When my favorite young customer asked me to compile a list of parts for his new gaming computer I was ecstatic. When he told me his maximum budget was $400.00 for parts I was doubtful. After helping him install his new $140.00 video card today I was nothing but impressed.
His goal was a budget computer he could use to play most of the latest games even if not at the highest settings. My goal was to give him a quad core processor, 8 GB of memory, a solid state drive and discreet gaming graphics. I was doubtful but we seemed to pull it off.
Essential to all systems is the processor. I chose the $75.00 AMD FX-4300 quad core with 3.8GHz per core. It’s an AM3 socket which has a history of superb service and is fully expandable. Four cores running at 3.8GHz per core should be more than ample for most games.
Everything ties into the motherboard and as most gamers know, they can get quite expensive. I chose the $55.00 ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 with four memory sticks so he can expand later without removing memory. Also, I chose a micro ATX platform to save on case expenses.
Memory is critical and knowing he’s somewhat forced to skimp everywhere else I decided to set him up with more than he’ll need. I chose the Mushkin Blackline DDR3 2133 8GB kit (2 sticks of 4GB) for $45.00. Not hogging all four slots means he has room to expand.
Most people don’t know the secret to speed is a good hard drive. For relatively short money, solid state adds speed by reducing the slowest bottleneck in any system: the hard drive. The 240GB Sandisk Plus offers both speed and storage for $70.00.
Every gaming rig deserves a good card. Since nVidia released the GTX1050Ti for $140.00 I’ve been wanting to use one in an install. Well, let me tell you this little card rocks. It’s not very impressive to look at, but it packs a small punch in more expensive cards.
If you’ve been counting along you’ve probably realized our little build is going to cost a few bucks more than the $400.00 originally budgeted. Based on my calculations this budget build needs a modest 300 watt power supply. To stretch the last of his budget I specified we use the $45.00 Logisys CS136BK micro ATX case and 480 watt power supply combination.
Although we came in slightly over budget at roughly $430.00 we proved we could build a functional gaming system for around $400.00. If we had deeper pockets I would have specified the GTX1060, but for now the 1050 is pretty sound and very frugal.
Speccing out your own budget build? Shoot me a message and let me know what you have.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)