Budget PC

[Zincist]

Budget (including currency): ~400 (Preferably under)

Other details:

Attempting to make the cheapest possible PC that is not awful to be used as a gift(since I don't want to spend literally all of my money). If you have any recommendations even of they are not available on PC part picker post a comment. I don't really want to go higher in price, if you know any parts that are cheaper and have the same performance or are slightly more expensive and have a significant performance increase please let me know.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WQ6n4M

[filpo]

17 minutes ago, Zincist said:

cheapest possible PC

get a used Dell optiplex off of ebay or fb marketplace if you find a place close to you and slap a used 2060 and an SSD in it (maybe some extra ram) MSI Geforce RTX 2060 Ventus XS 6G OC 6GB GDDR6 Graphics Card | eBay

you should be able to get a dell optiplex with a decent i7/xeon from around 4th or 6th gen maybe above for $250. Most likely less

Like this one, put in a 3050 6gb, an extra 8gb of ddr3 and a crucial MX500 or other 1tb sata ssd and you're off OptiPlex 5040 Small Form Factor - Intel i7, 8GB, 480GB WD HDD - PC15 | eBay

EDIT: Posted by mistake, meant to add the below 

Look at this one, it's got an intel i5 4590 in it, it's also got 16gb of ram, OK the SSD might only be 240gb but a decent SATA 1tb DRAM SSD should be had for $50, then put in the 2060 above

Dell OptiPlex 7020 Tower - Intel i5, 16GB, 1GB Radeon R5 240, 240GB WD SSD - PC4 | eBay

[Hinjima]

2 minutes ago, filpo said:

get a used Dell optiplex off of ebay or fb marketplace if you find a place close to you and slap a used 2060 in it MSI Geforce RTX 2060 Ventus XS 6G OC 6GB GDDR6 Graphics Card | eBay

you should be able to get a dell optiplex with a decent i7/xeon from around 4th or 6th gen maybe above for $250. Most likely less

Remember that most Optiplexes come with a 300-360w PSU without any external power connectors.

[podkall]

7 minutes ago, Zincist said:

Attempting to make the cheapest possible PC that is not awful to be used as a gift(since I don't want to spend literally all of my money). If you have any recommendations even of they are not available on PC part picker post a comment

for whom? why give someone an almost crappy PC?

[rwdfsawe]

7 minutes ago, Zincist said:

Budget (including currency): ~400 (Preferably under)

Other details:

Attempting to make the cheapest possible PC that is not awful to be used as a gift(since I don't want to spend literally all of my money). If you have any recommendations even of they are not available on PC part picker post a comment. I don't really want to go higher in price, if you know any parts that are cheaper and have the same performance or are slightly more expensive and have a significant performance increase please let me know.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WQ6n4M

 

[filpo]

1 minute ago, rwdfsawe said:

 

he got the 5700 XT for $120, cheapest non bid I could find was for $140. Adding all the prices up gets to $450 and in a budget build, that's a lot. Especially if it's a hard limit. But that is quite a bit better than going optiplex. Though you can definitely go cheaper for the ram, case, psu

 

8 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

Remember that most Optiplexes come with a 300-360w PSU without any external power connectors.

thanks. edited now

[Zincist]

4 minutes ago, podkall said:

for whom? why give someone an almost crappy PC?

It is for someone who just needs something that runs and does not care at all about performance, it is also theoretical and I don't know whether or not I will actually make it.

[podkall]

4 minutes ago, filpo said:

he got the 5700 XT for $120, cheapest non bid I could find was for $140. Adding all the prices up gets to $450

he did mention that both GPU and CPU slowly fluctuated and raised in price,

 

3 minutes ago, Zincist said:

It is for someone who just needs something that runs and does not care at all about performance, it is also theoretical and I don't know whether or not I will actually make it.

web browsing no gaming?

 

if it's just web browsing no gaming then some G series Ryzen build could work

[Zincist]

2 minutes ago, podkall said:

he did mention that both GPU and CPU slowly fluctuated and raised in price,

 

web browsing no gaming?

 

if it's just web browsing no gaming then some G series Ryzen build could work

Possibly a little gaming and would accept low settings, that is why my initial list included a CPU was capable of integrated graphics and I did not include a GPU.

[podkall]

8 minutes ago, Zincist said:

Possibly a little gaming and would accept low settings, that is why my initial list included a CPU was capable of integrated graphics and I did not include a GPU.

okay, but why are you buying a "gift" of a slow PC that would barely run games or only old games?

[filpo]

3 minutes ago, Zincist said:

It is for someone who just needs something that runs and does not care at all about performance, it is also theoretical and I don't know whether or not I will actually make it.

You could also try DIY

PCPartPicker Part List

Power Supply: MSI MAG A550BN 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($49.00 @ MSI) 
Custom: Used Ryzen 5 5500  ($71.00)
Custom: 'New' B550m aorus elite ($81.00)
Custom: used Q300L ($30.00)
Custom: Killsere 2x8gb 3200 ($23.00)
Custom: 1tb Intel 660p ($45.00)
Custom: used RX 5700 ($115.00)
Total: $414.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-15 16:32 EDT-0400

3 minutes ago, podkall said:

he did mention that both GPU and CPU slowly fluctuated and raised in price,

zach or @rwdfsawe?

[podkall]

3 minutes ago, filpo said:

You could also try DIY

PCPartPicker Part List

Power Supply: MSI MAG A550BN 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($49.00 @ MSI) 
Custom: Used Ryzen 5 5500  ($71.00)
Custom: 'New' B550m aorus elite ($81.00)
Custom: used Q300L ($30.00)
Custom: Killsere 2x8gb 3200 ($23.00)
Custom: 1tb Intel 660p ($45.00)
Custom: used RX 5700 ($115.00)
Total: $414.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-15 16:32 EDT-0400

or that but with 3600G instead of GPU and CPU,

 

if the games in question aren't demanding

[MadAnt250]

Life is to short for a crappy $400 PC. Look for used CPU, Motherboard and RAM combos to get the best bang for the buck. PC cases can be free if you know how to recycle, then the rest of the budget can go towards a good PSU, SSD and used GPU.

[jaslion]

59 minutes ago, Zincist said:

It is for someone who just needs something that runs and does not care at all about performance, it is also theoretical and I don't know whether or not I will actually make it.

Then an 8th gen intel optiplex for 100$ or so with 8gb of ram and an ssd will do.

 

That raidmax psu is genuinly a hazard and Id avoid at all costs.

 

Also 400$ used gets you a nice used ryzen gaming system avoid all the cheap crap of trying to go new

[Zeke_]

1 hour ago, podkall said:

for whom? why give someone an almost crappy PC?

Whoa there buster. 400 bucks is enough to build a pretty solid cheap PC. My first was a GTX 1050 and Pentium G4560 that I built for about 400 bucks and it was a great entry point for me into this hobby and for the time wasn’t even that bad for playing at 1080p medium settings. Right now I’m working on a project using an old SFF office PC and upgrading it into a small gaming pc I can take to LAN’s, and it came to about $150. Having a lot of money is not a requirement to getting into PC gaming.  I for one would be over the moon if someone gifted me a PC at all let alone one that they put together to the best of their abilities to get me a good gaming experience. 

[Zeke_]

I happen to have recent experience doing a small budget PC ($150).

 

I ended up with a small form factor dell optiplex with an i3 8100 (earliest officially supported generation for Windows 11) for $95 that came with a hard drive and 8 gigs of ram. I ended up with a low profile RX 550 which I got on ebay for $45. If you have a $400 budget, you should go for a full size tower so you don’t have the low profile GPU requirement, and add a solid used GPU like an RX 580 or 1660 Ti. This should be very doable for probably even under your budget, and you can use whatever’s extra to add storage and more ram if it could use it or even to get a higher end GPU. Just make sure it has a decent power supply and I would caution you to not use those SATA to 6 pin adapters to make it work. If you have to, cut some budget for a PSU upgrade. If you want any other ideas feel free to message me I am more than willing to help you find a good configuration that fits in your budget.

[podkall]

28 minutes ago, Zeke_ said:

Whoa there buster. 400 bucks is enough to build a pretty solid cheap PC. My first was a GTX 1050 and Pentium G4560 that I built for about 400 bucks and it was a great entry point for me into this hobby and for the time wasn’t even that bad for playing at 1080p medium settings. Right now I’m working on a project using an old SFF office PC and upgrading it into a small gaming pc I can take to LAN’s, and it came to about $150. Having a lot of money is not a requirement to getting into PC gaming.  I for one would be over the moon if someone gifted me a PC at all let alone one that they put together to the best of their abilities to get me a good gaming experience. 

I guess, I don't mean that it's not possible to get good PC out of 400$,

 

I said that because OP wants to spend less than 400$, and I simply don't know who the receiver is and what's their expectation of a PC, even cheap,

 

I know what's it like being on a budget, check out my former PC I got in my signature.

[BentleyOwen123]

yea, and 8th gen, and then a low profile 3050 would be my suggestion, maybe 1 or 2 more case fans and youll be set, and make sure youve got at least 16gb ram

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fKWYCd

Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($33.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: MSI LP OC GeForce RTX 3050 6GB 6 GB Video Card  ($179.99 @ B&H) 
Total: $213.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-15 18:24 EDT-0400

[Zincist]

1 hour ago, podkall said:

I guess, I don't mean that it's not possible to get good PC out of 400$,

 

I said that because OP wants to spend less than 400$, and I simply don't know who the receiver is and what's their expectation of a PC, even cheap,

 

I know what's it like being on a budget, check out my former PC I got in my signature.

I did say "preferably under", if my expectations(even though they are low) are too high for the "almost crappy PC" that I want than I am open to going higher. I do think that you are overestimating the type of PC that I was going for and what the person who would theoretically be receiving this would happy with. They have no experience with PC's and are not interested in going deeper into the topic, but I built my first PC about a year or two ago and they had interest in playing games on it even if it ran slow. I also asked them about a price like this so time ago and it would not be something that they would be willing to spend.

[BentleyOwen123]

go for it, check the used market, dont let budget hold you back

[podkall]

Honestly what you had was decent idea, if you wanna go it,

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 4600G 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($100.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock A520M-HDV Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($65.98 @ Amazon)
Memory: *Silicon Power GAMING 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($33.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 512 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($38.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Enermax MarbleShell M MS20 ARGB MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($39.49 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: MSI MAG A550BN 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($49.00 @ MSI)
Monitor: Sceptre E248W-FPT 23.8" 1920 x 1080 75 Hz Monitor  ($57.10 @ Walmart)
Total: $385.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-16 12:00 EDT-0400

 

• it won't be as good as building from used market though.
• At least the PSU should be decent if you wanna copy your OG build.