I was looking at building a pc for my nephew which will only be used for gaming. I’m trying to keep the entire cost under €500 including shipping to Ireland. I was wondering if my money would be better spent going a generation or 2 older on the cpu/mb and purchasing a better graphics card. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Planned parts being:
Rysen 3 1200
a320 motherboard
8 GB DDR4
Rx550
1TB HDD
Corsair CX430
Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 3
If you can afford it, going with current gen hardware is a plus. These parts will have warranties, and should he desire an upgrade, parts will still be available to purchase new.
Agreed.
That RX 550 is a tough sell though. I know it is tough working within your budget.
If I were to be honest, I would look for a used motherboard and CPU, then get a better graphics card. I don’t think a 550 would hold up very well in the long run. Perhaps you should also look into a used graphics card from a generation or two ago? 970’s were pretty cheap on eBay last time I checked. You could also look into starting with an OEM system and adding a graphics card. You can get things like the HP z420 with a decent Xeon rather cheaply, and they make for an excellent platform to build upon.
Which games at which settings?
Depending on the answers the 550 may be crap, but it could also be amazing.
I had no problems gaming on a 7850k
When I moved up to an 8320e/GTX770 the biggest difference where the facial features on the game characters.
I think your build will surprise you with how well it does, I like it.
Looks nice, would replace the CX430 with something like XFX,Fractal or similar
I hate commenting on these threads because every one that has never tried it calls me a moron.
My system is still running great after 3 years. Gaming is a very small part of my workload.
i5-4690K + Z97 + GTX 970 @ 1080p 60Hz.
I plan to get an i7-4790K soon, then a GTX 1070 and a better monitor.
Very cheap. Very capable.
I’ve a 3570k and a gtx 970 which suits me fine, I was kind of leaning towards the new Rysens after putting together a system for my mother. I can get a used 970 with shipping for 190 but it’s a rather strict budget and my girlfriend will scalp me.
I’ve been cutting costs somewhat on the psu but wanted to get a case without a window in case he tries cleaning it or some such.
Mostly he plays pub and cs:go online and whatevers in my gog account.
I’m still running a 1090T at stock clock with no problem.
Don’t do that… like… really, don’t. A bad PSU can cost you a whole system if it goes boom. A good PSU (even somewhat cheap) can last you more then one system with no problem.
The RX560 is not much more than the 550 and has double the amount of stream processors. So that would be money well spent.
Same goes for the motherboard, make it a B350. those are slightly more expensive but you gain the option to overclock the CPU. Now, it won’t make the system run 4GHz but even a slight jump in clockspeed will make a difference in games.