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Mad Cow's Build a Killer Gaming Rig on a Budget Thread (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Mad Cow
- Start date
Polish Hammer
made of glass
My son (12 y/o) is interested in building a budget-ish gaming PC and I'm happy to try and help him out. Typically he plays things like Fortnite, Paladins, and WarFace. This is our basic shopping list so far - let me know if I'm missing anything:
- case
- Power Supply
- Motherboard/processor
- Graphics card
- Audio card
- Ethernet/Wifi
- RAM
- Hard Drive
- Monitor
- Speakers
- Keyboard
- Mouse
Riddick02
Footballguy
Any suggestions out there on gaming monitor? Looking for a 27" with G-Sync and was considering this LG 27GL850-B but thought I'd ask around first.
Corporation
Angry Bovine
Osaurus
Footballguy
Yup. I’ve been on EVGA’s waiting list forever for a new 3080. These things are nowhere to be found other than EBay.
Riddick02
Footballguy
Just seems to be the way of things for decent monitors right now. Even the "budget" ones are around $300 from what I can find.
3 hour lunch
Footballguy
My daughter wants a PC gaming set up but neither of us know where to start? Need something budget friendly, she’s obviously a beginner.....
Corporation
Angry Bovine
So I finally got my parts in after 2 months and built my new rig. Hope it lasts as long as my previous one got me (some upgrades here and there but still is a great machine after 8 years).
- AMD Ryzen 5600X
- Nvidia 3070
- Asus B550 Mobo
- 32 GB Ram
- 2 TB M2 NVME storage
Osaurus
Footballguy
Gotta be tempting to flip that 3070 on ebay, you can probably double your money at least
Corporation
Angry Bovine
Don't jinx me. I haven't built a rig for 8 years either. I remember back when it seemed like 5 years life was the max.
Cold Dead Hands
Footballguy
I'm looking at building a budget rig to run non-AAA games. Some older stuff like the Total War series, Crusader Kings 3, Fallout 76, World of Warcraft, Civilization 6 is what I expect it to run. I priced out some parts and built around the idea that I will not be getting a GPU anytime soon.
Criticisms?
- Intel Core i5-10400 2.9 GHz 6-Core Processor - $150
- ASRock H410M-HDV/M.2 Micro ATX LGA1200 Motherboard - $130
- PNY CS900 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive - $53
- Kingston ValueRAM 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 CL19 Memory x 2 - $35 each - $70
- Zalman S2 ATX Mid Tower Case - $50
- Corsair CV 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply - $45
Criticisms?
The Tick
Footballguy
Looks like a good start. Only change I'd consider is to make sure you plan for your video card that you may want in the future, and make sure that power supply is big enough for it. I haven't been tracking things well enough lately to call it good or not, but that's the one thing. I'd hate for you to plan to buy a video card in 2 years and need a new PS, because you didn't spend $20 extra this time.
The Commish
Footballguy
What's the alternate here? Son has expressed interest in building a machine and our HOME PC is on it's last leg so I thought I'd show him how to build a PC and make a pretty decent gaming one in the process. Cards are nowhere to be found.
Osaurus
Footballguy
The Commish
Footballguy
Is it across all the different vendors? Is there a #2 to graphics cards or is it a waste of time with anyone other than nvidia? Obviously, it's been a while since I built one and am pretty shocked at how cheap things have gotten in this day and age.
Osaurus
Footballguy
Pretty much all vendors. There’s some new somewhat comparable Radeon cards that might be out now, but I’m not 100% sure. I’m waiting for a 3080, bit I’m in no hurry since I just built mine last Sumner.
The Commish
Footballguy
And what are you upgrading from? Looks like some sites out there will build to spec, but that sort of defeats the purpose of building with my son. They have the equipment though.
Osaurus
Footballguy
Higher end 2080. Just sub TI. If I had a 3080 or 3090, I’d give you my old one at this point.
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The Commish
Footballguy
Seem to be some 3070s out there as "upgrades" in some of the built sites....but either way with that, AMD R7 and an Aorus board, it's getting close to $3K.
Osaurus
Footballguy
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
I'm still rocking an 1080 TI. Would love to build a new pc but I haven't seen a newer card in stock in months.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
I assume it's chip shortages? Is it the GPUs or another necessary chip on the board?
Sullie
Footballguy
There are several factors actually, scalpers, bitcoin miners and the worldwide chip shortage and there are bots set up to buy them up as they become available. Article here does a pretty job of explaining it. Even renting a bot doesn't necessarily guarantee you gpu either. Lastly, you can do what I did, which is that I just keep one window open on my pc and watch youtube, there are dedicated channels there for watching gpu availability, I'm not linking that, it's readily seen on youtube with a simple search.
E Street Brat
Footballguy
I think I have an 4gb R9-380 sitting at home not being used. I'm not sure how that stacks up anymore.
The Commish
Footballguy
Seriously thinking of just buying what I can get my hands on now (forgoing the GPU) and going through the build process then just maintain the hunt for the card...once found, I can go back and install. Thoughts?
Osaurus
Footballguy
If you don’t mind an unfinished project, then sure. It would drive me crazy. You can use the on board graphics from the mobo I guess (assuming it has it).
The Commish
Footballguy
Well, this is primarily a "replace the dying family computer" project, but he's so into games that I thought I'd try and make a decent game PC out of it and show him how it all goes together. So for 90% of what we'd use it for, on board will be more than sufficient, but if I want to hop on COD with him (which he asks me all the time) then we'd need some juice for that.
Sullie
Footballguy
If I were desperate for a 3080, I would consider a very good pre-built system like this one on NewEgg for $2,700. If you consider the fact that 3080's are selling for $2,500+ all over the interwebz, $2,700 for an 8-core i7, 16GB of RAM, 1 TB NVMe, ASUS mobo, case, fans, 750 W PSU on top of the 3080 is a damn good deal imho.
In ordinary times, I wouldn't really consider it as I like to build my own systems but these days, I'd jump all over it if I didn't already have two decent GPU's. Just offering this up for anyone looking.
In ordinary times, I wouldn't really consider it as I like to build my own systems but these days, I'd jump all over it if I didn't already have two decent GPU's. Just offering this up for anyone looking.
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The Commish
Footballguy
Been looking at prebuilt...and found several for just a couple hundred bucks more with the AMD processor sets....I'd really like to build it with my son, but I may have to pass. Newegg does have a daily "raffle" that has some combo 3080 (maybe it's a 3070) / Raydon 7 5800 chips for around $900 which is pretty good. If I could land that, then I could get the rest on Amazon and be done with it.
Dragons
Delusions of Grandeur
After a life of building gaming PCs, an HTPC and most recently a PC with massive storage options for DVR and video content for myself, I made the decision to put my kids into the xbox platform for gaming. This allowed them to play with their cousins and immediate friends and I didn't have to tinker.
Fast forward and my oldest kid (11!) has friends who only play java Minecraft and PC based Roblox. He's been asking for a gaming laptop for awhile now, he wants to save his allowance for one (I don't think he recognizes how long this will take). We gave them the long retired HTPC as a PC to help with school work (and covid remote learning), but now it's Discord this and Java Minecraft that and fighting over the one Xbox to play Sea Of Thieves (since the integrated video on the HTPC isn't powerful enough).
I overheard discord conversations and I guess he's the joke of the group with his 20 framerate on Minecraft.
Is it crazy to try to source a video card to plug into the old HTPC? (motherboard is https://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/h61mu3s3/ )
Or am I stuck with building a whole new PC? And I realize now is not the time to buy a GPU, even the minimum level needed for Sea of Thieves.
Why didn't anyone tell me that kids these days are into PC gaming, don't sell out to the consoles....
Fast forward and my oldest kid (11!) has friends who only play java Minecraft and PC based Roblox. He's been asking for a gaming laptop for awhile now, he wants to save his allowance for one (I don't think he recognizes how long this will take). We gave them the long retired HTPC as a PC to help with school work (and covid remote learning), but now it's Discord this and Java Minecraft that and fighting over the one Xbox to play Sea Of Thieves (since the integrated video on the HTPC isn't powerful enough).
I overheard discord conversations and I guess he's the joke of the group with his 20 framerate on Minecraft.
Is it crazy to try to source a video card to plug into the old HTPC? (motherboard is https://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/h61mu3s3/ )
Or am I stuck with building a whole new PC? And I realize now is not the time to buy a GPU, even the minimum level needed for Sea of Thieves.
Why didn't anyone tell me that kids these days are into PC gaming, don't sell out to the consoles....
Zasada
Footballguy
I've read that your chances of getting a card through shuffle are <1%.The Commish said:
I really enjoy building new rigs and it's a shame that you might have to just buy a prebuilt. But honestly, if you want a modern graphics card, a prebuilt is the only way to go right now.
At xmas I built myself a rockin new ITX rig:
- Dancase A4
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
- 64GB RAM (yes, overkill)
- 2TB NVME Gen4 SSD
- Corsair SFX 700W PSU (ready to rock a modern GPU)
ETA: This is a premium build and shouldn't be in a "...on a budget" thread. But I can fit it in a rollaboard!
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The Commish
Footballguy
yeah....it's probably a long shot for sure....had put this together for about $2500:
Motherboard:
MSI MPG X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI
Processor:
AMD RYZEN 7 5800X 8C/16T 4.7GHz
Xidax Extreme DDR4 3200MHz Memory - 8GB
Power Supply:
Seasonic FOCUS PLUS 850W GOLD
Graphics Card:
NVIDIA RTX 3080 10GB
HDD/SSD:
Seagate Barracuda 1TB - 7200RPM 3.5" HDD
CPU Cooling:
be quiet! PURE ROCK SLIM
Zasada
Footballguy
Is this a prebuilt? If not, mind if I make some suggestions?
- Downgrade the CPU to a 5600X and the mobo to a B550 chipset, and use the savings for
16GB RAM minimum, 32GB preferred
- NVME SSD, at least 256GB for the OS, but preferably 512GB or 1TB to put some games on it
The PC will feel really slow with only 8GB of ram and a platter HDD.
If you're prebuilding, I can whip something up for you on PCPartPicker with that budget (minus the GPU, of course -- that's a wildcard).
Zasada
Footballguy
This is my sweetspot homebuilt PC right now, minus the video card:
PCPartPicker Part List:
You can save money on the case if you want something basic or bare bones.
If you need to save more money, you could go with a smaller SSD.
If you want to spend more, the best upgrades would be 32GB of RAM, and then a bigger SSD. Following that, plough every dollar into GPU that you can.
PCPartPicker Part List:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
- Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($105.19 @ Amazon)
- Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($79.20 @ Newegg)
- Storage: Mushkin Pilot-E 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($114.99 @ Amazon)
- Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case ($97.89 @ B&H)
- Power Supply: Corsair CXF 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon)
You can save money on the case if you want something basic or bare bones.
If you need to save more money, you could go with a smaller SSD.
If you want to spend more, the best upgrades would be 32GB of RAM, and then a bigger SSD. Following that, plough every dollar into GPU that you can.
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The Commish
Footballguy
This is prebuilt through Xidax...and I was going to keep it all the same, just add some ram to it
I wasn't sure on the MB either and I'm still trying to get a handle on SSD vs traditional hard drives. The drives are probably the thing I know the least about these days. It's been a loooooooooooooooooooong time since I messed with this kind of thing.
Zasada
Footballguy
I would argue that an SSD is the one thing you can't forego. Platter HDDs slow down your system so much.This is prebuilt through Xidax...and I was going to keep it all the same, just add some ram to it
I wasn't sure on the MB either and I'm still trying to get a handle on SSD vs traditional hard drives. The drives are probably the thing I know the least about these days. It's been a loooooooooooooooooooong time since I messed with this kind of thing.
I would make sure to have an SSD even on super-budget builds.
The Commish
Footballguy
I think that's the conclusion I've come to. I'm also trying to balance the fact that this won't be just for games. It will be for games "here and there" with my son and I. My wife does a TON if imaging for her job (professor and heart development research) so I'm wondering if a SSD/Standard combo set up might be worth the look. We'll go through a TB easily between a couple games and all her imaging.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
I haven't built a PC for over a decade. My last one had a 128MB NVidia Quadro FX card in it...
With that said, there's no way I'd go for a spinning hard drive these days unless I needed massive storage capacity and want to have a real-time backup capability. But I'll leave the storage to the cloud datacenters.
With that said, there's no way I'd go for a spinning hard drive these days unless I needed massive storage capacity and want to have a real-time backup capability. But I'll leave the storage to the cloud datacenters.
BroncoFreak_2K3
sucker for Orange
Osaurus
Footballguy
If you’re gaming, I recommend staying away from M2 SSDs. They get hot af no matter what add ons you try to use to cool them down. Traditional SSDs work great and you can get get good deals on 1 TB+ pretty much all the time.
Zasada
Footballguy
Depends how much you're saving.
M.2/NVMe is the future (can pretty much argue that it's the present, as well). Games do load a little faster with the latter, and for I/O-intensive operations (video/photo editing) you can see larger gains.
GPUs are starting to access textures directly on PCIE gen4 NVMe drives now (called "direct storage"), which removes the CPU/bus from the equation. Tech is still immature, but could bring gains in gaming, especially with 4K textures.
Finally, an NVMe drive is cableless. So you get a cleaner build. Just sits on the mobo (or behind it). No need to run SATA and power cables to it.
These drives have been out for years now, and there aren't mass reports of heat-related failures. I have one in my latest rig, and all is good. AnandTech doesn't even bother including SATA drives in their bench anymore.
So, yeah, if you're saving a ton, a SATA SSD could still be part of the equation. But I'd go for NVMe. You might be lucky to save $15 on a 2TB drive. And be giving up a lot of synthetic performance. Some real-world and future performance as well.
Osaurus
Footballguy
I hear ya. I was all about how sleek and how directly embedded they are (sans cables), but I had a nice Samsung M2 SSD fry out on me and the temps are noticeably more than for standard SSDs. Plus, with Samsung's S.M.A.R.T, the write speed on a standard SSD is twice as much. I hope these things get to point where they run a little cooler or add-on tech cooling improves (tried one of those fan assemblies and it was no bueno), but for now I am staying with the standard SSDs. I do have a few M2 SSDs (one on board and two now used as external hard drives in M2 enclosures), but I don't use the on board one for the OS. That one fried last time and I had to rebuild the whole thing. Right now, the M2 SSD (Samsung 980 Pro) is running at 42 C and it's just idling. The Samsung 860 Pro I am using for the OS is only at 34 C. Crazy difference imo.
Zasada
Footballguy
The Commish
Footballguy
Is it me or are GPUs coming down? I'm seeing 3070s now at only DOUBLE msrp....I might be able to get this thing built before the end of the year!!!
Osaurus
Footballguy
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
I don't even see them available at that price. Can't get my hands on a card. Very frustrating.
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