How to Build a Basic Budget PC for Gaming 2016

Written by

Building a budget PC for gaming is easy, if you know the latest updates, parts and prices. This basic guide is for you to build your own Gaming PC (DIY) with tight budget, we will only cover LGA 1151 and AM3+ sockets.

The things we need to first consider on building Gaming PC are its components, you need a Motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM, Power Supply Unit, Hard Drive or SSD and its Casing.

build-budget-pc

For CPU

You need to choose the type of CPU you want to use on your Gaming PC. There are 2 kinds of CPU in the market, this is the AMD and Intel. Based on my experience using an Intel is my first choice because it draws low power consumption, high performance and the stock fan are enough to cool down the CPU, but Intel is more expensive than AMD. While On AMD this is the cheapest processor, they also have the APU that has a built-in Graphic Cards, so if you have no plan on buying Graphic Card this is a good choice.

For Intel, you can choose i5 or i3 for gaming which price at around $182 for Intel Core i5-6400 6MB Skylake Processor Quad-Core 2.7 GHz and $110 for Intel Core i3-6100 Skylake Processor 3.7GHz.

For AMD, you can choose AMD FX-8320E 8 Core 3.2GHz for AM3+ board.

Motherboard

There are 4 sizes for motherboard these are the EATX, where you can put up to 8 RAMS, ATX for regular build, micro-ATX for smaller build and mini-ITX where just enough space for processor and RAM.

When you’re done deciding which CPU you’re going to use either Intel or AMD, here are the motherboard you can choose from. For Intel your board needs to have LGA 1151 which support SkyLake processor and on AMD you need a motherboard that has an AM3+ socket.

Browse ebay for prices.. It cost around $40 up to $155 for the board.

Also, if possible check if your motherboard has additional M.2 slot for latest M.2 SSD’s.

RAM

The latest ram on the market are the DDR4 RAM, you don’t have to worry about compatibility with AMD or Intel – it will work on both processors (Just make sure your motherboard has DDR4 RAM slot).

Cheapest I found on ebay at around $46.99 is the Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB (1 x 8g) DDR4 2400.

GPU

Same as RAM, GPU’s will work on AMD and Intel. There are 2 kinds of GPU manufacturer these are the NVIDIA and AMD. NVIDIA has the latest Pascal based technology that run high performance games while drawing low power consumption. On the other side AMD they have the latest GPU RX series with their latest Polaris based technology.

For NVIDIA the most cheapest GPU is the 1050 which is for low-end gaming, 1060 for medium-end gaming, 1070 for high-end gaming and 1080 for ultra-end gaming. These card also comes with a TI version which is upgraded version of its class, currently only 1050 has the TI version.

For AMD, they have the R9 series and the latest series which is RX series Polaris based, on RX series they have RX 460 for low-end, RX 470 high-end and Rx 480 ultra-end gaming while on R9 series they have the variants starts from low-end R9 350 up to R9 390. On AMD they also have the X version of the card similar on NVIDIA ti. You can check some listing below:

Hard Drive and SSD

You can choose from Hard Drive or SSD. Hard Drive is quite slower, when boot it up it will takes several seconds before you can used your computer, although this is a guide for tight budget PC. I suggest you to pick a single SSD from size of 256GB to 512GB for your OS alone, in this way your computer will boot faster and put all your files on the Hard Drive. In comparison SSD has a fast of 500mbs read/write while hard drive only runs 90mbs to 150mbs for read/write.

There is also a new version of SSD, these are the M.2 SSD that has a speed of 2000 to 3000mbs for read/write, if you can this is a good choice – it will make your PC blazing fast.

See ebay listing where you can buy this Hard Drive or SSD:

PSU

Choose a 80 Plus PSU there are 500W and 750W available. This cost around $45 dollar up to $83 dollar.

Casing

As long as your motherboard, PSU and HDD’s will fit in your case that will be fine. You can also pick nice CPU case design and add some lightning effect.

We tried calculating the minimum you can spent on building budget pc is for its Intel around $451 Dollars. This is my very first long post, hope you can find this post helpful, Thank you for reading! Leave comment below if you have better suggestion and comments!

Article Tags:
Article Categories:
How To

Leave a Reply