Cheapest PC I can get for $220

Hey there, I have a friend who’s wanting to get a PC for playing light games, in hopes of upgrading it later. He has a budget of $220.
I’ve been searching eBay far and wide for decent PCs that he’d be happy with, and keep running across these dell machines with i3 6100’s in them, but stuck with DDR3L RAM and don’t support graphics cards.
I was wondering if any of you had any suggestions on a budget prebuilt to buy, preferably one that has more than 4 GB of RAM, a somewhat recent processor, and supports a PCI-E x16 GPU.

I’m thinking you will be hard pressed to find exactly what you want in a single box for that price, particularly with a newer platform. I know there are older ones that support graphics cards, and many would need a new case and PSU to handle larger cards. If you can slap some parts together then you may be able to put different things together to get something going within that budget.

Do you have or know anyone that can spare a case, PSU, or any other parts for cheap or free? If the budget is set in stone with no room for overage then putting in some footwork to get free stuff will help a lot. Shipping a case is usually the most expensive thing to ship, so finding something under $20 locally could be cheaper than the cost of shipping a case or prebuilt PC. Personally I would just get anything that fits all of the parts you ultimately intend to wedge in there, no matter what it looks like, as long as it is cheap enough.

You can also look out for people upgrading to try and find some cheaper used parts. If this is really for ‘light gaming’ with the intent to build it up later, you might get more value using integrated graphics for a few months and getting a really low end CPU for a new platform. You could also find a higher end graphics card from several generations ago for super cheap that will still play games substantially better than the integrated graphics. If your end goal is to get a higher end new card then I wouldn’t waste money getting a mid-grade new card. Low end new cards are substantially worse performers than mid-grade cards of several generations past. They are really only good for people worried about wattage.

If it can wait a bit then maybe waiting on the next line of Intel processors to come out could be beneficial. The current line of Hyperthreaded Pentiums were a great value before everybody grabbed them and the price was gouged. I don’t really know anything about AMD other than the Ryzen 3 doesn’t have integrated graphics, so that needs to be considered for people going that direction.

There are small motherboards that can still handle a bigger graphics card. If you don’t need more than 1 PCI-E x16 slot or other extras that bigger boards provide, and can live with limited or no overclocking, then there are plenty of $40 - $75 motherboards that can do the job. A cheap starter CPU can get you off the ground until you can upgrade. Unfortunately you may not be able to easily resell an entry level CPU, so that’s a gamble vs saving up for what you really want to end up with.

If you don’t want to deal with picking parts then there are some pre-built 3rd and 4th gen i5’s that can be had in that range. I think many of them can handle a graphics card, but as mentioned may be limited in PSU power and space for a larger card. Buying a new case and PSU on top of everything would likely blow the budget. They also tend to have lower amounts of RAM and smaller, slower HDD’s. Supposedly the Window 10 upgrade is still being honored from what I have read, but I can’t confirm that and I don’t use Windows, so I don’t know much about it anymore.

If you are patient, you might be able to score decent stuff on sales or for sale threads really cheap. I would be particularly careful of getting used stuff from a place that doesn’t have a curated community with all of the hurricane damage that has happened recently, but you can sometimes find amazing deals if you are vigilant. Good luck!

1 Like

Check if any local colleges have surplus sales going on. My local college sells some fairly capable PCs for $150 including a Win7 license

shop around r/hardwareswap and look for deals. Gotta be quick and know what you are looking for.
I would look into a Sandy Bridge Intel on that budget, i5-2500K or similar. Still very capable systems.

For that kind of money head to ebay and look for a refurbished HP Z220 workstation. You should be able to get one with a quad core E3 Xeon (sandybridge), Windows 7 or 10 and a low spec GPU. I think there are some system builders on there that let you spec out your own.

Whilst old these can be upgraded to 16Gb and an IvyBridge core i7 CPU and should be able to power a mid-level modern GPU without issue.

1 Like

I would look at a refurb system at walmart, make sure there is a pci slot and drop in a 1050

Remember guys what Wendell has mentioned lately and that is with many prebuilt pcs he has found that many video cards people would look at as something they’d use with these do not work. That is something to think about.

LOL … and I just saw the OP mentioned that.

Btw when people started mentioning building cheap pcs I have seen these ridiculous builds on YouTube for far less and honestly I think part of what they do is just rip people off hardware. I also have done searches on the net for cheap laptops as I want one for light gaming and while I have found some interesting things they still are $200 plus tax and up and the onboard video is questionable and so if it was a normal pc it wouldn’t fit what the OP needs.

Referring to Wendell again he has one or two videos where they go to these recycle pc hardware stores or similar and build cheap pcs so I guess that is an option for you to check out. See if they have places like that in your area.

Also maybe you could dumpster dive? I have watched videos on this for GameStop and man the guy gets some good stuff and it makes me want to check dumpsters in my area but no vehicle to haul the stuff in and quickly get away. Also dumpster diving is illegal where I am I believe.

Btw OP where are you from? Knowing that it might make it easier for us to help you.