Extremly Low Spec PC.

[beyhai]

Budget (including currency): £500 (Pound Sterling)

Country: United Kingdom

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:  Mainly Productivity

 

Building a new computer for my younger brother, an upgrade from his old laptop. It will mainly be used for homework however he occasionally plays minecraft and a few 2D Indie games.

 

Ryzen 5 1600 (12nm) 6-Core Processor

AMD Wraith Stealth CPU Cooler

Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming Motherboard (Hand me down)

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) Memory

Kingston A400 480GB 2.5" SSD

Sapphire Radeon RX550 (4GB) Video Card

Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow ATX Case (Hand me down)

Corsair CV450 80+ Bronze ATX PSU

 

[MadAnt250]

Look for used parts, you can save a good amount of money that way, and be a good amount below budget.

[RageTester]

Is there a question? Are you not within budget?

6 core CPUs are not very budget friendly...

 

[YoungBlade]

For that budget, in this market, that seems reasonable. The R5 1600AF + RX550 4GB will be a solid combo for Minecraft and other indie games. I used to make YouTube videos of Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program using an i5 4440 + GT 635 + 8GB DDR3-1333 and got a solid 60fps even while recording with Fraps.

 

The only potential concern would be if your brother wants to go to Windows 11, that probably won't be possible with a Ryzen 5 1600. Microsoft is saying they're only going to support Ryzen 2000 series Zen+ and newer CPUs (although they said they're looking into first gen Ryzen during the Insider Preview phase). Then again, you can use Windows 10 until 2025 and that motherboard would support CPUs as high as the Ryzen 9 3950X, so in a few years, he could pick up a used Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 to get a solid upgrade and go to Windows 11.

[heli1337]

53 minutes ago, beyhai said:

Budget (including currency): £500 (Pound Sterling)

Country: United Kingdom

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:  Mainly Productivity

 

Building a new computer for my younger brother, an upgrade from his old laptop. It will mainly be used for homework however he occasionally plays minecraft and a few 2D Indie games.

 

Ryzen 5 1600 (12nm) 6-Core Processor

AMD Wraith Stealth CPU Cooler

Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming Motherboard (Hand me down)

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) Memory

Kingston A400 480GB 2.5" SSD

Sapphire Radeon RX550 (4GB) Video Card

Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow ATX Case (Hand me down)

Corsair CV450 80+ Bronze ATX PSU

 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/THydRT

 

Try to go with 12GB Ram, 8GB sometimes is not enough while gaming and idk having a discord or browser turned in background.

This is a better base for the future build - if your brother will start to do play more demanding games it will be fine to get it some GTX 1650 Super or something similar to it.

This PSU will hold stronger cards with no problems.

 

Vega 11 is still a great for people that don't want too much, but game for fun.

Try to find a Ryzen 5 3400G / 2400G local - maybe in outlet of the IT Store or something like this.

B450 Mobo will fit perfectly into your setup.

Maybe 2400MHz sticks is not the thing that makes setup stronger, but for this sort of PC Using it doesn't matter that much.

[Freakwise]

1 minute ago, Helly Benchmarking said:

Try to go with 12GB Ram, 8GB sometimes is not enough while gaming and idk having a discord or browser turned in background.

Better to just use single 8gb and upgrade it later on with the saved money from not buying the 4gb stick

 

OP only say for homework and some indie 2d game...

 

[heli1337]

1 minute ago, Freakwise said:

Better to just use single 8gb and upgrade it later on with the saved money from not buying the 4gb stick

 

OP only say for homework and some indie 2d game...

 

His board have 4 RAM slots, so what is the problem of upgrading it to more capacity? 

12GB on duals are so much better than 8GB single channel.

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/mx3GCz

¯\_ (ツ) _/¯ 

 

A 6 core config for as cheap as possible

 

Case yeeted, 3£ scrap case if you can find one, or not just shove the pc on the mobo box thatll work aswell

 

Gpu is up to you

 

Still gonna be overbudget when the gpu is added, buy used parts instead xD

[YoungBlade]

2 minutes ago, Helly Benchmarking said:

His board have 4 RAM slots, so what is the problem of upgrading it to more capacity? 

12GB on duals are so much better than 8GB single channel.

 

It is already dual channel RAM - 2x4GB - and adding another stick will break dual-channel operation on most motherboards. If you're going to upgrade, you need to add two more sticks.

 

And unless you are playing with a lot of mods, 8GB of RAM is fine for Minecraft. The RX550 isn't going to be able to render out to 32 chunks, so the game isn't going to use enough RAM for it to matter. I occasionally used to stream Minecraft while chatting with someone on Discord using 8GB of RAM when I was rendering out to 12 chunks.

[Freakwise]

3 minutes ago, Helly Benchmarking said:

12GB on duals

Its not dual, it's running on flex mode,

 

And better saved it now to upgrade to true dual channel in the future

 

Again it's MAINLY for homework and 2d indie game, I don't see any reason it would eat up a lot of ram...

 

 

 

[beyhai]

49 minutes ago, RageTester said:

Is there a question? Are you not within budget?

6 core CPUs are not very budget friendly...

 

This is just in budget.

 

The rx 550 can be had for just over 130 atm and the case and mobo are really cheap because they are hand me downs.

[beyhai]

29 minutes ago, Helly Benchmarking said:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/THydRT

 

Try to go with 12GB Ram, 8GB sometimes is not enough while gaming and idk having a discord or browser turned in background.

This is a better base for the future build - if your brother will start to do play more demanding games it will be fine to get it some GTX 1650 Super or something similar to it.

This PSU will hold stronger cards with no problems.

 

Vega 11 is still a great for people that don't want too much, but game for fun.

Try to find a Ryzen 5 3400G / 2400G local - maybe in outlet of the IT Store or something like this.

B450 Mobo will fit perfectly into your setup.

Maybe 2400MHz sticks is not the thing that makes setup stronger, but for this sort of PC Using it doesn't matter that much.

The memory is 3000MHz.

 

I was considering using a 3400G but I think it would be considerably slower, For the extra 60ish pounds wouldn't it be better going for the discrete GPU for upgradability reasons?

[heli1337]

1 minute ago, beyhai said:

The memory is 3000MHz.

 

I was considering using a 3400G but I think it would be considerably slower, For the extra 60ish pounds wouldn't it be better going for the discrete GPU for upgradability reasons?

3400G - Vega 11 is performing close to GT 1030.

I had a rig with Vega 11 only onboard for few time and it was fine to play CSGO on 16:9 720p Low (E-Sport Settings) on 200FPS Avg.

 

3000MHz is fine with this CPU.

You can still sell this Ryzen 5 3400G if you'll buy another GPU like 1660 Super or something and change it to R5 3600 in future.

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, beyhai said:

he occasionally plays minecraft and a few 2D Indie games.

Then just go for a 3200G,it's way cheaper than buying a CPU + scalper priced GPU.

[YoungBlade]

35 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Then just go for a 3200G,it's way cheaper than buying a CPU + scalper priced GPU.

Except that Ryzen APUs are also getting scapled. A used 3200G is going for £150 used on ebay.co.uk right now. That's better than the situation in the US, but it's still not a great value considering that you're only get 4c/4t Zen+. The 1600AF is basically a 2600 with a slightly lower out-of-the-box clock speed.

[Middcore]

The A400 is a very failure prone SSD.