Oddball PC Build

Hey everybody
I’m in need of a new PC and with rather unusual requirements. I’d love to hear some opinions on this.

Basically I need a desktop that can run a lot of games at once, but it’s not important how fluidly they run. 10fps at 720p? Fine, as long as it’s 3 games simultaneously.

So, lots of VRAM, lots of RAM, graphics are appreciated but not very important.

Option 1: Reuse old components, get a crappy new GPU
I’ve still got some old AMD FX 6 core lying around, all with mainboard, cooler and RAM. So all I need is a low-end GPU with some video memory. I can get GT 710s with 2GB VRAM for ~60 euros.

Very cheap, very slow, but I’m not sure I can do a whole lot with 2GB of VRAM, even on low settings.

Option 2: Reuse old components, buy a used GPU
Same as before, but I see several offers for RX 280s for around 100 euros. This would give me 3GB of VRAM. Faster graphics are also nice.

Option 3: All new components / AMD
Get a Ryzen 3 3200G (or similar) for 170 euros, ~ 40 euro mainboard and 16 GB of RAM. Then dedicate as much RAM as possible to the iGPU.

Option 4: All new components / Intel
Same as above, but get a i5-9600K (or similar) instead. Costs just about the same, but has 2 more cores. I’d assume AMD is better in the graphics department though?

What are your thoughts? Any better ideas?

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I think it’s pretty hard to give you any sound advice since basically any x86 machine should be able to run three games at once if performance is not a concern. You don’t even need lots of VRAM or RAM for that. Furthermore, you haven’t mentioned any price range you are fine with.

Thus, either go with the cheapest option in your list or build a system with a 3990X, 128GB RAM and one or two RTX 3090. (I think you see where I’m going with this.)

Otherwise, pick the cheapest option :wink:

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My main rig struggles with more than 4 instances of Fortnite. I’m hitting both my 16GB RAM limit, as well as 6GB of VRAM. So I’d definitely say those two are the main concern :wink:

As far as prices goes, I’d like to spend as little as possible. This is just supposed to me a cheap machine working away behind my desk.

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May I ask what you’re trying to achieve? Sounds like some kind of machine learning project to me.

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Haha, you’re right it does sound a bit like a ML project. That’s not it though :slight_smile:

I’ve lately been making some money on the side helping people in Fortnite. Farming items, leveling accounts, that sort of thing. Most of those things are automated and don’t need my attention much.

So I’d like to hide a machine under the desk that afks those tasks for me, while I keep working on my main rig

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Sounds like you’re into botting or something.

Haha, I knew it. I would ask where’s the fun in that, but considering that

then it is not unreasonable. But I would then ask the other people where’s the fun in giving money for stuff in games, instead of doing it yourself. You can basically just buy a pre-farmed, pre-leveled account, but where’s the fun in that? I don’t understand it. And ok, leveling someone up is a fun endeavor, especially if a game gets progressively easier as you go higher levels (not having to waste all your in-game currency on potions or med-kits and being able to afford equipment and such). But botting takes the fun away, better not play a game if you don’t enjoy the grind.

Now on the topic.

I would argue that if you are going to make money off of it, you should invest in something capable and efficient (even if you’re not the one paying for electricity), unless you have your own solar grid, then go with whatever. I’d say you should pick a Ryzen 1600AF or 2600 or similar if you can. You can get away with a 2200G / 3200G, but I would not recommend (but would still be hugely more performant and efficient than a FX 6100 / 6300 / 8350).

16GB of RAM is kinda low for modern titles and it won’t help if you want to run 3 games at once. Nowadays you can barely run 1 game on that. If you can, go with 32GB. If you can stretch your budget even further, make it 64GB and make it a virtualization box.

For the GPU, while performance is not an issue, I would avoid the GT 710s like the plague. Games might even crash because of them, some modern titles may not even run. Try to find used Radeon R7 250x 2GB. You may be able to get away without the need for 6-pin connectors if you severely down-clock your GPU, they consume about 80W and the PCI-E connector is rated for about 75W, so if you go down by 200-300MHz on your core clock and a few 100MHz on memory, then reduce the power, you should pull this off.

If you make your PC a virtualization server, you can get 3 GPUs and make 3 VMs. You only use 1 GPU for the host once during the installation, then make the server headless and passthrough all the GPUs. This would also give you advantages like auto hot key and macros and such, since you can have each game in full-screen (unless the game already has some auto-botting features, I remember hearing something about there being some bot-friendly games). The R7 250x should still be ok if you only want to buy just one though.

I feel dirty for recommending hardware for botting, but botting is also computing, so this advice is useful for other stuff as well.

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Not sure how I feel about this, but you do you. Machine learning would have been cool, though.

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Hey, thanks for the reply.

First of all I just want to say I totally agree with you. I don’t understand why players spend money on this. But they do, and so be it. Also, I don’t think it’s fair calling this botting. For the most part I build defenses ahead of time, then just afk for 2 and a half hours while the game does the rest. It’s actually very rare I need macros for anything.

I am oversimplifying for the sake of brevity. Feel free to DM me if you want details though.


I am choosing 16GB because I know from experience that that is enough. I can run 5 instances with that on my main rig (just barely). VRAM will run out much sooner than those 16GB.

As for the processor I’m also not worried much. While I will certainly hit 100% with even just 2 instances running, all that does is decrease my framerate. Something I really don’t care about much.

Long story short, I’m mostly worried about VRAM. If I run out of that the game just crashes without warning. I figured an igpu might be the way to go, as I can choose in the BIOS how much memory I want to allocate to graphics.

Okay thanks. That’s honestly exactly why I made this post. I was about to buy one and slap it into a case with my old processor, but then thought better of it.

Really hoping to keep this < 400 Euros. I might buy a better GPU later if I keep this up and prices drop :sweat_smile:

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Hahaha, machine learning build is in the works too, but you’ll have to give me 2-3 months for that :stuck_out_tongue:

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Just for reference, I just checked the BIOS on my current PC and can’t find anything to change igpu memory allocation. I could’ve sworn that was possible.

Do I need to look out for specific mainboards if I need that setting? I thought it was a standard thing to include

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I recall that you can’t allocate more than 2GB of RAM to an iGPU. Things may have improved in modern APUs, but I have no experience with modern ones. So do your research.

Maybe try to take out your dGPU, plug your monitor on the port on the motherboard, then check your BIOS again. The setting may be hidden when the iGPU gets disabled or when the system detects it is not running on the iGPU.

The 2nd hand GPUs shouldn’t be too expensive, but you have to consider the amount of money you would be making from the games. If it helps make you money, then you should consider investing just a little bit more. If you pay, say, 600 Euros for the whole system, in how much time will you be able to make the money back? The more important question is, will you be able to make your money back? Say we cut that in half, you pay 300 Euros, will you be at a loss at the end of your project (I mean, far in the future after you built your system)?

Of course, money isn’t everything and if helping others brings you happiness, then your psychic profit trumps the small financial hit (loss), so in the end you’re still better-off. But that’s for you to decide. Also, you can recoup some of the money back by selling your used hardware, so the loss may be felt less with the small (?) profit you make from people who pay you to play.

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I can make the money back in a couple weeks. I’m just averse to spending a lot of money now that components are pricey. Just looking for the cheapest option to run a couple games.

Ok definitely something worth checking out. 2GB is gonna be a close call.

Maybe try to take out your dGPU, plug your monitor on the port on the motherboard, then check your BIOS again. The setting may be hidden when the iGPU gets disabled or when the system detects it is not running on the iGPU.

Will do that. Also the intel driver for windows might have a switch somewhere. Needs some research on my part.

Thank you for your input! I’ll poke around a bit and make a decision tomorrow.

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There’s an opportunity cost here. Getting to make money earlier means that a higher investment now can make sense, which is exactly why miners happily pay double to triple the MSRP for GPUs. There are many reasons why we have a chip shortage, but I believe high-demand for GPUs isn’t even a quarter of the reason (especially when both nVidia, AMD and RAM manufacturers like Samsung don’t ramp up the production, in order to keep prices high and avoid a flood of cheap 2nd hand products in the future, like it happened in the first mining craze a few years back).

And again, after you recoup your first investment, you can still use your PC for something else. I wish I could find such opportunities for making money, but I mostly spend my time sharing knowledge (and I believe knowledge should be free as in both beer and freedom and so I practice what I preach).

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Oh, I’m getting the money already. I’d just like a dedicated rig so it doesn’t bother me while I’m using my main PC for other things.

That’d also allow me to get back to Linux some more, as I’ve been stuck on windows just so I can have weird games running in background :sweat_smile:

This is more of a convenience than anything else. Just frees up my other PC really.

I can introduce you if you want, but currently market prices are very low. I expect them to rise again, just not a good point to get started.

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Okay so apparently the BIOS setting only controls the minimum amount of RAM the igpu can use. It will use more if needed. So I could use the entire RAM as VRAM if necessary.

So an igpu is the way to go for this use case. Very interesting find.

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I took out the GPU of my main system and did some testing. The iGPU really will use all of the system RAM if needed, regardless of the BIOS setting.

So amazingly iGPUs are better suited to this task than dedicated cards, as I can extend the VRAM simply by adding a couple more memory sticks. Very cool

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Hey, I’m back

Quick update. I cobbled together a PC from old parts I had lying around, just buying a SSD, power supply and chassis, and - drumroll - it wouldn’t boot. Mainboard is probably so old that it doesn’t work with the new graphics cards anymore :joy:

After realizing that integrated graphics have essentially unlimited vRAM I got myself a Ryzen laptop with iGPU and it runs 4 games like a champ. Already spent the last 3 days with a rubber band around the controller making some money haha

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Wouldn’t have realizedd

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