All parts we use will have to have a minimum requirement of 4 stars or above, so no super janky quick to fail parts. This build with have a Quad Core, 8 Thread CPU, 1050 2Gb GPU, 450 Watt PSU, SSD and 8GBs DDR4, 3000MHz RAM.
A quick disclaimer: Due to the volatility of the PC market and utilization of applicable sales I can not 100% guarantee that the prices will always be under $500. It should be assumed that this build may cost slightly below $500 to max $600.
All links I provide here are from Amazon as a convenient way for you to buy all your parts at one source. And when I compared the price for parts between Newegg and Amazon... Amazon was slightly cheaper for the overall build. But keep in mind that if you shop between the two sites you may be able to cut down an extra few bucks off the build.
CPU:
So lets start with the Brain of the computer, the CPU. What we are going to get is a AMD Ryzen 1400 CPU with included Wraith Stealth Cooler.
The CPU is Quad Core, with 8 Threads clocked at a cool 3.4GHz. It comes with a decent stock cooler saving us about $10-$15 there. Because it is a Ryzen you can of course overclock to squeeze out a touch more performance if you wish. (With a board that supports the function.)
This clock rate will be pretty decent for most, even newer single-core utilizing games, especially with an overclock. This specific CPU is apparently pretty good to run at 3.8GHz without much issue with the right cooling and a decent Motherboard.
However at 3.4GHz and 8 threads it should be able to actually tear through most multi-core applications without even a hiccup.
Price at time of writing: $129.99
You can find it here using this link: http://amzn.to/2hriZWV
The other cheaper options I had looked at were typically 3.5 stars or even worse. That is not okay in my opinion to recommend. So the Motherboard I decided to go with is the MSI B350m Gaming Pro. 4 stars, supports overclocking, has 2 RAM slots for up to 32GB, and is M.2 ready. Right now on amazon it's $69.99 however it has a $10 Mail in Rebate putting it at $59.99. Very solid choice.
Price at time of writing: $59.99.
You can find it Here: http://amzn.to/2ho5c3u (Make sure to select the right one.)
Price at time of writing: $59.99
You can find it here: http://amzn.to/2yO8zIl
PSU: Because we are in such a tight budget for the Power Supply Unit or PSU, were are going to go with 450watts. This should be enough to run our Rig without an issue but doesn't leave much room for overclocking if that is what you are after.
What I settled on was the Rosewill 450watt Arc series PSU, it is sadly non modular but that's typical of a budget Power Supply. Still overall it'll do the job well enough.
Price at time of Writing: 29.99
You can find it here: http://amzn.to/2zy62PF
SSD: We can't possibly have a gaming computer in this day or age without an SSD right!? In case you never used one before they are a Godsend! I am talking about your computer booting in seconds instead of minutes, transferring and copying files extraordinarily fast and games potentially loading between 30% all the way up too 500-600% faster! (It depends heavily on the game.)
The problem is, getting an SSD on a budget is not super easy, as they are much more expensive per GB than an HDD or Hard Disk Drive. Because of this, and to stay on budget we are only going to go with a 120GB the thing is though I recommend spending a little extra money and getting the 250GB if you can.
The 120GB will be plenty for most gamers that stick with a few games at a time, like COD, Battlefield, League of Legends or such. But a few large games like Grand Theft Auto 5 will eat through the space rather quickly.
Because of that what the typical thing to do is get an SSD for a Boot drive and primary applications. In other words you put your Operating System on it, which ensures your computer boots extremely fast. Or applications that you use quite often and would like to see a speed boost on such as Favorite games.
But for other less critical files like music, videos and games or applications you don't use much you should store them on a separate, slower HDD you also put in your computer. I'll talk about that a bit in the end of this post.
The 120GB SSD we are going to use is the SanDisk SSD Plus, 120GB. It's a Solid choice (Pun intended...)
Price at Time of Writing: $54.99
It and the 240GB one can be found here: http://amzn.to/2ypH9nZ
Case: Sadly being so tight on budget means that often times we need to sacrifice aesthetic. When it comes to this case we are going pretty bare bones with the Rosewill Micro ATX Mini Tower Case. Don't get me wrong... It's not bad looking... It's just not amazing either... You can search though a few other choices being about $5 dollars more if you wish.
Price at Time of Writing: $24.99
It can be found here: http://amzn.to/2ABcghV
Graphics Card: Last but certainly not the least we have the GPU, for this we want good performance but on a tight budget. Worry not!! This is where the Gigabyte Geforce 1050 comes in to save the day!! With 2GBs of GDDR5 RAM, Over 1500MHz Boost Clock and 7000MHz+ RAM Clock, Directx 12 support and a bunch of fancy other crap most people either wont care about or understand this card will get you 1080p 60FPS in most games.
Just make sure you buy a version that is short enough it will fit into your case.
Price at Time if Writing: $119.99
It can be found here: http://amzn.to/2yPSCl6
Total Price of Everything: 449.94!! (Congrats, if everything goes well you should have an extra $50.06 to spend on upgrading.)
Suggested Upgrades: Even though we built a rather solid rig for under $500 I suggest a few upgrades that I will list here.
Suggested Upgrade CPU Cooler & Paste: Sadly stock coolers are not the best, though Ryzen's new Wraith cooler has been doing a much better job It still can use a lot of work...
Wait!! Scratch everything I just said, the Wraith cooler is actually pretty damn amazing at what it does at least for a Stock cooler. So unless you plan to overclock you should be fine to stick with what you have.
However one CPU modification I do suggest is replacing the stock thermal paste with something better. Personally what I suggest is IC Diamond, it's the only one I use anymore after I switched off of Artic Silver 5 due to IC being Cheaper and Better at what it does.
Price at time of writing: $8.10 (Good for several applications.)
It can be found here: http://amzn.to/2zyWRyD
Suggested Upgrade Storage Space: One of the things I most strongly suggest is getting a 1 TB HHD to install along with your SSD, make sure you use SSD to boot with though. I personally recommend HGST because out of all the drive manufacturers they have the lowest per year drive failure rate. Or at least a few years back when I checked. Some of the cheap drive can have a failure rate up to 30% per year... Yikes!!
So once again I recommend the HGST 1TB 7,200RPM HDD.
Price at time of writing: $54.87 (Biggest suggested upgrade!)
It can be found here: http://amzn.to/2zwhUnr
Suggested Upgrade Power Supply: If you don't plan to overclock or upgrade to a power hungry GPU anytime soon then you shouldn't need to worry about this. But if you do plan to overclock or upgrade your GPU with something more hungry then you'll need a better PSU.
I suggest at least 750watts, this will give you plenty of headroom for overclocking and any new GPU(s). Personally on my 750watt I use 64GBs RAM, an I7 Hex core 4930k overclocked from 3.4GHz to 4.3, 3x Overclocked 960 GPUs, 1 SSD, 4x HDDs and a H105 Closed loop Cooler and have yet to run into issues.
So 750w is a good idea for OCing and Future proofing. The cheapest one I feel the most safe recommending is the EVGA Supernova 750w. There are cheaper ones out there, some for half price but they tend to have horrible staying ability and dirty power outputs that can cause system instabilities. Also a bad PSU can literally destroy components like your motherboard and anything connected to it if they surge. Please be careful buying cheap for these.
Price time of writing: $73.02
You can find it here: http://amzn.to/2zAEjOg
Conclusion: Keep in mind that this doesn't include an operating system, this is a hardware only build. You'll still need to pick something up to run the system, you can of course go with Windows but Linux Such as Linux Mint is a pretty Dang good free OS Alternative. Though compatibility isn't the best
I hope you all found this build list useful, it took me quite a few hours to compile and make sure everything is compatible. If you do like it please drop me a comment saying so and please check out my YouTube channel www.YouTube.com/TrollFaceTheMan Thank you guys very much for reading!
*All images used in this post were stock images from Amazon.com, and belong to their respective owners.*
