This article was published in the August 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here.
An ultra-budget gaming PC for the shallowest of pockets
Length of Time: 1-3 Hours | Level of Difficulty: Medium
The Mission
One letter came in from retired army sergeant first class Harley Roam, who wrote in from Texas. (Texas?! Only steers and… ahem... came from Texas. Right, Sergeant Cowboy?)
Harley expressed that he's not one with deep pockets. Our typical builds tend to be in the $800 range or more, but Harley was wondering if we could build a PC for $300 to $500.
Challenge accepted, we thought. Couldn't be all that hard, now, could it? So, we set out scouring the web for parts on behalf of Harley. We found out that you can indeed build a PC that's sluggish and cheap, but we don't want that for Harley. We wanted to make sure he could actually play games on his rig. We also wanted to build a system that would have room for upgrades that aren't too expensive. The build we ended up with was just shy of $600, so we came out close-ish to our goal.
We did the best we could to make sure Harley could build a good rig for as little scratch as we could bear. After all, we've all been in a spot where we weren't exactly flush with cash. So, pay attention, Harley, this build's for you!
Rally the Troops
Setting a budget of $500 puts severe restrictions on our choices of hardware, and ultimately, we weren't able to make it. There are some things we just weren't willing to compromise, namely 1080p gaming with at least 30fps with settings cranked up. This led us to pick the GeForce GTX 960 for the GPU. We went with an Asus STRIX because we found it for about $200. While that's a big chunk of budget, it will give a solid gaming experience in many games you're likely to encounter. Going with team green also means you'll have a better experience in Linux gaming, should you choose to go with the free OS. After all, including Windows 8 in a build means saying bye-bye to a Benjamin. If you're building an ultra-budget machine, it's unlikely you have too many of them to spare.
For a processor, we went with an AMD FX-6300, which was $100. Between the GPU and CPU, we thought this would give Harvey a good base to build upon. We dropped the CPU and GPU onto a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P, which was about $60. We also dropped the idea of having an SSD or optical drive. The power supply is a little beefier than our needs called for, but we wanted to make sure the system could take an upgrade or two without hitting the upper limit of the PSU. The Enermax case we put everything into was surprisingly roomy for the build, and gave enough options for cable management and upgrades that meant we weren't left wanting.
| Ingredients | | |
Part
| | Price |
Case
| Enermax Coenus | $60 |
Mobo
| Gigabyte 970A-DS3P
| $68 |
CPU
| AMD FX-6300 | $100 |
Memory
| G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB 1866 DDR3
| $65 |
GPU
| Asus STRIX GTX 960
| $200 |
PSU
| Corsair CX500 | $55 |
HDD
| Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD
| $51 |
Total
| | $599 |
1. Using Less Texas Tea
Corsair's CX500 isn't as sexy as its modular siblings, but it gets the job done for a reasonable price. Normally, a non-modular power supply means a rat's nest of unused cables. We kept things tidy with the help of the case's beveled side panel behind the mobo. A few zip and twisty ties kept the unused power cables out of the way.
The CX500's meager (to us) output means it's small compared with the 1KW monsters you'll find in bigger systems. That's acceptable because our CPU and GPU aren't super demanding. The PSU is 80 Plus Bronze certified, which is a bare minimum when it comes to efficiency. If you do eventually upgrade to a bigger PSU, we prefer modular units to help keep things neat. Power cables are the largest cables in the case, and more of them makes maintaining good airflow and closing the right side panel a pain.
2. Take It at a Mosey Place
Nothing fancy to see here, folks—move along, move along. Our limited budget prohibited us from going crazy on cooling, so the stock heatsink and fan had to suffice. It wasn't so bad though; the FX-6300 stayed fairly cool with the stock parts. Even under load, it didn't feel like the processor was heating up the room. We didn't plan on overclocking the CPU, so excessive cooling wasn't warranted here. Using the stock heatsink and fan also saves you a bit of build time.
Of course, should you want to OC, we'd recommend grabbing an aftermarket cooler. For air cooling, Cooler Master's Hyper 212 Evo is only $35.
3. A Simple Kind of Mobo
Gigabyte's 970A-DS3P is a $65 motherboard that has all the basics you need. That said, our choice of mobo was a compromise due to our budget constraints. One thing we noticed about this particular board is that the right side didn't extend all the way to the forward column of brass standoffs. This meant that plugging in the ATX power connector was a little more hairy, as the board flexed a bit under the pressure. That was easily overcome by pushing the underside of the board with the other hand, though. Still, it was a bit of a gotcha you should keep in mind if you go with this board.
The motherboard is one of the parts that we consider "good enough for now," knowing that a user would probably want to upgrade it in the future. It's got all the basics, USB 3.0, and other standards like onboard FakeRAID. You can find good AMD 970 chipset boards for around $100, and 990 boards for a little more.
4. Take It Easy
One great thing about going with a stock heatsink and fan is that memory is a breeze to install. Click-click, bam! Done! For this build, we went with 1,866MHz G.Skill Ripjaws, which the motherboard took without need to overclock. We had to set the memory speed in the BIOS, but that's a relatively painless process. Eight gigabytes of memory is plenty for this build. Again, we weren't trying to go crazy. To stay within the ultrabudget range, we don't recommend going much higher in capacity or frequency.
The G.Skill Ripjaws aren't the cheapest DIMMs you can find, but they are relatively inexpensive, have decent timings, and will serve you well even if the CPU, motherboard, or other components are upgraded. While 1,600MHz memory is slightly cheaper, the 970 chipset and CPU support 1,866MHz without overclocking, so we figured: why not? If you have to squeeze every penny though, 1,600MHz memory is just dandy.
5. The Lone Hard Drive
This is a budget bill, so we had to omit use of an SSD in favor of a single spinning drive. The 1TB Seagate Barracuda looks kind of lonely all by itself, but that also means the drive will have plenty of room to dissipate any heat.
Building systems with spinning hard drives as the system drive is a bit antiquated. Compared with SSDs, waiting on big file transfers feels like going back to the stone ages. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—prices for spinning hard drives don't scale at the same rate capacity does. Where a 500GB SSD might cost the same as two 250GB models, a 1TB HDD is usually less expensive than two 500GB units. That price difference precluded us from using RAID as a strategy to obtain higher transfer rates. For that reason, we recommend upgrading to an SSD as soon as there's spare money to burn.
6. See the Sights
The videocard we chose is modest by many counts. Nevertheless, the GTX 960 can still produce playable frame rates at 1080p for a wide array of games. Don't think you'll be playing Grand Theft Auto V maxed out, but you can still get good-looking visuals for a pretty reasonable $200.
The Asus STRIX implementation of the GTX 960 is quite the compact card. The STRIX's size would pay off a lot more in a smaller, tighter system like an HTPC. But in the Enermax case, the card has plenty of room, making for a simple installation and power connection. The card is also inexpensive enough that buying another one down the road and using the two in SLI is a perfectly viable upgrade.
You'll have an easy time getting the card to work in Linux, as Nvidia's proprietary drivers are still the best performers on the open-source OS. So you'll be able to play BioShock: Infinite on Linux, should you go the way of the penguin.
1. It's rare that we leave a CPU with nothing more than a stock heatsink and fan, but we can get away with it since we're not overclocking.
2. The lack of an optical drive is not a crime. You can find Linux install media on USB drives, and if you need a DVD drive for Windows 8, they run about $20.
3. The 2.5-inch drive cage positioned above the 3.5-inch cage gives extra room for long graphics cards that otherwise wouldn't fit.
4. The CX500 isn't modular, so you have to stuff the extra cables somewhere. The case's beveled side panels make this easier for rookies.
Wide-Open Spaces with Room to Grow
Low-balling on price isn't something we normally do here. We love our big $100 cases and $300 CPUs, but we get it that not everyone can afford to build in the $1,500 range.
At the same time, if we're going to compromise in the name of budget, there are some things we just aren't willing to skimp on. Even with a relatively modest $100 CPU, gaming relies heavily on GPU performance. Investing that $200 in a GPU will pay off in the long run, as other components are upgraded.
Building PCs is more than just performance, it's a hobby and passion for us. If money is tight, it's sometimes better to get a modest base and improve it all the time. That will make a story out of the continual work. Just as a project car can go from rust-bucket to show material, a computer can go from a budget build to a face-melting machine that bends space-time given enough time, blood, sweat, tears, and disposable income.
We wanted to create a solid base to build on. The case offers plenty of opportunities for expansion, and the GPU and CPU combo will get the system started in the right direction. While the build drags its ass for a number of reasons—namely, the modest CPU and a spinning hard drive for the OS—the six cores of the FX-6300 combine to get work done in multithreaded applications. Also, you should be able to play quite a few games at 1080p at modest settings with the GTX 960.
Transforming this build from modest to mighty can take any number of approaches with incremental improvements. An SSD will level-up your data-transfer speeds significantly, and is the best way to enhance the build. The boost in storage speed should be followed by a more robust motherboard with features like M.2 support. A mobo upgrade will present the choice to stay with the AM3+ socket or to switch over to an Intel board.
If you choose to stay with AM3+ and go with a better AMD CPU or overclock the FX-6300, investing in a closed-loop water cooler is ideal. Packing in more case fans will make life easier for overclockers, as well. With this case, there's plenty of room for a small cooler and extra fans. Going with Intel will cost you some extra coin, but will allow for a less aggressive cooling solution.
We enjoyed this challenge, even if we couldn't quite get it down to $500. Sorry about that, Harley, but we wanted to make sure you'd have a better base machine for gaming and video. Prices do fluctuate, and we saw a few rebates that brought the build down by $40–$50. By the time you read this, maybe you'll be lucky enough to take advantage of a couple of deals and get started. Happy trails!
| Benchmarks | | |
| Zero-Point | |
Premiere Pro CS6 (sec)
| 2,000
| 2,194 (-9.7%) |
Stitch.Efx 2.0 (sec)
| 831
| 1,685 (-102.8%) |
ProShow Producer 5.0 (sec)
| 1,446
| 1,717 (-18.7%) |
x264 HD 5.0 (fps)
| 21.1
| 9.9 (-53.1%) |
Batman: Arkham City (fps)
| 76
| 39 (-48.7%) |
3DMark 11 Extreme
| 5,847
| 3,294 (-43.7%) |
Our current zero-point consists of a hexa-core 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K (turbo 3.8GHz), 16GB of Corsair DDR3/1600, on an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard. We are running a GeForce GTX 690, an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD, and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.
