[SOLVED] Advice on budget gaming PC build

[ChaosZX]

Hi everyone, I'm a total noob to building PCs and I've used laptops almost exclusively up until now, but I'm planning to throw together my own PC in the near/not-too-distant future. What I'm looking for is a PC that can run most/all games at 1080p, primarily at 60fps but up to 144fps if possible in this price range, maybe stream as well, and I'm trying to keep the PC itself - monitor and other peripherals not included in the total - at or below $700. The part list I'm about to post is a rough one I threw together recently, and excludes a PSU - this is because I already bought a 600W EVGA B-stock PSU for $30 during EVGA's Midweek Madness sale. I'm also debating on switching up the 2600 to a 3600 in the name of having a stronger CPU, or changing the RX 580 to a better card with the money I'd save from keeping the 2600 as the CPU. Thanks in advance!

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/j3hCb8

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($117.58 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX AM4 Motherboard ($139.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team T-Force Delta RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($59.98 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS Black Core Edition Video Card ($179.89 @ OutletPC)
Case: Aerocool Cylon ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $612.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-04 22:18 EST-0500

 

[Hellfire13]

Sell the EVGA B, its garbage...

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor | $193.90 @ OutletPC
Motherboard | MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | $83.98 @ Newegg
Memory | G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $59.99 @ Newegg
Storage | Kingston A2000 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | $59.99 @ Amazon
Video Card | Gigabyte Radeon RX 590 8 GB GAMING 8G Video Card | $189.99 @ Newegg
Case | Thermaltake Versa N21 ATX Mid Tower Case | $39.99 @ Newegg
Power Supply | Corsair CX (2017) 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply | $59.99 @ Corsair
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $702.83
| Mail-in rebates | -$15.00
| Total | $687.83
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-04 23:35 EST-0500 |

 

[kingbowcat]

Why spend so much on a motherboard you can buy a A320 one for $30 dollars and will be compatible with all your components? So you could buy a 2600x CPU or a better graphics card. I got GA-A320M-S2H-CF and im running my high end pc quite well with 2600x, 16gig 3200 ram, gigabyte 5700xt oc GPU. My A320 and probably others if you look at spec can have upgraded BIOS to be compatible with 3rd gen CPUS like 3700x. PS I wish I could get memory that cheap here.

 

[Hellfire13]

Why spend so much on a motherboard you can buy a A320 one for $30 dollars and will be compatible with all your components? So you could buy a 2600x CPU or a better graphics card. I got GA-A320M-S2H-CF and im running my high end pc quite well with 2600x, 16gig 3200 ram, gigabyte 5700xt oc GPU. My A320 and probably others if you look at spec can have upgraded BIOS to be compatible with 3rd gen CPUS like 3700x. PS I wish I could get memory that cheap here.

You kidding

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kcRnc6XMrCKyoPKbt4XK29.jpg

 

[ChaosZX]

I did a bit of tinkering and wound up with the R5 2600 and the RX 5700, all on a B450 board with 16GB of RAM. Here's what it looks like now:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CV29Gc

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($117.68 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME B450-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($102.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team T-Force Delta RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($59.98 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 5700 8 GB DD Ultra Video Card ($329.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Aerocool Cylon ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $725.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-06 02:54 EST-0500

Mind, these parts totaled exceed my budget by a bit, but the board isn't the only one I'm looking at and I'm patient enough to wait until things go on sale to get them, so in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't pass the price limit I've set. The way I see it is this: I'm getting a powerful GPU to start with, and the processor itself is no slouch. Both will work on the B450 boards, and even though the RX 5700 is PCIe 4.0 compatible ("optimized"), I've checked multiple sources that say the loss in performance when plugged into a PCIe 3.0 slot is negligible at best. If I ever do decide to upgrade the rig, it'll be primed for the new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs and more RAM. If anyone has any other optimizations/alterations they'd recommend, I welcome reading them!

 

[Hellfire13]

I did a bit of tinkering and wound up with the R5 2600 and the RX 5700, all on a B450 board with 16GB of RAM. Here's what it looks like now:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CV29Gc

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($117.68 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME B450-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($102.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team T-Force Delta RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($59.98 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 5700 8 GB DD Ultra Video Card ($329.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Aerocool Cylon ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $725.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-06 02:54 EST-0500

Mind, these parts totaled exceed my budget by a bit, but the board isn't the only one I'm looking at and I'm patient enough to wait until things go on sale to get them, so in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't pass the price limit I've set. The way I see it is this: I'm getting a powerful GPU to start with, and the processor itself is no slouch. Both will work on the B450 boards, and even though the RX 5700 is PCIe 4.0 compatible ("optimized"), I've checked multiple sources that say the loss in performance when plugged into a PCIe 3.0 slot is negligible at best. If I ever do decide to upgrade the rig, it'll be primed for the new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs and more RAM. If anyone has any other optimizations/alterations they'd recommend, I welcome reading them!

Looks good, but I would still get a better PSU instead of that EVGA.

 

[kingbowcat]

Nop

You kidding

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kcRnc6XMrCKyoPKbt4XK29.jpg

Yeah I'm sure bios F40 supports 3rd gen ryzen. My current bios is f23 so a lot of updates for me. Might be a good idea to wait for black Friday sales. Cyber Friday.

 

[Hellfire13]

Nop

Yeah I'm sure bios F40 supports 3rd gen ryzen. My current bios is f23 so a lot of updates for me. Might be a good idea to wait for black Friday sales. Cyber Friday.

"The A320 chipset will not be updated for Ryzen 3000 support, so those of you with A320 boards are out of luck. These products tended to be focused on the OEM market or very cheap systems, however, and low-cost motherboards have typically gotten less-robust support than their higher-priced counterparts further up the stack. "
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...wards-compatible-a320-wont-support-ryzen-3000

And even if it does support, the a320 128 Mbit (16 MB) SPI flash ROM chip, is insufficient to integrate the latest AGESA microcode alongside its feature-rich ClickBIOS 5 UEFI setup program. All other chipsets have 256 Mb (32-megabyte) SPI flash ROM chips.

 

[cryoburner]

I did a bit of tinkering and wound up with the R5 2600 and the RX 5700, all on a B450 board with 16GB of RAM.

Yeah, that seems a lot better for a gaming build, at least on the graphics side of things. Another option might be to go for an RTX 2060. It won't be quite as fast as an RX 5700, but it should be pretty close, and we're starting to see some go on sale for not much more than $300. If one went on a good sale, it could also be worth considering...

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#sort=price&c=436

 

[ChaosZX]

Yeah, that seems a lot better for a gaming build, at least on the graphics side of things. Another option might be to go for an RTX 2060. It won't be quite as fast as an RX 5700, but it should be pretty close, and we're starting to see some go on sale for not much more than $300. If one went on a good sale, it could also be worth considering...

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#sort=price&c=436

Huh, so they are. I always saw the RTX cards as slightly unreasonable due to their price to performance ratio, but if the sales on them tip the balance, then I wouldn't be terribly opposed, especially considering the 2060 has been around long enough to have solid driver support across all kinds of builds whereas the RX 5700's still pretty recent and working to smooth things out in the same area. My roommate has an i5-9600k/RTX 2060 build and he loves the card, so that's bonus points in the RTX's favor, haha. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Intel-i2]

Stick to a RYZEN 5 or 3 and get like a gtx 1050 for the graphics card but make sure the parts you choose are compatible. There are websites where you can see if stuff are compatible.