Best things to cheap out on when building a PC?

[pangaea]

So I often hear people say things like "don't cheap out on your power supply" and sometimes people would say it about things I don't entirely agree with (e.g. I've found I can often get away with $40 motherboards, as long as there isn't a specific reason why I'd need a more expensive board such as SLI). I would say you can definitely get away with cheaping out on your case (your PC runs the same whether it's in a $500 case or a cardboard box) and your RAM as well (RAM failures are rare to the point where you can pretty much expect RAM to last a lifetime, always buy used and you don't need to pay a few bucks extra just to have identical spec RAM of a more premium brand).

[RollinLower]

i would also say SSD's for a normal everyday user. there is really no need for things like NVMe for everyday use such as gaming. just get a regular SATA based drive instead!

[TheGlenlivet]

GPU.  As long as you can tune the fan curve and handle the extra noise, a high end custom cooler GPU and a blower style cheaper one will have about the same performance (At least in pascal).

[SolarNova]

Trust worthy PSU's can be had for cheap now to be honest. So 'cheaping out' on a PSU would mean spening somthing like £20 or less on some no brand POS, which is rather extreme.

 

You can go cheap on motherboards without to much worry tbh, any of the respectable well known brands have really cheap options that work just fine.

 

The Case can be cheaped out on , or in extreme cases left out entirly.

 

Cant really cheap out on RAM, its all expensive atm.

 

CPU and GPU are 2 places you dont WANT to cheap out on, thats not to say u cant, but generaly speaking those are the 2 primary parts of the PC for performance.

 

Storage, well the cheapest SSD's outperform the best HDD's, so you have a choice of going with a cheap 240gb or smaller SSD, or a 'normal' 1tb HDD for roughly the same price. So speed or capacity.

 

I have a build saved for the cheapest entry level gaming system you can build new, and it comes in at £325, which is damn good imo.

Going up to around £430 gets you to console level performance with the addition of a dedicated entry level GPU.

 

To REALLY cheap out, you have to go into the used market, but the same general guidlines as above apply.

[AngryBeaver]

Beer. Instead of drinking your favorite brew when tossing it together, just buy some cheap generic beer.

[Blasteque]

30 minutes ago, pangaea said:

 I can often get away with $40 motherboards, as long as there isn't a specific reason why I'd need a more expensive board 

This can be applied to any component.

 

To truly answer the question of what can be cheap'd out on depends on the use case.  There will be at least one circumstance where any component can become vital.

 

If you want to play use-case agnostic, then philosophically cheaping out still needs to have a priority rule set.  For instance: what's more import, components with the biggest contributions to performance or components that get the most use?

 

Everything, everything, connects to your mobo, so that should be your priority in a build, right?  (There's a reason why it's the "mother" board.)  Everything you do uses the processor to least some extent, so it should be next?  What if all you do is game?  Then maybe the GPU will be more critical?  Etc...

[Tog Driver]

Easy, don't even get a case, just have the motherboard with all the ram and stuff installed sitting on its box with the power supply and drives sitting next to it on a table,

 

also peripherals, you can get a mouse for like $10 and keyboard for $15-20. Speakers for $10 and monitor for $100, or you could go to a computer repair store and get an old non flatscreen monitor they have chilling there.