Greetings,
I want to build a PC build that is possible for future upgrades(next few months). I’ve detailed my current situation and future plans below.
1. Purpose: My primary focus is on data crunching and AI/ML development, alongside high-end VR gaming experiences. The system should be capable of handling intensive computational tasks with the flexibility to upgrade components for enhanced performance in the near future. GPU/CPU/RAM etc for this can be upgraded in future if required.
2. Budget: $500. Also open to second-hand parts if it means better initial value or performance. Additionally, I plan to invest an extra $500-1000 in the coming months for upgrades, focusing on a build that supports upgradibility.
3. Location: Mumbai, India. I’ve identified several vendors known for competitive pricing and reliability:
4. Brand Preference: None except your recommendations
5. Current Parts: This will be a fresh build, starting from scratch without the reuse of any existing components.
6. Overclocking: Yes, I intend to overclock with a view to future component upgrades.
7. Resolution: My current setup operates at WFHD resolution, but I aim to transition to 4K. 8. Build Timeline: The assembly is planned within the next few weeks, recognizing that prices and availability are subject to change.
9. Software Needs: No additional software purchases are required for this build. Additional Details:
Upgradability: Withing one year, planning to upgrade but much sooner actually —selecting a case, motherboard, and PSU that facilitate easy upgrades. The goal is to accommodate a high-end GPU and potentially other high-performance components in the year ahead.
Upgrade Motivation:: to enhance my capacity for data analytics and AI/ML project work, and to elevate my VR gaming experience.
Peripherals: keyboard, mouse, monitor, Bluetooth/WiFi receiver) and will not need replacements.
I look forward to your recommendations on how to best approach this build, particularly in making initial selections that align with my upgrade aspirations.
Dig around corp surplus, you can typically find 4U servers of the Xeon kind paired to 800-1200W PSUs and that provides plenty of room to buy some cheap data center GPUs. If you can’t find any data center GPUs due to demand factors, ex-mining GPUs are a decent value.
The other option is track prices of consumer CPU/Mobos and take chances, an octo-core CPU on previous gen PCIe 3 isn’t going to be much of a bottleneck as AI/ML tends to burst data at small chunks vs gaming so a dual GPU isn’t that bad–9/10th gen Intel i7s are fairly cheap on corp surplus, just get an ATX PSU adapter cable to run a better PSU. Fairly common to find off-lease Lenovo Thinkcentre models that have 800-1200W PSUs, other brands tend to cost more due to regional factors. Keep in mind some sectors ban Lenovo gear so factor that into your field of project work.
Oh wow… So you want to do high end stuff on a shoestring budget? That’s… Going to be problematic. Let’s go through it.
What covers your use case
This build is probably the cheapest HW that will actually satisfy your needs. You could probably trade the GPU for a $500 7800 XT Radeon to get the price below $2k, but:
So, $2.4k is obviously way more than $500, so the build that meets your use case is a no go. We knew this already. What can you build then?
Budgetary concerns, or what $500 gets you
Ok, so we have $500, what can we do? Well, $500 can buy you a really cheap 5700G build with 32GB of RAM. It will have very limited upgrade paths, but you could do it. Unfortunately that system will age like milk, but atleast you could put a 4070 in there… In theory.
Another option is to go for Intel. You still will not afford a good GPU + CPU combo with $500 though, and again, a 12100 build is also severely limited in terms of upgrades. I do not recommend this build, at all. But it’s there, if you want to play around with it. This is a bedrock bottomscraper of a build though, and it still manages to surpass the budget by $50.
That leaves AM5 for the platform. So, let’s go with that. Cheapest CPU? The AMD 8500G, which also has a built in GPU. We want to buy a more expensive motherboard in the $200-$250 range if we plan to stick to the upgrade path, this allows us to upgrade to the 9xxx series this summer and eventually, the Ryzen 10xxx or 11xxx series.
The Compromise Build
So, with this in mind, here is what I would recommend to start with and not a penny less. You will need to reach over your initial budget by roughly $250, but this allows you to pick up a better CPU / GPU combo later.
Remember, we are spending ~$100 more than we have to on the motherboard and ~$50 more on the PSU to make this fit bigger parts in the future. You possibly could shave another $50-$100 with less RAM and a cheaper SSD, but I do not consider that tradeoff worth it.
This is probably the closest to a $500 AM5 seed you can get right now. From an upgradeability perspective, the other options are pretty much pointless - this will offer you significant more value long term.
The upgrade path
Ok, so now let us talk about the upgrade path. I assume your total budget is €500 + $1000, but we have already borrowed $250 from the future upgrades fund. So, $750 for upgrades?
That… Is not going to get you very far. Consider the following price list of current gen GPUs, lowest prices:
Vendor
Model
VRAM
Price
AMD
Radeon RX 6600
8GB
$189
Nvidia
GeForce RTX 3060
12GB
$289
Nvidia
GeForce RTX 4060
8GB
$299
AMD
Radeon RX 7600 XT
16GB
$319
AMD
Radeon RX 6700 XT
12GB
$329
AMD
Radeon RX 7700 XT
12GB
$429
Nvidia
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
16GB
$449
AMD
Radeon RX 7800 XT
16GB
$489
Nvidia
GeForce RTX 4070 Super
12GB
$599
AMD
Radeon RX 7900 XT
20GB
$729
Nvidia
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super
16GB
$799
AMD
Radeon RX 7900 XTX
24GB
$919
Nvidia
GeForce RTX 4080 Super
16GB
$1069
Nvidia
GeForce RTX 4090
24GB
$1799
And then consider you would want, at the very least, an 8 core chip, possibly the 12 core. If we assume AMD stick to the same pricing scheme as the 7000 launch, the 8 core variant will cost around $300 and the 12 core will cost around $400. Add in a cooler, that is $30-$50 more. You might find a second hand CPU on the market though.
So, in the best case you could afford the 7800 XT for $450 and the 9700X for $300. What will that give you in terms of VR performance? Well, for 1440p it seems to reach a comfortable 105 FPS or so.
I hope this deep-dive exploration has been useful. Also, please note I am using US pricing here, I think the Indian market is more expensive and has fewer parts, but could be wrong. These are suggestion builds to give you a rough idea of what you are looking for, not the final build.
For AI-things, you can try ZLUDA to run on AMD-GPUs, I would recommend to not hinge your entire tinkering on the existence of one recent Open Source project.
In short: Get something RTX, the more recent the better.
Your budget makes this a tad strange. 500€ gets you a midrange at best machine, limited upgradability (due to platforms) to boot.
If you bump that up to 1000€, and get some used server hardware, there is a chance to get serious bang for buck. 2000€ and you are looking at new high-end-ish desktop parts (or two RTX A4000’s with no budget left to run them).
Given the expected run times with ML-tasks, I would recommend not doing this, aim for stability above else!
extremely sorry for late reply. Yes my build doesnt include VR goggles or even GPU atm. I am ok with barebones but Case, gpu, mobo socket etc should allow me upgrades in future.
I am getting 3060ti for 200$ used/ How is it
Thank you so much for the detailed reply and sorry for late reply.
I am getting used components here for cheap. For eg 3060ti from a trusted seller used for <200$. Do you think that as a viable option.
My thinking is to start with a good case, cooler, psu , cpu and ram. And upgrade to gpu later. But start with bare minimum which can be upgraded
I will eventually add another 1000$ but right now want a pc for 500 but with upgradabale and addable parts
Maybe a pc with cpu, ram, no gpu. Or maybe less ram, but best cpu and best case, psu etc which could later accomodate components
Sorry for late reply, that build looks decent except for the SSD which is not a DRAM drive. Upgrade that to a WD SN850X, Kingston KC3000, Teamgroup MP34 or Samsung 980 and you are good to go.
The TUF B650 I would buy only if price is significantly less than an X670E board, like 30-40% less, but it is a good board.
