$300 budget gaming PC build (after rebates)

[Aereldor]

Greetings.

I often help people out with extreme low-budget builds, and managed to put something together at a pretty attractive price point, provided you can pick up the $75 in rebates. It features a Pentium G3258 that the Gigabyte B85M-DS3H-A should be able to push to 4.0 GHz with the stock cooler, an GTX 750 Ti, 8 GB of RAM from Mushkin, and a 128GB SSD from Avexir that I've never heard of but is going on NCIX for about $35 right now. Keep in mind that there's $10 in promo discounts and $75 more in rebates, but if you get all of them, this is a very capable 1080p gaming rig for just $300.

 

If you have more to spend, the first thing I'd recommend is switching out the power supply and adding some mass storage, but 120GB should be enough for at least a few games until you can find something to put your Steam library on.

 

If you think you could get most of the rebates, this is great value and makes a pretty good gift to someone who's looking to get into PC gaming. It's also extremely upgradeable, provided you upgrade the power supply and stick to locked chips, as the Pentium G3258 is probably all this board is equipped to overclock.
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.96 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Mushkin ECO2 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($28.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Avexir V1 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($34.63 @ NCIX US) 
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Enthusiast Edition Video Card  ($94.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Raidmax Vortex ATX Mid Tower Case  ($19.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($16.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $300.53
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-17 13:11 EST-0500

 

Regards,
Aereldor.

[beach_boy98]

TBH now the Pentium isn't worth it. I would go with the athlon and get 2(slower) cores. 

[DaltonM]

I hate budget builds. What's the point of building a PC that can barely run games to have to completely start from scratch if you want to upgrade? Spend $300 now, and $700 when you wanna upgrade, or you can just spend the $700 from the start and build a pc where you only have to upgrade the GPU. 

 

If PC gaming is too expensive, get a console. 

[ReesZRB]

5 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Greetings.

I often help people out with extreme low-budget builds, and managed to put something together at a pretty attractive price point, provided you can pick up the $75 in rebates. It features a Pentium G3258 that the Gigabyte B85M-DS3H-A should be able to push to 4.0 GHz with the stock cooler, an GTX 750 Ti, 8 GB of RAM from Mushkin, and a 128GB SSD from Avexir that I've never heard of but is going on NCIX for about $35 right now. Keep in mind that there's $10 in promo discounts and $75 more in rebates, but if you get all of them, this is a very capable 1080p gaming rig for just $300.

 

If you have more to spend, the first thing I'd recommend is switching out the power supply and adding some mass storage, but 120GB should be enough for at least a few games until you can find something to put your Steam library on.

 

If you think you could get most of the rebates, this is great value and makes a pretty good gift to someone who's looking to get into PC gaming. It's also extremely upgradeable, provided you upgrade the power supply and stick to locked chips, as the Pentium G3258 is probably all this board is equipped to overclock.
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.96 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Mushkin ECO2 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($28.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Avexir V1 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($34.63 @ NCIX US) 
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Enthusiast Edition Video Card  ($94.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Raidmax Vortex ATX Mid Tower Case  ($19.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($16.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $300.53
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-17 13:11 EST-0500

 

Regards,
Aereldor.

WAIT WAIT WHAT. You realize you need to spend a little more to get bios updated. That chip won't run on it.

[Aereldor]

Just now, beach_boy98 said:

TBH now the Pentium isn't worth it. I would go with the athlon and get 2(slower) cores. 

You can't upgrade any further than that, though- The Athlon X4 860k is the best the FM2+ socket has. I think the Pentium at 4 or 4.2 GHz still keeps up in many games, and you can always upgrade to an i5 4460, which can handle just about anything when it comes to gaming, save for the most CPU-intense scenarios.

[Aereldor]

Just now, ReesZRB said:

WAIT WAIT WHAT. You realize you need to spend a little more to get bios updated. That chip won't run on it.

As far as I know, every version of the B85M-DS3H-A's BIOS supports Haswell refresh CPUs. It's a revision of the B85M-DS3H, and that one supported the Pentium G3258 from the first version of the BIOS as well.

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, DaltonM said:

I hate budget builds. What's the point of building a PC that can barely run games to have to completely start from scratch if you want to upgrade? Spend $300 now, and $700 when you wanna upgrade, or you can just spend the $700 from the start and build a pc where you only have to upgrade the GPU. 

 

If PC gaming is too expensive, get a console. 

A PC has a little more functionality than a console (although it makes a load of sacrifices too). However, I daresay this system can hold its own when it comes time to upgrade. The motherboard supports the Xeon E3 1231 V3, which is a very capable chip, or you can even step down to the i5 4460, which still holds its own and doesn't bottleneck powerful GPUs. All you really need for a graphics card is the PCI-e 3.0 x16 slot and an adequate power supply. Swap those, and you're good. You could probably keep the SSD and mass storage is probably going to be the first thing you add.

 

Consoles are a great value option and tend to be more future-proof, but I didn't say this was for any gamer, but people looking to get into PC gaming. 

[Kryptyx]

2 hours ago, DaltonM said:

I hate budget builds. What's the point of building a PC that can barely run games to have to completely start from scratch if you want to upgrade? Spend $300 now, and $700 when you wanna upgrade, or you can just spend the $700 from the start and build a pc where you only have to upgrade the GPU. 

 

If PC gaming is too expensive, get a console. 

I agree... I think budget is just a waste of money. You're better off saving up and buying something with a clear upgrade path. I would say the lowest you should spend on a "gaming PC" should be $500-600 and that's with good deals. You are also sacrificing quality parts for cheap components. It's a bad decision all around.

[Tautedorus]

Yes, low-end builds are not very powerful. However, GTX 750 has pretty good price/performance ratio and G3258 ir overclockable. Because of that, it doesn't count as a waste of money. So, OP, that build is pretty solid for its price.

[DaltonM]

Just now, Kryptyx said:

I agree... I think budget is just a waste of money. You're better off saving up and buying something with a clear upgrade path. I would say the lowest you should spend on a "gaming PC" should be $500-600 and that's with good deals. You are also sacrificing quality parts for cheap components. It's a bad decision all around.

Yup, why would you recommend a disappointingly performing money pit machine to a first time PC gamer? I would recommend something they will never have to worry about again. I mean if you really want to PC game, but don't wanna keep up with the technology you should put yourself in a situation where you only need to buy a GPU when you feel you want it. 

[AlanAlan]

2 hours ago, DaltonM said:

I hate budget builds. What's the point of building a PC that can barely run games to have to completely start from scratch if you want to upgrade? Spend $300 now, and $700 when you wanna upgrade, or you can just spend the $700 from the start and build a pc where you only have to upgrade the GPU. 

 

If PC gaming is too expensive, get a console. 

Not everyone can afford a expensive pc

[DaltonM]

2 minutes ago, AlanAlan said:

Not everyone can afford a expensive pc

But everyone can afford to save up. So you can afford a crap build, what are you going to do when it can't run the games you wanna play? Buy a whole nother crap system. 

[Aereldor]

11 hours ago, DaltonM said:

But everyone can afford to save up. So you can afford a crap build, what are you going to do when it can't run the games you wanna play? Buy a whole nother crap system. 

 

This hardware is rated at 'entry level' for a reason. It's affordable, and although it doesn't break the bank, it is still very capable. I know I've said this before, but this system extremely upgradeable. Read the posts above to find out how you can do so.

 

I understand the sentiment behind waiting till you have $700 rather than $300 and going with a far more powerful build, but sometimes, that money is hard to come by. Some people simply aren't saving enough to be able to afford something much more expensive soon, and some people have saved money long enough just to scrape $300 together.

 

And if you keep waiting until you can afford something better, you'll be waiting for decades until you can get that dual 5960x build with four titan Xs and three of those 4TB Intel PCI-e SSDs.

 

And lastly, to a lot of people I know, a large part of wanting to game on a PC includes getting the functionality of a modern computer, as well as experience building a computer to understand how it goes together. I think this build is a pretty great entry point for all three of these aspects.

[Aereldor]

12 hours ago, DaltonM said:

Yup, why would you recommend a disappointingly performing money pit machine to a first time PC gamer? I would recommend something they will never have to worry about again. I mean if you really want to PC game, but don't wanna keep up with the technology you should put yourself in a situation where you only need to buy a GPU when you feel you want it. 

Foremost, the PC gamers in question are often as enthusiastic about having the functionality of the PC and learning to put it together as they are about gaming on it- and I believe this is a solid starting point for all of those areas.

 

Furthermore, I haven't cut a lot of corners with this-

• The Pentium G3258 has more or less achieved legendary status through the incredible value it presents when overclocked.
• The Gigabyte B85M-DS3H-A is the successor to the original B85M-DS3H, which was an incredibly solid motherboard, but came with a few issues with components in its Rev 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 versions. The B85M-DS3H-A appears to fix a lot of these problems, even going back to the sturdy PCB material used on the far superior Gigabyte B85M-D3H.
• I haven't heard of Avexir SSDs before, but they're pretty reputable RAM manufacturers, and this SSD uses the same Phison S9 controller as a lot of great value SSDs like the Patriot Blaze series.
• The Raidmax Vortex tower may appear to be a piece of junk from the price, but it actually costs significantly more without a rebate, and is a quality offering to boot. Check out some of the reviews for it on Newegg.
• True, the power supply isn't the greatest, but it's far more reliable than any of the OEM power supplies you'd find bundled in with a case, is 80+ efficient, comes from a very reputable manufacturer, and won't be pushed to the point of instability with a build that's rated at just under 200 watts at most.

There you have it. And if you're going to stack up to a beefier CPU and GPU, swap out the power supply as part of the upgrade process- a decent Thermaltake or Seasonic PSU is only going to set you back about $50-60 when you need the extra power.

 

EDIT: It goes without saying that the first thing you should invest in is some mass storage, but 128 GB is enough to start you off with room for your OS and a couple of key applications and games.