Budget PC Build

[Mo'Fire]

My laptop is on its way out and looking to build a PC that will play city of heroes max graphics for as low prices as possible.

 

any suggestions???

[Psyblade]

Building your own is always a better way to go. What resolution and what is your target frame rate (60 hz, 120, 240 etc).   Also what is your budget and what other uses would you want?

[GM Korvin]

Hello! While this post is directed more to laptops, it's very in depth, and does talk about different graphics cards and the like, along with general advice that might help you out.

[Troo]

Prices currently aren't going to be the best due to demand and low inventories.. try and get even a refrigerator right now is a challenge much less getting a deal.

 

That said, keeping an eye out can yield desirable results.

 

I was able to find one like below for $699, then upgraded to 32GB ddr4 and a f9 silent fan:

HP Pavilion 690 Gaming Desktop

Intel Core i5-9400F upto 4.1GHz

8GB RAM

256GB NVMe SSD

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

[Seravajan]

What's about an used 1 to 2 year old PC? Much cheaper and still up to date.

[GM Tock]

I think if you posted in here, there's a bunch of folks who would love to help. 

[Eoghnved]

For what it's worth, I'm able to play the game tolerably on a Dell OptiPlex 3020.  I'm planning on getting something far more powerful soon, but the fact that the 3020 works is a good sign for budget builders.

[Troo]

lots of ram & a ssd are big benefits.

[WanderingAries]

16 hours ago, Troo said:

lots of ram & a ssd are big benefits.

RAM requirements are questionable depending on need, but I wouldn't go below 8-16Gb anymore for those that game or multitask. 

[Hyperstrike]

Preliminary questions from my old hardware buying guide:

 

Quote

Okay, there’s lots of people coming around asking about new computers on the forums. And, usually, there’s a huge spate of Q&A before arriving at an answer.

In the interest of speeding up answering people, I figured I’d post some general guidelines to how to ask about buying or building a new computer on the forums. Answering these questions can make it much easier and faster for the tech-heads here on the forums to answer your questions.

1. What will you primarily be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
2. What’s your budget? (Real Dollars) Are tax and shipping included? This is important as it allows people trying to help you to suggest things appropriate to your budget.
3. Where do you live? This is important as it affects what vendors you may buy from and how much shipping costs might be.
4. Are you planning to buy or build?
5. What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word “Everything” is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you’ll need. If you’re unsure what exactly you need, say so.
6. If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
7. Will you be overclocking?
8. What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? What is the resolution?
9. When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
10. What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
11. Any specific must-have features? Must be able to max out Ultra-Mode? Must have 6+GB of RAM? Must have an SSD? etc.
12. Are there any vendors/brands you’d specifically prefer to use?
13. Are there any vendors/brands you’d specifically prefer to avoid?
14. Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? (Note: If your current OS came with your computer, odds are that it is NOT transferable.)

To simplify things, you can copy and paste the entirety of the box below and then simply post your answers below the *** line.
Note: Use this information and start your own thread. Don’t utilize the guide-thread itself to ask.

 

Okay, there’s lots of people coming around asking about new computers on the forums. And, usually, there’s a huge spate of Q&A before arriving at an answer.

In the interest of speeding up answering people, I figured I’d post some general guidelines to how to ask about buying or building a new computer on the forums. Answering these questions can make it much easier and faster for the tech-heads here on the forums to answer your questions.

1. What will you primarily be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
2. What’s your budget? (Real Dollars) Are tax and shipping included? This is important as it allows people trying to help you to suggest things appropriate to your budget.
3. Where do you live? This is important as it affects what vendors you may buy from and how much shipping costs might be.
4. Are you planning to buy or build?
5. What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word “Everything” is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you’ll need. If you’re unsure what exactly you need, say so.
6. If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
7. Will you be overclocking?
8. What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? What is the resolution?
9. When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
10. What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
11. Any specific must-have features? Must be able to max out Ultra-Mode? Must have 6+GB of RAM? Must have an SSD? etc.
12. Are there any vendors/brands you’d specifically prefer to use?
13. Are there any vendors/brands you’d specifically prefer to avoid?
14. Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? (Note: If your current OS came with your computer, odds are that it is NOT transferable.)

To simplify things, you can copy and paste the entirety of the box below and then simply post your answers below the *** line.
Note: Use this information and start your own thread. Don’t utilize the guide-thread itself to ask.

 

1) What will you primarily be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
***
2) What’s your budget? (Real Dollars)  Are tax and shipping included?  This is important as it allows people trying to help you to suggest things appropriate to your budget.
***
3) Where do you live? This is important as it affects what vendors you may buy from and how much shipping costs might be.
***
4) Are you planning to buy or build?
***
5) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word “Everything” is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you’ll need. If you’re unsure what exactly you need, say so.
***
6) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
***
7) Will you be overclocking?
***
8) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
***
9) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
***
10) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
***
11) Any specific must-have features? Must be able to max out Ultra-Mode? Must have 6+GB of RAM? Must have an SSD? etc.
***
12) Are there any vendors/brands you’d specifically prefer to use?
***
13) Are there any vendors/brands you’d specifically prefer to avoid?
***
14) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? (Note: If your current OS came with your computer, odds are that it is NOT transferable.)
***

**Terminology**

CPU – Central Processing Unit (the chip running the computer)
GPU – Graphics Processing Unit (Your video card. More specifically the main processing chip on the card.)
PPU – Physics Processing Unit (A processor dedicated to doing physics calculations.)
PSU – Power Supply Unit
SSD – Solid State Drive (A “hard drive” that uses flash memory as a storage medium instead of spinning platters.)
RAM – Random Access Memory (Non-storage memory used by the system.) Mainly expressed in GB (Gigabytes) nowadays.
VRAM – Video RAM Video cards nowadays come with their on-board memory (mostly). Usually expressed in MB (Megabytes) or GB (Gigabytes) nowadays.
MB – Megabyte (For hard drives: 1 million bytes, For RAM: 1.024 million bytes)
GB – Gigabyte (For hard drives: 1 billion bytes, For RAM: 1.024 billion bytes)
Hertz – Number of cycles per second. Used in timing and speed expressions for memory and various processing units (See GPU, CPU, PPU, etc) and other devices in a computer. Most commonly expressed as:

Mhz – Megahertz (1 million cycles per second)
Ghz – Gigahertz (1 billion cycles per second)

OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer (A company that originally manufactured a product.)
VAR – Value-Added Reseller (A company that adds features to a product and resells it.)
Systems Integrator – (A company that specializes in bringing various components/subsystems together into a whole and insures those systems function properly together)
SLI – Scalable Link Interface – A proprietary technology used by nVidia to link two or more video cards and gain performance/features through parallel processing.
Crossfire – A proprietary technology used by AMD/ATI to link two or more video cards and gain performance/features through parallel processing. (A technology competing with SLI.)
USB – Universal Serial Bus (A technology used for linking various devices cameras, computers, printers, etc together.)
IDE: Integrated Drive Electronics (also PATA: Parallel ATA) – A legacy technology for attaching drives to a computer. Now superceded by SATA.
SATA: Serial ATA (The successor technology to IDE for attaching drives to a computer.)

 

 

CPU – Central Processing Unit (the chip running the computer)
GPU – Graphics Processing Unit (Your video card. More specifically the main processing chip on the card.)
PPU – Physics Processing Unit (A processor dedicated to doing physics calculations.)  (Mostly obsolete as modern GPUs handle physics on-board.)
PSU – Power Supply Unit
SSD – Solid State Drive (A “hard drive” that uses flash memory as a storage medium instead of spinning platters.)
RAM – Random Access Memory (Non-storage memory used by the system.) Mainly expressed in GB (Gigabytes) nowadays.
VRAM – Video RAM Video cards nowadays come with their on-board memory (mostly). Usually expressed in MB (Megabytes) or GB (Gigabytes) nowadays.
MB – Megabyte (For hard drives: 1 million bytes, For RAM: 1.024 million bytes)
GB – Gigabyte (For hard drives: 1 billion bytes, For RAM: 1.024 billion bytes)
Hertz – Number of cycles per second. Used in timing and speed expressions for memory and various processing units (See GPU, CPU, PPU, etc) and other devices in a computer. Most commonly expressed as:

Mhz – Megahertz (1 million cycles per second)
Ghz – Gigahertz (1 billion cycles per second)

OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer (A company that originally manufactured a product.)
VAR – Value-Added Reseller (A company that adds features to a product and resells it.)
Systems Integrator – (A company that specializes in bringing various components/subsystems together into a whole and insures those systems function properly together)
SLI – Scalable Link Interface – A proprietary technology used by nVidia to link two or more video cards and gain performance/features through parallel processing.(Note: This technology is not as widespread as it used to be, due to the rising costs of cards and the performance jumps between generations.)
Crossfire – A proprietary technology used by AMD/ATI to link two or more video cards and gain performance/features through parallel processing. (A technology competing with SLI.)  (Note: Similar to SLI, Crossfire is used more rarely.)
USB – Universal Serial Bus (A technology used for linking various devices cameras, computers, printers, etc together.)
IDE: Integrated Drive Electronics (also PATA: Parallel ATA) – A legacy technology for attaching drives to a computer. Now superceded by SATA.
SATA: Serial ATA (The successor technology to IDE for attaching drives to a computer.)
PCI-E: PCI Express A communications backplane for various I/O devices (drive controllers, video cards, etc) on modern motherboards.
M.2: One of the specs for motherboard-mounted Solid State drives.  Form factor is more like a memory stick (with the interface on one end) than a traditional drive "box".

The reason I ask for "real numbers" is that "as low as possible" is a QUALITATIVE judgement.  I'm going to be building a new system around the end of the year.  ALAP for me would be $2000 or so.  Upper end of my acceptable budget will be closer to $3000.  But if I was doing "no compromises", you'd see an absolutely STUPID 5-digit build.

Where, for you, ALAP might be $600.  And your upper acceptable mark might be $750.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Hyperstrike

[WanderingAries]

Aren't Crossfire and SLI going away? IDK, thought I read something to that extent, but I haven't researched new tech in a while.

[Hyperstrike]

1 hour ago, WanderingAries said:

Aren't Crossfire and SLI going away? IDK, thought I read something to that extent, but I haven't researched new tech in a while.

It looks like Crossfire is, indeed, going away.  There's mGPU support, but I'm really not sure what form it takes.
SLI is being deprecated in lieu of NVLink (a similar technology but provides more bandwidth between cards)

The main limiting factors here are:

• Hardware Vendor Interest: With AMD, they pretty much aren't interested.  And with NVIDIA, you're basically being offered the option, so long as you can afford the price tag.
• Game Vendor Implementation: The game vendors need to support this.  This market is shrinking all the time, as it's more economical to spend developer time on making the game look and play good across most of the standard single GPU setups.
• Unit Cost vs Relative Performance: Basically the mid-range and high end cards are relatively expensive (the RTX 3090 is going to be a $1500 unit).  And the performance, single-card is positively phenomenal (the performance jump between an RTX 2070 and a 3070 is nearly double).  There's also the fact that performance increase for multi-GPU is NEVER 1-for-1.  Depending on implementation, you get a modest bump in framerate, and actual quality bumps are essentially non-existent.  NOBODY SANE is going to drop $3K just to gain a few frames over a $1500 solution.

So, in the end, if your hardware supports it and you can afford it, you're still looking at a limited number of games where you'll see any appreciable real-world benefits.