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What is the best way to build a budget gaming PC these days?

pangaea
By pangaea
in New Builds and Planning
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Posted

Used workstation desktop (working PC w/ 8GB RAM, Xeon CPU, and a Windows 10 license) - $200 (eBay)

 

AMD RX560 - $180 (Amazon)

 

Cheap eBay monitor - $50

 

Keyboard/mouse bundle - $12 (my local Best Buy)

 

Cheap earbuds - $8 (Amazon)

 

even with the monitor and peripherals we're within a $450 budget ($380 just for the PC and GPU).

Home desktop: AMD FX-6350 CPU, AMD 7950 GPU, 12GB DDR3 RAM, 2x250GB SSD (RAID 0) for main drive, 1TB HDD for extra storage, Windows 10

 

Work desktop: Intel Q8400 core 2 quad CPU, Nvidia GeForce 8400GS Rev 2 GPU, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB SSD for main drive, 250GB HDD for extra storage, Linux Mint 18.3

 

Personal Laptop: Lenovo W540; bought a used workstation laptop on eBay that just needed a hard drive for half of what they were going for in working order at the time. Intel i7 vPro, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB SSD

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Depends what Xeon it is. Do you have any way of knowing?

Quote me to see my reply!

SPECS:

CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X Motherboard: MSI B450-A Pro Max RAM: 32GB I forget GPU: MSI Vega 56 Storage: 256GB NVMe boot, 512GB Samsung 850 Pro, 1TB WD Blue SSD, 1TB WD Blue HDD PSU: Inwin P85 850w Case: Fractal Design Define C Cooling: Stock for CPU, be quiet! case fans, Morpheus Vega w/ be quiet! Pure Wings 2 for GPU Monitor: 3x Thinkvision P24Q on a Steelcase Eyesite triple monitor stand Mouse: Logitech MX Master 3 Keyboard: Focus FK-9000 (heavily modded) Mousepad: Aliexpress cat special Headphones:  Sennheiser HD598SE and Sony Linkbuds

 

🏳️‍🌈

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Posted

Best way? You're already doing it. Buy used.

Otherwise you're playing a massive premium on certain parts (RAM, GPUs and I think I'm forgetting one or two)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3700x / GPU: Asus Radeon RX 6750XT OC 12GB / RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4-3200
MOBO: MSI B450m Gaming Plus / NVME: Corsair MP510 240GB / Case: TT Core v21 / PSU: Seasonic 750W / OS: Win 10 Pro

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Posted

To be clear: I don't know

but

I still feel like there should eb better options around than a $180 RX560. MAybe used older card if you are already buying a used system. I can get 970s used for 200€ (of course region blabla)

Less of an answer more of adding to the question.

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/334934-unofficial-ltt-beginners-guide/ (by Minibois) and a few things that will make our community interaction more pleasent:
1. FOLLOW your own topics                                                                                2.Try to QUOTE people so we can read through things easier
3.Use PCPARTPICKER.COM - easy and most importantly approved here        4.Mark your topics SOLVED if they are                                Don't change a running system

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Posted
  • Author
2 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Depends what Xeon it is. Do you have any way of knowing?

Some eBay listings will say, some won't.

Home desktop: AMD FX-6350 CPU, AMD 7950 GPU, 12GB DDR3 RAM, 2x250GB SSD (RAID 0) for main drive, 1TB HDD for extra storage, Windows 10

 

Work desktop: Intel Q8400 core 2 quad CPU, Nvidia GeForce 8400GS Rev 2 GPU, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB SSD for main drive, 250GB HDD for extra storage, Linux Mint 18.3

 

Personal Laptop: Lenovo W540; bought a used workstation laptop on eBay that just needed a hard drive for half of what they were going for in working order at the time. Intel i7 vPro, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB SSD

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Posted
Just now, TetraSky said:

Best way? You're already doing it. Buy used.

Otherwise you're playing a massive premium on certain parts (RAM, GPUs and I think I'm forgetting one or two)

SSDs too although not as popular in budget builds

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/334934-unofficial-ltt-beginners-guide/ (by Minibois) and a few things that will make our community interaction more pleasent:
1. FOLLOW your own topics                                                                                2.Try to QUOTE people so we can read through things easier
3.Use PCPARTPICKER.COM - easy and most importantly approved here        4.Mark your topics SOLVED if they are                                Don't change a running system

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  • Author
2 hours ago, GER_T4IGA said:

SSDs too although not as popular in budget builds

Loading screens in Fallout 4 are awful with a mechanical drive so maybe consider at least a 128GB SSD for your OS and a couple games that would really benefit from it as an optional upgrade.

 

2 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Best way? You're already doing it. Buy used.

Otherwise you're playing a massive premium on certain parts (RAM, GPUs and I think I'm forgetting one or two)

$200 for a power supply, case, CPU, motherboard, RAM, hard drive, and a legit Windows 10 license is definitely pretty tough to beat on the new market.

Home desktop: AMD FX-6350 CPU, AMD 7950 GPU, 12GB DDR3 RAM, 2x250GB SSD (RAID 0) for main drive, 1TB HDD for extra storage, Windows 10

 

Work desktop: Intel Q8400 core 2 quad CPU, Nvidia GeForce 8400GS Rev 2 GPU, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB SSD for main drive, 250GB HDD for extra storage, Linux Mint 18.3

 

Personal Laptop: Lenovo W540; bought a used workstation laptop on eBay that just needed a hard drive for half of what they were going for in working order at the time. Intel i7 vPro, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB SSD

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18 minutes ago, GER_T4IGA said:

SSDs too although not as popular in budget builds

Really? SSDs too? I'm looking at the current prices and it doesn't look too bad.

Then again, I paid $150CAD for this piece of crap 8 years ago:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5746844&CatId=5300
... Two of them in fact, so $300CAD. Piece of shit is slower than a regular HDD, only thing it has going for it, is the faster random reads/writes. I'm currently using them as a "cache drive", waiting for it to die a slow death... Even if SSDlife has been proclaiming its death for years now.

So maybe that's why I don't think it's so bad, since I overpaid for them way more than what the current pricing are.

 

ssdlife screenshots:

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/GejVnJB

https://imgur.com/gkj76Zk

https://imgur.com/ht85Tna

https://imgur.com/e1g1Wud

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3700x / GPU: Asus Radeon RX 6750XT OC 12GB / RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4-3200
MOBO: MSI B450m Gaming Plus / NVME: Corsair MP510 240GB / Case: TT Core v21 / PSU: Seasonic 750W / OS: Win 10 Pro

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Posted

Your solution to the title of budget gaming

 

 

Refurbished: Lenovo Desktop Computer M83 Intel Core i5 4th Gen 3.2 GHz 8 GB DDR3 500 GB HDD Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit

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12 hours ago, pangaea said:

Some eBay listings will say, some won't.

I'd personally avoid anything older than LGA 1366. 771 Xeons aren't worth getting IMO.

Quote me to see my reply!

SPECS:

CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X Motherboard: MSI B450-A Pro Max RAM: 32GB I forget GPU: MSI Vega 56 Storage: 256GB NVMe boot, 512GB Samsung 850 Pro, 1TB WD Blue SSD, 1TB WD Blue HDD PSU: Inwin P85 850w Case: Fractal Design Define C Cooling: Stock for CPU, be quiet! case fans, Morpheus Vega w/ be quiet! Pure Wings 2 for GPU Monitor: 3x Thinkvision P24Q on a Steelcase Eyesite triple monitor stand Mouse: Logitech MX Master 3 Keyboard: Focus FK-9000 (heavily modded) Mousepad: Aliexpress cat special Headphones:  Sennheiser HD598SE and Sony Linkbuds

 

🏳️‍🌈

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20 hours ago, pangaea said:

 

A Ryzen APU, can't beat the R3 2200G at $99

I edit my posts a lot, Twitter is @LordStreetguru just don't ask PC questions there mostly...
 

Spoiler

 

What is your budget/country for your new PC?

 

what monitor resolution/refresh rate?

 

What games or other software do you need to run?

 

 

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