News The Best $800 PC Build for Gaming, Streaming and Productivity

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thank you SO MUCH for this detailled and up to date article

it will help tremendously here on the forums.

so many people wanting to pair an monster GPU, a cheap garbage-tier PSU, and sometimes not even a 1080p screen.
Oh and no budget for sound... so they buy a last minute pair of 10$ speakers.

My 2 centes :
this article doesn't talk about sound or monitor either...

good to talk about wifi, but the best deals are from clone AX200 cards, they include bluetooth wich is a big deal if you come to get bluetooth peripherals (say, VR controlers !)

the PSU is meh. In the forum we try our best to convince people that a good PSU is essential, and here you qualify it "the least exiting component"
lots of people want's to future-proof their build. buying a better PSU is the best thing to do in this case.

In a few months 2nd hand market will be flooded by Nvidia 2000 generation GPUs
it would be a shame to say no to a neat RTX2070 at <200$ because you don't have a good enough PSU
It's already started, ebay lists sold 2080ti's for like 600USD and prices are dropping fast
 
This is not $800 gaming PC this is $900 , Missing is the operating System , Keyboard and mouse , and gaming controller

and the bottom line is : get Xbox Series X for $500 and cut the crap lol ...
 
Overcritical really from the comments above.
To me a pc build is the case and components only, that's always been the general rule when people ask for a build on a set budget on here (unless specified that it needs to include peripherals or OS)

The only real issue is the psu, its dire and the case needs a front fan adding.

Swap to the ryzen 2600 which sells for $50 less and you've rectified those issues easily.
 
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nofanneeded said:
This is not $800 gaming PC this is $900 , Missing is the operating System , Keyboard and mouse , and gaming controller

and the bottom line is : get Xbox Series X for $500 and cut the crap lol ...
Click to expand...
The thing is the benefits of a PC far outweigh the price of a console. The cost of a PC and console end up evening out eventually. You may have to pay more now but it will last longer. You can get a good PC and have it last multiple generations of console. As soon as the next generation of consoles come out your last gen console is basically obsolete since all new games are going to be made for the new gen. then you'll have to buy a new console, plus membership. keyboard and mouse are a lot better in some games. The biggest thing for me is having 2 monitors. It makes things A LOT easier. And now that the 30 series and Budget AMD Gpus are coming out PC will be even more competitive. Also there are still games that are locked to 30 FPS on console anyway. So yeah keep saying console is better.
 
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madmatt30 said:
Overcritical really from the comments above.
To me a pc build is the case and components only, that's always been the general rule when people ask for a build on a set budget on here (unless specified that it needs to include peripherals or OS)

The only real issue is the psu, its dire and the case needs a front fan adding.

Swap to the ryzen 2600 which sells for $50 less and you've rectified those issues easily.
Click to expand...

sorry , a Gaming PC does not "game" without Keyboard and mouse and operating system.
Even if you transfer them from older PC , it is still added to the cost . and people who will make a gaming PC for the first time must include them.
 
Breadmangamer said:
The thing is the benefits of a PC far outweigh the price of a console. The cost of a PC and console end up evening out eventually. You may have to pay more now but it will last longer. You can get a good PC and have it last multiple generations of console. As soon as the next generation of consoles come out your last gen console is basically obsolete since all new games are going to be made for the new gen. then you'll have to buy a new console, plus membership. keyboard and mouse are a lot better in some games. The biggest thing for me is having 2 monitors. It makes things A LOT easier. And now that the 30 series and Budget AMD Gpus are coming out PC will be even more competitive. Also there are still games that are locked to 30 FPS on console anyway. So yeah keep saying console is better.
Click to expand...

Gaming PCs should be above $1500 to be useful enough to ignore modern consoles.

800$ PC is nothing and a waste of money ... because Today Consoles are worth $1500 Gaming PC while priced at $500 ..

Meaning even if you buy a new console it will be still lower price than your $1500 PC ... so big no ! a PC priced $1500 cant survive mutlipe consoles. when comparable PC is worth three times the price of the console.
 
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nofanneeded said:
Gaming PCs should be above $1500 to be useful enough to ignore modern consoles.

800$ PC is nothing and a waste of money ... because Today Consoles are worth $1500 Gaming PC while priced at $500 ..

Meaning even if you buy a new console it will be still lower price than your $1500 PC ... so big no ! a PC priced $1500 cant survive mutlipe consoles. when comparable PC is worth three times the price of the console.
Click to expand...

Untrue, had consoles since the release of the sega mega drive/consoles.

I've had virtual every console releases apart from the ps4.

I've also owned a 'gaming' pc for the last 15 years or so.

They've always been fairly budget rigs until now but they've had as much use as any console I've owned at the same time.

The reasons being

  1. PC games are way cheaper
  2. PC exclusives

This 'may' change with the series x, but I doubt it.
 
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Isn't the whole point of NVENC hardware encoding to shift the load off of the CPU and onto the GPU? Meaning the helpfulness of the feature would have nothing to do with the modestness of the GPU. Rather, it would help when the CPU is struggling to encode while running the game at the same time.
 
nofanneeded said:
This is not $800 gaming PC this is $900 , Missing is the operating System , Keyboard and mouse , and gaming controller
Click to expand...

Real gamers use a keyboard and mouse only... (it's all a first person shooter game really needs!)

The article already addressed the OS...most people already own it, and, anyone can download/install/run it unactivated for free anyway.... (I paid for a retail box so mine may be moved when I upgrade in 'x' amount of time, relegating the old system to TrueCore or Linux MInt duties...)
 
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That PSU is worrying, to say the least.

Non 80+
No active PFC
This has 20 amp on one 12v rail and 23 amp on the other 12v rail. Calling this a 600w unit is being charitable.

Only a PCIe 6 pin plus 8 pin on a 600w unit is pathetic. Even an EVGA N1 400w has the same amount of PCIe connectors and that thing is garbage as well.

At least it has a 5-year warranty since the chances are you will be needing it.

A "good brand name" doesn't make this PSU good. You should rate a PSU on a model by model basis. honestly, Thermaltake has so many bad units like this I don't know if I would consider them good in general.
 
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I see a few folks addressing:

Sound card (lack of)
-- most mainboards come with good to excellent sound onboard, and many/most have done so since 1999, which was when I last bought a sound card)

OS (lack of)
- already addressed, anyone can download/install/use Win10 unactivated

Monitor (lack of)
-if you need one , get one, but, I hooked mine up to to my LCD TV in my living room, and have been perfectly happy on my couch with a wireless Logitech keyboard/mouse combo for $35...

Get a console (instead of a PC)
- these folks seems to have missed the requirement of 'general productivity' of the build. The need was not stated as 'basic gaming only'! (Still rather difficult to do surfing, video editing, rendering, MS Word, Excel, and Outlook from a PS4 or X-Box...)
 
I agree that a sound card doesn't matter. I use a sound card only because I damaged my onboard audio and I pulled this sound card out of a spare PC.

Onboard audio is FINE for 99% of people. I like music and constantly listen to it, however, I don't own several hundred dollar headphones, so I don't feel onboard audio sounded any worse than my Creative Sound Blaster Z sound card which is like $90 new.

This is a PC build, not a PC setup. The keyboard monitor and mouse are not included. This is to be expected.

OS you want to use is entirely up to the user. Again this just the computer, its not software or peripherals.

A console does not serve the same purpose as this computer, so comparing them is needless. Yes, they both run games, but a console cannot do half of the things this well-rounded PC can, or at least not nearly as well. Streaming and productivity are just a couple of examples. Plus, people fail to reason the consoles are so cheap. The games cost way more which is where ms and sony make money. Once you load up games on both, the cost evens out and then the console is far less useful.

I still can't believe toms picked this PSU tho. Even if you are going with a low end PSU, a Thermaltake Smart 600w is $5 more. It is still horrible, but at the very least it has more PCIe connectors, active PFC, and is 80+ white certified.
 
I'm glad I threw down some good cash 6 years ago for a top of the line system then. I'm still on a Core i7 5960x CPU and finally 6 years later, I'm considering finally upgrading my GTX 980. I am going to upgrade my RAM from 16 GB to 64GB, I ordered it yesterday. With gaming and using virtual boxes, 16GB isn't cutting it.

Builds like these $800 builds seem to last someone about two years, then it's time to upgrade again because they will no longer run the latest stuff. No thanks. It took me 5 years before I finally saw something that would benefit from having a better graphics card than what I already had. However, I did spend more on my build over time than several $800 builds, but I also bought cutting-edge hardware that had dropped severely in price, since then.
 
NightHawkRMX said:
Onboard audio is FINE for 99% of people. I like music and constantly listen to it, however, I don't own several hundred dollar headphones, so I don't feel onboard audio sounded any worse than my Creative Sound Blaster Z sound card which is like $90 new.
Click to expand...

Do people still use onboard audio? I figure most people would opt for digital audio over HDMI/DisplayPort.
 
NightHawkRMX said:
My monitor has speakers that are terrible so I don't use them. I use headphones a lot so those just plug into my front panel analog jack.

Digital audio has to get converted to analog at some point anyhow.
Click to expand...

Your monitor doesn't have 3.5mm audio out? Conversion to analog is cleaner at the monitor, I imagine. There're all sorts of electronic noise inside a PC.
 
It does have a 3.5mm out but it's harder to reach than the front of my pc. My speakers on my desk also have a headphone jack.

I just don't notice a difference. My headphones aren't amazing but probably better than what a lot of people use.
 
madmatt30 said:
Untrue, had consoles since the release of the sega mega drive/consoles.

I've had virtual every console releases apart from the ps4.

I've also owned a 'gaming' pc for the last 15 years or so.

They've always been fairly budget rigs until now but they've had as much use as any console I've owned at the same time.

The reasons being

  1. PC games are way cheaper
  2. PC exclusives
This 'may' change with the series x, but I doubt it.
Click to expand...


you are living in he past. wake up , we have 12 Tflops consoles now that can game on 8K .. this is nothing like ps4 or mega drive ... where PC was three folds better
 
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