Looking to build a budget gaming/web browsing pc for my girlfriend

[JackTheRad]

Budget (including currency): not a hard limit on budget but I am not looking too spend too much since I already have a CPU and GPU. Ideally less than $800

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: General 1080p gaming and web browsing.

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):No need for monitors/peripherals. I recently tore down my old pc to reuse the GPU (GTX 970) and the CPU (intel i7 6700). I also have two 8g 3200mHz sticks of ram that I plan to use in this build because I want to upgrade the ram in my current machine. I'm mainly looking for a motherboard, power supply, ssd, and case recommendations. I plan on getting a Noctua cooler and fans so if the case could match that would be great but it's not the end all be all of the build. No RGB. Any thoughts or recommendations are greatly appreciated and if I'm forgetting anything this will be my first time building a pc. I've done upgrades, but have never built one from scratch.

[Quickstrike]

17 minutes ago, JackTheRad said:

Budget (including currency): not a hard limit on budget but I am not looking too spend too much since I already have a CPU and GPU. Ideally less than $800

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: General 1080p gaming and web browsing.

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):No need for monitors/peripherals. I recently tore down my old pc to reuse the GPU (GTX 970) and the CPU (intel i7 6700). I also have two 8g 3200mHz sticks of ram that I plan to use in this build because I want to upgrade the ram in my current machine. I'm mainly looking for a motherboard, power supply, ssd, and case recommendations. I plan on getting a Noctua cooler and fans so if the case could match that would be great but it's not the end all be all of the build. No RGB. Any thoughts or recommendations are greatly appreciated and if I'm forgetting anything this will be my first time building a pc. I've done upgrades, but have never built one from scratch.

Finding a Skylake motherboard is by far the most complicated aspect of this. Try to find a used one on FB marketplace.
You are looking far a Socket LGA 1155 1st gen.

Get a good but cheap case like a Phanteks P300A
A 650 W PSU (Again maybe used)
A 1TB  SSD  (my go to is WD blues)

The rest is up to you.
Don't expect stellar performance with that GPU/CPU but it will run. Don't expect tha PC to last. 900 series GPU are Dying left and right.

Good luck!

[planetary problem]

you will need a better GPU for 1080p nowdays if you are playing recent titles i think, especially if targeting 90 or 120hz

 

[JackTheRad]

6 minutes ago, Quickstrike said:

Finding a Skylake motherboard is by far the most complicated aspect of this. Try to find a used one on FB marketplace.
You are looking far a Socket LGA 1155 1st gen.

Get a good but cheap case like a Phanteks P300A
A 650 W PSU (Again maybe used)
A 1TB  SSD  (my go to is WD blues)

The rest is up to you.
Don't expect stellar performance with that GPU/CPU but it will run. Don't expect tha PC to last. 900 series GPU are Dying left and right.

Good luck!

Thank you! I may look into getting a better GPU then! It was running pretty well before I took it out of my old pc but I'm not sure what else I could use the gpu for or if I would be able to sell it.

[JackTheRad]

6 minutes ago, shreshta said:

you will need a better GPU for 1080p nowdays if you are playing recent titles i think, especially if targeting 90 or 120hz

 

I will look in to getting a better gpu. Hopefully I can find a good budget one!

[Blqckqut]

1 minute ago, JackTheRad said:

I will look in to getting a better gpu. Hopefully I can find a good budget one!

look for a used 6600xt or 5700xt

[SorryBella]

30 minutes ago, JackTheRad said:

I'm mainly looking for a motherboard, power supply, ssd, and case recommendations.

Youre kinda screwed on board because LGA 1151 boards especially those of the v1 (1xx and 2xx chipset series) is getting lower in stock. Thats the brutal reality of old CPU purchasing, board fails so much faster than CPUs. Your best bet will always be on used market here, or you can quickly sell it off to the used market for sub 60$. The 970 though is tumbling in price, 35-40$ is the range i see on ebay right now. I dont know what kind of build she would appreciate in color but white is very universally beautiful.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-13400F 2.5 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($209.94 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK400 66.47 CFM CPU Cooler  ($36.98 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: ASRock B660M Pro RS Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($109.75 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($122.99 @ B&H) 
Case: Fractal Design Focus 2 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($66.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM750e 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Best Buy) 
Case Fan: ARCTIC P12 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($14.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $661.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-03-14 11:55 EDT-0400

 

If you go with the sell route, thatll leave you 300$ in the green. You can either go for used RDNA 2 cards like what @Blqckout recommend (although ive seen RX 6800 and 6800XT at that price range too), or a brand new Intel Arc A750. Do be noted that the latter is a bit of a gamble as Intel still continues to build up its GPU drivers far from its initial launch, so it could pay off in you having a warranty, and also an RX 6700 class performance in DX12 and some DX11 titles.

[Blqckqut]

Just now, SorryClaire said:

 

 

If you go with the sell route, thatll leave you 300$ in the green. You can either go for used RDNA 2 cards like what @Blqckout recommend (although ive seen RX 6800 and 6800XT at that price range too), or a brand new Intel Arc A750. Do be noted that the latter is a bit of a gamble as Intel still continues to build up its GPU drivers far from its initial launch, so it could pay off in you having a warranty, and also an RX 6700 class performance in DX12 and some DX11 titles.

u saw a 6800xt at 300? LINK PLS haha

[SorryBella]

1 minute ago, Blqckout said:

u saw a 6800xt at 300? LINK PLS haha

peep on this one from UAE lmao

[Blqckqut]

1 minute ago, SorryClaire said:

peep on this one from UAE lmao

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

thqnks though, ill look for more

[Blqckqut]

4 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

peep on this one from UAE lmao

if youd like, keep me pdated if you randomly find a 6950xt, if not then ill save up for a 7900xt

[Somerandomtechyboi]

53 minutes ago, JackTheRad said:

Budget (including currency): not a hard limit on budget but I am not looking too spend too much since I already have a CPU and GPU. Ideally less than $800

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: General 1080p gaming and web browsing.

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):No need for monitors/peripherals. I recently tore down my old pc to reuse the GPU (GTX 970) and the CPU (intel i7 6700). I also have two 8g 3200mHz sticks of ram that I plan to use in this build because I want to upgrade the ram in my current machine. I'm mainly looking for a motherboard, power supply, ssd, and case recommendations. I plan on getting a Noctua cooler and fans so if the case could match that would be great but it's not the end all be all of the build. No RGB. Any thoughts or recommendations are greatly appreciated and if I'm forgetting anything this will be my first time building a pc. I've done upgrades, but have never built one from scratch.

Ditch the 6700, idiots still think they can get 100$ for ancient junk so maybe sell at 60-80$ and get a far more powerful ryzen 5 5500/5600 + used b3/450 board for the same price of the 6700 + z170 that has a bclk oc bios

[JackTheRad]

9 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Ditch the 6700, idiots still think they can get 100$ for ancient junk so maybe sell at 60-80$ and get a far more powerful ryzen 5 5500/5600 + used b3/450 board for the same price of the 6700 + z170 that has a bclk oc bios

Gotcha! I really don't know too much about this stuff but I'm doing my best to learn! I might just do a whole budget build and sell the gcu/gpu for whatever I can get for it. Also has some crappy ram and a weird motherboard that I don't know what to do with so maybe I can sell those as well. Thank you for the info!

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 minutes ago, JackTheRad said:

Gotcha! I really don't know too much about this stuff but I'm doing my best to learn! I might just do a whole budget build and sell the gcu/gpu for whatever I can get for it. Also has some crappy ram and a weird motherboard that I don't know what to do with so maybe I can sell those as well. Thank you for the info!

Gpu is still okay ish, 1060 levels of performance and should still be good for 1080p but might be vram limited

[JackTheRad]

26 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

Youre kinda screwed on board because LGA 1151 boards especially those of the v1 (1xx and 2xx chipset series) is getting lower in stock. Thats the brutal reality of old CPU purchasing, board fails so much faster than CPUs. Your best bet will always be on used market here, or you can quickly sell it off to the used market for sub 60$. The 970 though is tumbling in price, 35-40$ is the range i see on ebay right now. I dont know what kind of build she would appreciate in color but white is very universally beautiful.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-13400F 2.5 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($209.94 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK400 66.47 CFM CPU Cooler  ($36.98 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: ASRock B660M Pro RS Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($109.75 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($122.99 @ B&H) 
Case: Fractal Design Focus 2 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($66.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM750e 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Best Buy) 
Case Fan: ARCTIC P12 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($14.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $661.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-03-14 11:55 EDT-0400

 

If you go with the sell route, thatll leave you 300$ in the green. You can either go for used RDNA 2 cards like what @Blqckout recommend (although ive seen RX 6800 and 6800XT at that price range too), or a brand new Intel Arc A750. Do be noted that the latter is a bit of a gamble as Intel still continues to build up its GPU drivers far from its initial launch, so it could pay off in you having a warranty, and also an RX 6700 class performance in DX12 and some DX11 titles.

This was super helpful! I think I will just sell what I have and try to do a build from scratch! I'm thinking a white and brown theme for the build because I know she will lake that and it will match the Noctua cooler and fans. I'm thinking the fractal design north as far as cases go.

[planetary problem]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mFttZw

this is a upgrade list, noctua fans are overpriced so i picked up some arctic fans that are just as good in terms of both noise and performance.

 

this is what i think you should do-

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PmD4zf

                            OR

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rpKHcb

they have a 12th gen I3 that significantly faster than a I7 6700 and a intel ark A750 and a RX 6600 where the intel cards have better performance but running the AMD card has a guarantee of not being a headache(intels drivers are a lil funky) though intel is even faster at higher resolutions like 1440p and raytracing, which both cards have.

 

EDIT:

i just realized that the gpu is double the performance and the CPU is 1.5x the performance. 

[JackTheRad]

6 minutes ago, shreshta said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mFttZw

this is a upgrade list, noctua fans are overpriced so i picked up some arctic fans that are just as good in terms of both noise and performance.

 

this is what i think you should do-

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Nb2FjZ

                      OR

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/yTMnzf

they have a 12th gen I3 that significantly faster than a I7 6700 and a intel ark A770 and a RX 6650XT which have similar performance though intel is faster at higher resolutions like 1440p and raytracing, which both cards have.

This is awesome! I really appreciate the help!