Extreme budget build (APU)

[jjjay999]

Hi,

A friend of mine has REALLY wanted to get into pc gaming for a while now, but she’s a “poor college student” and gpu prices (as everyone knows) are still grossly inflated due to crypto mining. So, after some discussion, she decided to go the APU route, then intends to buy a RX580/GTX1060 (or equivalent) for 1080p/high-ultra/60 FPS gaming when prices come down to reasonable levels. Her budget is $500, no peripherals are needed, OS isn’t needed either. So that’s $500 just on hardware. Personally, IMO a 2400G would be better long term, 4 cores/8 threads, as opposed to 4 cores for the 2200G. The PC will be used primarily for gaming, and for school/college type work (she wants to be a small indie/mobile game designer), and typical pc use. Streaming movies, email, web browsing, etc. So, to reiterate:

-$500 budget. Just hardware needed, no os or peripherals
-preferably a 2400G APU

Also, would 16GB RAM at 3000 MHz be feasible for the budget? Dual channel of course, even if the budget only allows for 8GB/3000 MHz.

She understands that an APU is good enough for 720p-1080p medium/low settings at playable frame rates for now. Her laptop only has an iris 620 iirc, or 630. So this would be a massive boost. Thank you!

 

[jaslion]

Hi,

A friend of mine has REALLY wanted to get into pc gaming for a while now, but she’s a “poor college student” and gpu prices (as everyone knows) are still grossly inflated due to crypto mining. So, after some discussion, she decided to go the APU route, then intends to buy a RX580/GTX1060 (or equivalent) for 1080p/high-ultra/60 FPS gaming when prices come down to reasonable levels. Her budget is $500, no peripherals are needed, OS isn’t needed either. So that’s $500 just on hardware. Personally, IMO a 2400G would be better long term, 4 cores/8 threads, as opposed to 4 cores for the 2200G. The PC will be used primarily for gaming, and for school/college type work (she wants to be a small indie/mobile game designer), and typical pc use. Streaming movies, email, web browsing, etc. So, to reiterate:

-$500 budget. Just hardware needed, no os or peripherals
-preferably a 2400G APU

Also, would 16GB RAM at 3000 MHz be feasible for the budget? Dual channel of course, even if the budget only allows for 8GB/3000 MHz.

She understands that an APU is good enough for 720p-1080p medium/low settings at playable frame rates for now. Her laptop only has an iris 620 iirc, or 630. So this would be a massive boost. Thank you!

Does it need to be small or not? A small micro atx build or ultra compact mini itx build?

 

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Personally, I think the 2400G doesn't make much sense at its current price and needs to drop by at least $20 since it performs only ~30% better for 70% more cash. I'd put the $70 difference on getting 16GB of RAM worth carrying over into the foreseeable future, then put in a discrete GPU and a CPU upgrade later.

Raven Ridge takes IGP gaming from horrible to passable. I wouldn't recommend blowing $70 more than necessary on it unless the IGP was the only graphics the system will ever get. Once you upgrade to something in the neighborhood of the 1060/RX580, you'll be wanting for a more powerful CPU than the 2400G anyway.