaining on it. I'd like to continue to use if at all possible.

I don't know much about PC's and this will be my first time building a computer so any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

I agree with Lloyd, you should get some kind of SSD, even a 120GB cheapo SSD will be MILES faster than the hard drive, also, make sure that the motherboard is updated to the latest bios so that it supports the 3400G, last thing you want is to try and boot your new PC and it just doesnt.

[Downkey]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$169.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$82.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$76.98 @ Amazon
Storage	ADATA SU635 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$31.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$0.00
Case	Thermaltake Versa H18 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$54.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	be quiet! Pure Power 11 500 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply	$69.90 @ Amazon
Case Fan	ARCTIC P12 PST 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan	$9.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$496.83
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-03-13 17:29 EST-0500

Added an SSD and changed the PSU to a higher quality PSU. The system won’t even consume more than 175 watts so 500W is more than enough.

[Hullwood2]

13 minutes ago, Vale88 said:

Budget (including currency): $500USD Max but if we can stay under that that would be great

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Light Digital Painting in PS/CSP, It'd also be nice to do some light 2D animation in Blender.
For Gaming: Skyrim SE, Subnautica Below Zero, Don't Starve Together, and Yakuza on Med graphics

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I'm upgrading from my nearly decade old prebuilt home office pc. I don't need any peripherals and my current monitor is 1366x768 60hz, I'd like to upgrade to a 1440P 90-120Hz monitor in the future but that likely won't be this year. And I'm planning on buying sometime before or around May.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$169.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$82.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$76.98 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$0.00
Case	Thermaltake Versa H18 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$54.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA BR 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$49.99 @ Amazon
Case Fan	ARCTIC P12 PST 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan	$9.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$444.93
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-03-13 16:45 EST-0500

Here's the part list I quickly put together, the storage listed is the one I have currently and it still has over 1TB remaining on it. I'd like to continue to use if at all possible.

I don't know much about PC's and this will be my first time building a computer so any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

The build looks pretty solid not gonna lie! For your first ever time picking out parts you definitely did your research. You might not be able to play super high settings but with your current monitor you should be able to pull of medium on all of the listed games easily. Nice future-proofing with the MB and RAM both able to support later gen CPUs and GPUs. I would recommend like everyone else here, to get an SSD. Whether or not its big it will speed up game load times and will make your windows experience smoother. Make sure you install your games and OS on it and leave large blender files or other misc files on your HDD. You could get this small Samsung one right here if you like, or look for a cheaper alternative if you want to save a few bucks

 

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-500GB-Internal-MZ-77E500B-AM/dp/B08QBMD6P4/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=SSD&qid=1615674599&sr=8-3

[Downkey]

17 minutes ago, Hullwood2 said:

The build looks pretty solid not gonna lie! For your first ever time picking out parts you definitely did your research. You might not be able to play super high settings but with your current monitor you should be able to pull of medium on all of the listed games easily. Nice future-proofing with the MB and RAM both able to support later gen CPUs and GPUs. I would recommend like everyone else here, to get an SSD. Whether or not its big it will speed up game load times and will make your windows experience smoother. Make sure you install your games and OS on it and leave large blender files or other misc files on your HDD. You could get this small Samsung one right here if you like, or look for a cheaper alternative if you want to save a few bucks

 

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-500GB-Internal-MZ-77E500B-AM/dp/B08QBMD6P4/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=SSD&qid=1615674599&sr=8-3

$65 for a SATA drive? At that price you could get a 500GB NVME Drive

[Vale88]

22 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

You should have room in the budget to include a Samsung 860 EVO 250GB. Booting from that HDD at first will be fine, but Windows 10 has a habit of rotting away and becoming unbearably slow by about a year into the installation, especially on hard dives.

18 minutes ago, AdamBGames said:

I agree with Lloyd, you should get some kind of SSD, even a 120GB cheapo SSD will be MILES faster than the hard drive, also, make sure that the motherboard is updated to the latest bios so that it supports the 3400G, last thing you want is to try and boot your new PC and it just doesnt.

20 minutes ago, Hullwood2 said:

The build looks pretty solid not gonna lie! For your first ever time picking out parts you definitely did your research. You might not be able to play super high settings but with your current monitor you should be able to pull of medium on all of the listed games easily. Nice future-proofing with the MB and RAM both able to support later gen CPUs and GPUs. I would recommend like everyone else here, to get an SSD. Whether or not its big it will speed up game load times and will make your windows experience smoother. Make sure you install your games and OS on it and leave large blender files or other misc files on your HDD.

Thanks for the suggestions! I added this SSD to the build. And I don't remember the last time I did a fresh install of windows that must be why my computer boots up so slow these days

And I've already checked it looks like the motherboard has been updated to be compatible with the 3400G. And I did do quite a bit of research into this as I don't wanna be stuck with something that won't last and can't be upgraded in the future, I'm glad I did well

18 minutes ago, Downkey said:

changed the PSU to a higher quality PSU. The system won’t even consume more than 175 watts so 500W is more than enough.

Will the PSU you added be powerful enough to support a newish mid-tier GPU if I get one in the future? I don't wanna have to buy a whole new PSU in year or two if I end up deciding to get one

 

[Downkey]

14 hours ago, Vale88 said:

Thanks for the suggestions! I added this SSD to the build. And I don't remember the last time I did a fresh install of windows that must be why my computer boots up so slow these days

And I've already checked it looks like the motherboard has been updated to be compatible with the 3400G. And I did do quite a bit of research into this as I don't wanna be stuck with something that won't last and can't be upgraded in the future, I'm glad I did well

Will the PSU you added be powerful enough to support a newish mid-tier GPU if I get one in the future? I don't wanna have to buy a whole new PSU in year or two if I end up deciding to get one

 

Yes. I would say you can put up too a RTX 3060 in there. The EVGA BR is a very mediocre unit so I think that this a better choice.

[Vale88]

Alright thanks that sounds good, this is what I've got down for the build

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$166.94 @ Adorama
Motherboard	ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$80.65 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$81.33 @ Amazon
Storage	ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro 256 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$39.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$0.00
Case	Thermaltake Versa H18 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$54.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	be quiet! Pure Power 11 500 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply	$69.90 @ Amazon
Case Fan	ARCTIC P12 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan	$10.57 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$504.37
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-03-15 00:13 EDT-0400

Do you happen to know of any good tutorials for building and setting up a PC from start to finish?

[Jayzer]

28 minutes ago, Vale88 said:

Do you happen to know of any good tutorials for building and setting up a PC from start to finish?

Yes. Videos where Linus is building a PC 

I'm serious but joking at the same time. It is relatively easy, check out this link that I saved a few months ago:

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-build-a-pc