$700 Best-Value Gaming PC Build Guide (Jun 2020)

[tussinman]

8GB is more than fine for a budget build. Most people aren't gonna realistically get bottle-necked by 8 gigs of ram. Also I don't understand "get 1 stick of 8GB now to make upgrading possible later down the road". I could understand that if the motherboard only had 2 ram slots but the motherboard in the article has 4 slots.......

 

[sutyi]

That's weird, cause I'm in Ukraine, and with our additional recently introduced taxes they are all at approximately the same price. To be fair, Intel 660p is the most expensive of the lineup here.

Порівняння Crucial P1 1 TB (CT1000P1SSD8),HP EX920 1 TB (2YY47AA#ABC),Intel 660p 1 TB (SSDPEKNW010T8X1)

Порівняння Crucial P1 1 TB (CT1000P1SSD8),HP EX920 1 TB (2YY47AA#ABC),Intel 660p 1 TB (SSDPEKNW010T8X1)

hotline.ua

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Problem might be that only 2 stores carry / source the EX920 & EX950 over here. This is how the mentioned drives look like price wise for me.
Thrown in the Patriot VPN100 too, thats good value as well for the performance.

Árukereső.hu

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ssd-meghajto.arukereso.hu

 

[silentbogo]

Problem might be that only 2 stores carry / source the EX920 & EX950 over here.

It sucks in regards to HP EX drives, but $125 for SX8200 pro? That's a killer deal. I'd get on that as soon as possible. I think I paid just a tad less for my 256G SX8200 last year.

 

[jabbadap]

Well keep the comments / recommendations coming,

Just realize that over time this article will be updated, the old builds will be moved to a spoiler tag within the article and a new build will takes its place. As such this part list WILL evolve over time just an FYI for those that don't read all the comments. As for SSD choice ive had no failures from Crucial or Samsung, however many other brands I have failed drives. Considering I still run multiple Crucial SSDs from even the BX series which has been abused for years and still no signs of problems. Went with my gut on that one.

Hopefully as black friday gets closer prices will come down for the shopping season and I can squeeze 16GB ram, and an AMD 3600 into the build with a few tweaks.

Well yeah P1 is ok drive, but QLC has it's caveats. For budget builds I would rather go with TLC sata drives, but the price for that P1 seems to be lower than good tlc sata drives. So all in all good choice I would say.

Some tweaks I would still made:
PSU to Seasonic 500W bronze $55, mobo to MSI B450M SteelSeries $80 and 1TB P1+16GB Ballistix 3200MHz $170 -> overall price jumps from $719 to $723.

 

[Assimilator]

I'd have put the budget at $750 which would've allowed for a 16GB 3200MHz kit, as well as a better PSU, and some change in the bank.

 

[PCStory]

Good build, but as many other pointed out, i think that your build should include 16 Gb of ram. I understand that 700$ is a very tight budget. However if a friend asked me for a similar budget build, i would never suggest 8 Gb of ram. Even if the extra cost was 50 dollar, i still think that 8 Gb of ram is not enough. I barely have any aps open right now and 7 Gb of ram are used.

 

[Turmania]

I would agree on 16gb to 8gb. I would probably chose i5 9400f but that is because Intel performs better in games I play so that's personal preference I suppose.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I'd have put the budget at $750 which would've allowed for a 16GB 3200MHz kit, as well as a better PSU, and some change in the bank.

Well at 750+ i feel its getting out of the budget range hell its already out of that for some folks but I wanted to stay as reasonable as possible without cutting too many corners, if someone has the extra cash then definitely go 16 GB of memory etc that is viable, It also leaves leeway for others in the community to give feedback / interact and in many ways contribute to the site directly even if they don't realize that. In that regard I would say this was a success. The big thing with this article if people actually read it is not for it to be a gospel build that they should 100% buy but to give a solid foundation to be tweaked to a persons needs. The build also leaves room for future upgrades once a newcomer to the PC space has gotten their feet wet and realize its not that big a deal.

My main desire for these build logs is to give readers especially new ones that want to get started, something to build from that is compatible without having to worry about it. That they can see what they should be able to achieve and thanks to our active forums and get further advice without the excess troll posts or other BS that tends to be an issue elsewhere. I mean look how active this thread is. With good commentary and valid alternatives.

That said i didn't want to build a dumpster fire rig with no upgrade path for ultra cheap either, with components and boards that are substandard in my eyes for long term usage/.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

If I only had $700, I wouldn't build it. I'd buy an OFF THE SHELF PC.

A typical Off-the shelf-PC that costs $1000 and doesn't sell well because of all the builders out there building their own will QUICKLY GO ON SALE and be $899 or $799 or even less. Microcenter always has good OTS builds.

A GTX 1660 isusually the heart of one along with a Corei7 and 16GB of RAM. You get a 1TB HDD but in time you can upgrade to SSD.

Nowadays, you really need $1000 to get the most for your money.

 

[PLAfiller]

Good build, but as many other pointed out, i think that your build should include 16 Gb of ram. I understand that 700$ is a very tight budget. However if a friend asked me for a similar budget build, i would never suggest 8 Gb of ram. Even if the extra cost was 50 dollar, i still think that 8 Gb of ram is not enough. I barely have any aps open right now and 7 Gb of ram are used.

I lived one year with 8GB on my Kaby Lake build with open-source office package, open-source CAD program and at least 50+ tabs remembered on my browser with dual-monitor setup with a movie always running on the second monitor and I've never, ever hit more than 6.5GB. My parents have a Kaby Lake PC right now with a single stick of 8GB, doing their work in excel and some HD (with a decent HD webcam) talk and I can jump on a leg here, that they never exceeded 4,5GB of usage. I just don't buy this argument an average person/gamer on a budget absolutely needs 16GB. The time hasn't come, at least not from my experience. I'd gladly put that 50 bucks for something else than RAM.

 

[Frick]

Good thing,but am I the only one who truly hates the happy-like-on-drugs screwdriver?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Good thing,but am I the only one who truly hates the happy-like-on-drugs screwdriver?

Nah your not alone it still kinda fucks with me a bit too

 

[Deathy]

an average person/gamer on a budget absolutely needs 16GB. The time hasn't come, at least not from my experience.

I've lived on 8GB (2x4GB) of RAM on a i5-4570s and when using Firefox with a lot of tabs open and maybe an alt-tabbed game (something pixel art) it was chugging quite a bit at times. Upgrading to 12GB meant those hiccups went away for me. And my 8GB 2C/4T notebook went "out of RAM" message a few times when I gamed and had some random programs open, browser and word/pdf stuff like your parents. With no games there I got occasional stutters and it was windows swapping stuff to the pagefile.

I would agree with one person here saying a 1x8GB stick is a good stop gap, but only if the next stick isn't 6 months or longer down the road. Otherwise, I'd personally always pay the 20€ extra (42€ for 2x4GB DDR4 3200 vs 62€ for 2x8GB DDR4 3200, roughly) for dual channel 16GB.

 

[silentbogo]

Another 5 cents to the story just popped....
Just got an AsRock A320 board for my friend's cheap-ass HTPC, and I got simultaneously bummed out and surprised.
Bummed out, cause the online store had an old description, which made me believe that it would work with my spare Bristol Ridge APU. Unfortunately for me - it was a new revision with the latest BIOS for 3000-series (e.g. some older APUs won't work due to missing microcode section). Surprised, cause it actually came with "Ryzen 3000 ready" logo on the box. So, you can shave off around $30-$40 on the motherboard, which will definitely nullify your excuse of not going 16GB DDR4.

I lived one year with 8GB on my Kaby Lake build with open-source office package, open-source CAD program and at least 50+ tabs remembered on my browser with dual-monitor setup with a movie always running on the second monitor and I've never, ever hit more than 6.5GB.

Remember, it's a "Gaming PC on a budget". Some newer games can hog a lot of RAM. I remember before Arkham Knight came out, I was perfectly content with my 6GB DDR3 on Westmere workstation. But since then more and more games started to eat RAM for breakfast, so I bumped it all the way to 24GB just to be sure (got some cheap DDR3-2133's).
8GB is usable, but definitely not comfortable. And if you spend $700 on a PC, you sure as hell want it to be comfortable.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Another 5 cents to the story just popped....
Just got an AsRock A320 board for my friend's cheap-ass HTPC, and I got simultaneously bummed out and surprised.
Bummed out, cause the online store had an old description, which made me believe that it would work with my spare Bristol Ridge APU. Unfortunately for me - it was a new revision with the latest BIOS for 3000-series (e.g. some older APUs won't work due to missing microcode section). Surprised, cause it actually came with "Ryzen 3000 ready" logo on the box. So, you can shave off around $30-$40 on the motherboard, which will definitely nullify your excuse of not going 16GB DDR4.


Remember, it's a "Gaming PC on a budget". Some newer games can hog a lot of RAM. I remember before Arkham Knight came out, I was perfectly content with my 6GB DDR3 on Westmere workstation. But since then more and more games started to eat RAM for breakfast, so I bumped it all the way to 24GB just to be sure (got some cheap DDR3-2133's).
8GB is usable, but definitely not comfortable. And if you spend $700 on a PC, you sure as hell want it to be comfortable.

Just gonna leave this here. How much does memory affect gaming?? Tested-JayzTwoCents

His experience is much the same as my own, Having build 20 or so lower end gaming systems, 8GB is still more than enough today. Once next gen consoles hit? maybe not but again buyer can grab 16gb for $20 more or upgrade due to the board supporting 4 DIMMs with 16 GB later pushing the system to 24GB if they want the maximum amount of memory possible.

Also i would not trust a board with no heatsinks to handle higher end Ryzen CPUs like the 3900X which would be a favorable upgrade in the future since it double the cores/threads and adds improved clocks / IPC.

I mean if we just want to race to the bottom I can certainly due a "pick the cheapest parts available build" which 90% of people here will definitely find fault with due to a myriad of shortcomings be it VRM Design, board maker, etc.

In the end id rather pay more for a decent board and get memory later and cheaper, than to cheap out on a board that is worthless down the road. Many A320 boards are only meant for up to 65w CPUs as well.

 

[silentbogo]

Just gonna leave this here. How much does memory affect gaming?? Tested-JayzTwoCents

I understand that your intentions are good, but buying 8G kit for $45 comparing to buying a $60 16G [equally clocked] kit is stupid regardless of what benchmarks you use to justify it.
And just for gigs, my typical QC session with Chrome(few tabs with text) in background.

Spoiler

Also i would not trust a board with no heatsinks to handle higher end Ryzen CPUs like the 3900X which would be a favorable upgrade in the future since it double the cores/threads and adds improved clocks / IPC.

Definitely not R9 parts, but it's good enough for any 65W CPU, which is pretty much anything from Athlon GE up to R7 3700X. And I don't mean that particular board, but any A320/B350 board that's less than $90, since evidently some OEMs besides Biostar decided to give some love for 300-series board.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I understand that your intentions are good, but buying 8G kit for $45 comparing to buying a $60 16G [equally clocked] kit is stupid regardless of what benchmarks you use to justify it.
And just for gigs, my typical QC session with Chrome(few tabs with text) in background.

Spoiler

View attachment 136390View attachment 136391

Definitely not R9 parts, but it's good enough for any 65W CPU, which is pretty much anything from Athlon GE up to R7 3700X. And I don't mean that particular board, but any A320/B350 board that's less than $90, since evidently some OEMs besides Biostar decided to give some love for 300-series board.

I would like to point out the simple fact that everyone correlates what Windows reports as memory usage as being entirely accurate is not, typically software in today's world will see whats available and budget accordingly even if its not using it. We have seen it time and time again especially in games. That is not to say more ram especially a jump to 16GB isn't warranted. However, just because something makes a request and allocates for X amount of ram does not mean it NEEDS it to function 100% and at maximum performance. We this in multiple games across the last decade, where what it reports using is not what it actually uses be it VRAM or DRAM.


Again if someone wants 16 GB of memory i mention it in the article multiple times and mention a valid replacement that fits that criteria, if people aren't smart enough to read they probably shouldn't be building a PC but that is just my honest unfiltered thought on the matter.

also here we go: Boom most of the same components with a few minor edits. Considering case selection i would still much prefer a modular units but I digress its a valid build, but here we are about 2 weeks from the article being written and some parts are not even in stock or carried anymore.

System Builder

pcpartpicker.com

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Guess my suggested build still have parts that's still in circulation. Still lower than the $700 asking price.

 

[ne6togadno]

System Builder

pcpartpicker.com

 

[blu3dragon]

What about a Core i3-9100F?
Currently ~$86. Add a cooler for ~$11 and a B365 mobo for ~$70 and you are at $167 vs $213 for the Ryzen 5 cpu+mobo combination. Put the savings towards that extra 8gb of RAM.

Only 4 cores and 4 threads, but my impression is that most games don't use more than that.
Turbo to 4.2 and an IPC advantage means it will be faster for a single thread (and I expect for up to 4 threads) as well.

 

[MDDB]

What about a Core i3-9100F?
Currently ~$86. Add a cooler for ~$11 and a B365 mobo for ~$70 and you are at $167 vs $213 for the Ryzen 5 cpu+mobo combination. Put the savings towards that extra 8gb of RAM.

Only 4 cores and 4 threads, but my impression is that most games don't use more than that.
Turbo to 4.2 and an IPC advantage means it will be faster for a single thread (and I expect for up to 4 threads) as well.

Beyond impressions, facts: https://www.techspot.com/review/1983-intel-vs-amd-budget-cpu-battle-2020/
4C/4T is definitely not enough for smooth gaming anymore, it would be a bad move to go that route nowadays, even if you saved a few bucks in the process.

 

[silentbogo]

I see @crazyeyesreaper finally made some adjustments, though I'm still not content with that case and PSU being on the list.
Just dropping these two items in favor of what I mentioned earlier will give you enough leftover budget to bump the GPU to recently released EVGA 2060 KO, or get some mid-range x470 board.
BTW, T-Force Vulkan DDR4-3000 now costs approximately the same as 2666 kit (cause essentially it is the same kit).

Only 4 cores and 4 threads, but my impression is that most games don't use more than that.

Older games, not newer games.
Plus it's a matter of upgradeability.

 

[dirtyferret]

Beyond impressions, facts: https://www.techspot.com/review/1983-intel-vs-amd-budget-cpu-battle-2020/
4C/4T is definitely not enough for smooth gaming anymore, it would be a bad move to go that route nowadays, even if you saved a few bucks in the process.

Depends on the game and setup. What that techspot review really shows is not that a four core and thread can't offer smooth gameplay in situations but rather what the AMD 1600AF can offer for gaming at the same price making it a no brainer at that price point.

 

[dj-electric]

I'd love to find an 85$ Ryzen 1600 AF on amazon, besides the fact they start at 100$ and upwards

 

[kapone32]

I'd love to find an 85$ Ryzen 1600 AF on amazon, besides the fact they start at 100$ and upwards

Even at $100 it is a great deal.