BarackOBatman's May 2018 $250 Price to Performance Gaming Build

[BarackOBatman]

Over the course of the past year, I have really gotten into PC hardware. Price to performance budget PC's in particular are the most fun and exciting to me. This is my tenth build (10 builds in 1 year! ) but this is the first time I decided to do a build log for it, so here goes nothing. 

 

All of the components have been ordered and they are starting to arrive!

This build primarily focuses on used parts, but I included a couple new parts.

 

I am targeting just $250 for the total cost of the build. This ought to be a real console killer from a price standpoint!

 

Here are the specs:

  -Intel Core i5-2400

  -OEM Motherboard

  -Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 by PNY

  -16 GB DDR3 at 1333 MHz

  -2 TB WD Blue 3.5" HDD @ 5400 RPM

  -EVGA W1 600 Watt PSU 80+ Standard "AKA 80+ White"

  - Lenovo OEM case

  -Windows 7   (EDIT: Unactivated Windows 10 (Possibly will buy a key?))

  -120 GB OCZ AGT3-25SAT3-120G???

  - Netis WF2120 USB Wifi Adapter (150 Mbps rating) OR Mini PCIe wifi

 

Now I know I'm going to get a lot of crap for some of my components selection, but its all for the sake of the budget.

  - EVGA W1 600 Watt power supply. Yes its low quality. Am I scared its gonna blow up? Nah. I think these old components are well suited for this unit and considering the overall price of the build, I think spending $22 (around 9% of the total     budget) is appropriate too.

  - 5400 RPM hard drive ?! Yeah... Not so sure if I like this either, if the SSD guy falls through. I'll have to see how booting windows off it goes and then consider increasing the budget for a faster boot device. On the bright side, the drive is brand new/unopened so it'll wont have any age/wear to slow it down.

  - 150 Mbps rated wifi over USB?? Yeah... I'll have this wired to Ethernet for my personal use but I am considering selling off the PC. (Maybe flip it for a profit ?) I can't expect all buyers to have Ethernet readily available (especially if the buyer is less tech savvy) one of these wifi solutions should at least hold them over till the buyer can run an Ethernet cable.

 

Here is the budget breakdown

 

 - Lenovo ThinkStation pre-built with i5-2400, 8GB

   $ 61.48 shipped (USED) via Ebay

 -  GTX 770

   $ 86.65 shipped (USED) via Ebay

 - 8 additional GB of DDR3 Ram

   $ 35 (USED) (Received as partial payment for a monitor I sold)

 - 2 TB WD Blue 3.5" HDD

   $ 34.17 (NEW) from Office Max

 - EVGA W1 600W

   $ 21.99 (B-Stock) via EVGA.com

 - Windows 7

   FREE via COA

 - Mini PCIe wifi adapter or Netis USB Wifi 

   FREE (scrapped)             $4.47 (NEW) via Newegg.com after MiR

 

TOTAL COST: $243.76 (This price represents the total cost of all components after mail-in rebates and includes the cost of postage for the mail in rebate)

 

The SSD I listed in the specs is local (10-15 minutes away) listing for an older 120GB SSD by OCZ for just $10. Went to go pick this up and the seller said " I (me) just missed him. He left to walk the dog around just down the street" and "his wife must not have heard me at the door" I waited and rang the door 3 times over the course of 15 minues and left. He said its still available, but is very slow to reply. Not sure its even worth the trouble with this one...I'm loosing money (in the form of time and gas...)

 

Here are some Photos of the components and some background on each

 

GTX 770 by PNY

 

I won this GTX 770 on Ebay using their "may the fourth" promo for 15% off the Buy it now price

It arrived in some very very raggedy packaging. It was literally loose inside a padded envelope which had several holes in it. I was amazed to find that there was only minor damage. The exposed area on the fin stack was bent in one spot, and the mounting bracket was bent. I bent the bracket back by hand and I was amazed to find that the graphics card still worked! Passed 3D mark timespy stress test with ease.

 

 

Got this new in box WD Blue drive for the bargain price of just under $35 from a nearby Office Max that was closing at that particular location. The deal was too good to pass up for the capacity and brand new condition despite the 5400 RPM speed. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything else worth getting from Office Max... Regardless of the fact that they were shutting down, everything was overpriced compared to e-tailers.

 

 

Spooky B-stock 600W PSU from EVGA. Ketchup and mustard cables included... Its cheap, but I think itll work.

 

 

Pulled this wifi card from a old Gateway Q6600 box. When I test it (even on the original gateway machine) it can discover networks, but will not connect no matter what I try. I'm going to see about getting it running again.

 

 

These Mini PCIe wifi cards were scrapped from dead laptops. I have yet to test them, but they might work in the wifi card pictured above.

 

 

If all else fails, I'll use this USB wifi adapter for any wifi needs. Tested speeds are more than enough for gaming. Any $5 wifi adapter on sale would have worked TBH, but this is the one that was on sale at the time.

 

The main challenge I'm going to face is  going to be getting this GTX 770 to fit. From the pics in the Ebay listing, the clearance seems to be sufficient for a full length card such as this one, but it may block some (or ALL) of the Sata ports.

If it does block them, it'll probably be blocking the 2 SATA 3.0 Ports (on top.) below that, is 2 SATA 2.0 ports according to the Documentation available at Lenovo's support page. I think I can deal with SATA 2.0 speeds (especially if I'm limited to a 5400 RPM HDD..)

But if it blocks all four? My options will be:

- See if a right angle SATA cable will work instead. I have a few laying around from past builds included with motherboards.

- Use a SATA controller card to run the Boot drive and optical drive. These occasionally are available via Newegg.com email deals for FREE after mail in rebate. This would be my second choice/option. TBH I'm not sure if you can boot windows off a controller card (after drivers are already installed of course) but i'm curious to test it.

- Last option is to mount the video card elsewhere by buying a PCIe X16 to PCIe X 16 riser cable.

 

YIKES!

 

Some of these challenges could lead to one JANK looking build hopefully it doesn't come down to that.

 

The Prebuilt is in transit! ETA is tomorrow. Stay tuned!  

 

 

BarackOBatman

[BarackOBatman]

Made some progress today. Its probably not the most exciting stuff, but Its actually a lot of fun for me!

 

I received the PC. It was in VERY good condition compared to other refurbished Pre Builts that I have purchased.

 

I am very happy with this purchase. I wish I would have picked up a few more! As you will see soon, there is plenty of clearance for graphics cards.

 

Confession: I gave my brother the EVGA 600W W1 PSU a few days ago, I'll be getting it back this Sunday though. I'm swapping him for a New 2017 Version Corsair CX450 which in all honesty is a much better unit than the EVGA W1. I need the EVGA unit for its higher wattage though.

 

Here's my progress:

 

 

This PC was very well packaged.

 

 

First look

 

 

Tons of room inside! Looks like it came with a dual channel 4GB 8GB config of RAM. The stock power supply is a "Huntkey" (Never heard of em TBH) 280 Watt unit with a measly 18 A on the 12V rail.

 

 

Here's the SATA ports. Looks like they might get blocked!!

 

 

Woohoo!!!! at least 2 SATA ports clear the video card. Speaking of which, look at that clearance! This case will fit any length video card you throw at it.

 

 

I'm gonna try a right angle SATA to see if it'll fit under the video card.

 

 

Didn't take a pic, but it cleared it, no problem

 

This next bit is going to be pretty boring, just a few pics of the DRAM and HDD install. Only reason I took the HDD pics is cause I thought the install mechanism was kinda neat.

 

 

Stock config came with 8 gigs instead of 4. I'm definitely happy about that

 

 

Additional 8GB

 

 

HDD unboxing. (So exiting! IKR!) *Crickets*

 

 

1. Slide the caddy into the bay

 

 

2. Rotate the bay down to be flush with the rest of the bays.

 

 

3. Slide the bay forwards.

 

 

4. CLICK!

 

Okay, so something else I didn't account for... This PC actually comes with a Windows Vista Basic COA

 

 

Until I get my EVGA 600W back this weekend, I'm going to get started with drivers, software, and to troubleshoot that wifi card, so I'm using this GT610 I had laying around for now.

 

 

Looks like the wifi card is more or less out the window at this point too, since the PCIe X1 is going to be blocked by the video card. I'll troubleshoot it anyway, but I wont be including it in this build log any further

 

Un activated Windows 10 here we come!

 

 

That's it for today! Hope someone out there enjoys this kinda stuff

 

Any feedback? Suggestions? Critiques? Like I said, its my first build log.

 

 

BarackOBatman

[BarackOBatman]

I was bored, so I decided to make the trip to go get my power supply sooner than I planned. 

 

Here's the final update including some performance testing.

 

Here are some shots of the finished build. Cable management in a prebuilt is always less than stellar...

 

 

Benchmarks

 

These benchmarks aren't very scientific, but they at least give you guys an idea of what the performance would be like.

All tests were done in my fairly "cool" temperature basement. Benchmarking footage was captured using my ZTE Axon 7 Mini rather than an external capture device or capture software. I don't own a capture card and the capture software would hurt performance too much.

 

  Synthetic Benchmarks

  3D Mark Firestrike and Time Spy were used for synthetic benchmarks. I didn't do 3DMark extreme due to insufficient VRAM.

 

 

Gaming Benchmarks

 

  Farcry 5

 

  This game wanted more than 2 GB VRAM. The in game performance test was used at the high settings. Considering that this is newly released AAA title, I'm quite impressed  with the 30 FPS minimum. This game is new and hardware intensive. Settings could be lowered and frame rate would obviously improve.

Min: 28 FPS

Average: 36 FPS

LINK TO VIDEO: 

 

  PUBG

 

  This test is probably the least scientific of them all due to variation in run to run performance. Fraps was used to analyze in game performance over the course of a few minutes.

  Min: 72 FPS

  Average: 87 FPS

  The game defaulted to the High setting, which I then changed to very low 1920x1080 100% screen scale in order to get maximum performance

  LINK TO VIDEO

 

 

Rainbow 6 Siege

 

This was tested using the in-game test. Settings are a mix of medium and high which was the default settings.

Min: 30 FPS

Average: 72 FPS

LINK TO VIDEO

 

DOTA 2 

 

Jumped into spectator mode in a random game. Tested using the "Best Looking" preset which is just max settings.

Min: 74 FPS

Average: 99.5 FPS

LINK TO VIDEO

 

BONUS:

 

For those interested, here is a link to a Company of Heroes 2 benchmark.

 

 

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see my build!

Overall, I'm VERY satisfied with the performance this provides for just $250 US.

To those interested in building something similar, just be patient and hunt around for those used parts!

The hot deals section on the forum is a great place to start checking at least once a day. Check newegg.com for daily shell shocker deals and sign up for email promos.

Also be sure to check local listings such as Craigslist, OfferUp, or Facebook Marketplace.

Also, I'm looking for feedback and critique. Please let me know if you are interested in more build from me! Used Price/Performance or otherwise.

 

BarackOBatman

[CoalitionGaming]

Nice. Did a similar priced budget rig utilizing an HP Z400 motherboard and power supply (Delta) in a Raidmax Gama case with 12gb RAM in triple channel, a Xeon W3550 (i7-950), a GTX 960 4gb, 128gb boot SSD, 500gb HDD, and a Deepcool Gammax 300 cooler on the CPU. Working out great for my cousin who i gifted it to for audio production/engineering on a budget and gaming. 

 

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15069522

[BarackOBatman]

8 minutes ago, CoalitionGaming said:

Nice. Did a similar priced budget rig utilizing an HP Z400 motherboard and power supply (Delta) in a Raidmax Gama case with 12gb RAM in triple channel, a Xeon W3550 (i7-950), a GTX 960 4gb, 128gb boot SSD, 500gb HDD, and a Deepcool Gammax 300 cooler on the CPU. Working out great for my cousin who i gifted it to for audio production/engineering on a budget and gaming. 

 

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15069522

Nice build!