Video Games Tutorials and News - The $300 Gaming Pc No One Is Talking About
I suck, but thankfully the computer does not. It has four cores, a modern article card, and it can be upgraded to a Ryzen 9 CPU in the future. It took some research, but I can confidently say, yes it is.
Thanks jawa!
But before we get into that, I want to thank the sponsor of this article. Jawa Java is a PC hardware marketplace that's designed to fight scalping, so they have really good prices on all their PC hardware and all other computer builds.
More on that at the end of the article, but for now let's talk about this 300 computer.
The previous $300 pc method
For example, historically, if you wanted to build a PC for 300 bucks or less, you would get an old office PC, slap a article card in it, and call it a day. I still recommend this as a solid stop gap solution for new builders who are on a tight budget, but it has one major downside.
The upgrade path for the fastest processor one of these office PCs supports is probably low-end to mid-range. processor on a Ryzen platform or a modern Intel platform. It still performs well, but it's starting to show its age. The office PC solution also has what I call limiters. While they don't directly affect performance, they would definitely affect what you can do with the PC in the future.
Your oem motherboard, your oem case with probably less than stellar airflow, and your low wattage power supply So what I want to do is use that $300 budget and build a modern computer with a brighter future. You know, give it an opportunity for college, med school, or starting a family. This is an awful analogy slash joke, so Ozzie, what are our options? Well, I've got to research.
The "new" $300 pc method
Before the global hardware shortage, Apus and Ryzen 3 processors were great options for this type of budget. That's not really the case anymore. Athon 3000g, Ryzen 3 1200, Ryzen 2200g, and 3200g. I really thought that this project was done for until I came across this shimmering light of hope, the Atlantis x4 950.
It's four cores and four threads with a 3.8 gigahertz boost, and it was actually AMD's response to Intel's beloved Pentiums from like 2017. Honestly. I think a lot of people just forgot that this processor existed because AMD has dropped a lot of budget options since this launched four years ago, but because of current pricing and hardware shortages, it's a great option because it gets you on the Am4 platform for only forty dollars with a CPU cooler.
Okay, Ozzie, but what's the catch? Okay, yeah, there are a few downsides to this processor. Firstly, it's only guaranteed to work on 300 chipset motherboards, so a320, b350, and x370, and although there is some support for b450, and x470 motherboards, it's not guaranteed because newer bios revisions just don't support it.
And lastly, it only supports up to 2400 MHz of RAM. Yeah, it sucks, but this is still miles ahead of the OEM motherboards that you would find in office computers.
The pc parts!
All right. So obviously we're building this entire computer around the 25 Athlon CPU, but what about the rest of our components? So I picked up a wraith cooler for 17 and a half dollars off eBay, and this one actually comes with the taller heatsink and a copper slug, which is really nice. You can probably get it for around the same price right now.
The motherboard I found is the ASUS Prime A320 mK, for 40 shipped on Amazon. I actually got a discount of like 27 percent, but I doubt you'll be able to find a deal like that anytime soon. These motherboards usually range from 40 to about 55, so expect to spend about that much money. I snagged 16 gigs of DD4 memory for about $50 shipped on Amazon.
I was debating between 16 and 8, but 16 is so cheap nowadays, it's like 50 shipped for a pretty solid kit, so I recommend going with that for storage. I picked up a really cheap sata drive, 2.5 inch 240 gig. It was enough for two large games and then a handful of smaller games. It's only 27 shipped, and you can always add more storage later, as a rule of thumb.
Please do not buy your storage. The power supply I picked up is the EVGA 450, br for 30 shipped on Amazon. I think it's going for like 25 or 26 dollars right now. It's a great model for a low-end build and you can probably support something like a 200 watt TDP card in the future assuming the rest of your components aren't super power hungry.
Then I combined it with one of my favorite cases right now, the es gaming q06, for 40 shipped on Newegg. This case has awesome tempered glass, four pre-installed RGB fans, a power supply basement, and a perforated front panel, so you get pretty decent airflow. It's honestly kind of spectacular that they're selling it for as cheap as they are, so get it while you can, and lastly, the point of contention for a lot of these budget articles is The article card that I got was an rx 462 gig for 79.
How to get the article card
There are four simple things you need to check. Make sure it performs similarly to a 750 ti, make sure it's from 2013, or later, ensure that it has a tdp of 200 watts or less specifically for this computer, and make sure it's no more than a hundred dollars used. The easiest way to do this is to go to the 750 TI's tech powerup page and then scroll down to relative performance if it fits these parameters.
If it's 2013 or newer, 200 watt tdp or less, then go to ebay and check and see if it's around 100, or less. If it is, then you found yourself a good card for this build, So recommendations that I've seen over the last few weeks that work well. gtx 660 or 660 ti, gtx 760s, gtx 950s, rx 460s, r9 270s, and 270x's.
These are all cards that will probably get you just enough performance for 1080p, and that's about it. You just wait for your parts to arrive, and then you can start building.
The pc build!!!
I actually have all of mine here, so let's go do that. So I built the computer on Twitch last week, and it was a ton of fun. Let's go now. One thing I'm trying to do is make all of my computers more aesthetically pleasing, and Jawa helped sponsor this build and all the extra goodies to make that possible with some spray paint and some vanadium wrap and some acrylic.
All of that, and I still couldn't get a head shot. Let's go, let's go, great old phenomenal old. No, we've got to go. We gotta go. She got lucky. There we go. Let's go waste my oath. I still got the kill. I think this isn't too bad. It's around 60. It's probably going to dip a little bit, but that's definitely fine for sieving a turn-basedish game.
It's totally okay to even hit up to a hundred. You will love to see it. You will absolutely love the music in this. So we got a little bit over 60 fps. Don't ask me how I know that. I've done this way too many times in the division of my head.
