Budget Gaming PC 650 or under...Possible?

Perfect budget for some second hand stuff.

2nd ryzen sounds great here with a current Mobo, maybe something like a used gtx 1070 and boom you got yourself a nice little 1080p machine

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Budget Gaming PC 650 or under...Possible?

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oh it's possible but you're going to have to sacrifice time, depending on what you want to run. the time will be to find some used parts (primarily the GPU)

there are optiplex gaming builds for $300 and under on Youtube, fwiw.

2nd gen Ryzen 5s are really cheap and good enough for a gaming build that will play like 95% of games well. lots of reasonable/cheap MOBOs for those processors.

Here is a $700 build i just did on PCPartpicker

that is 100% new and will run almost anything well and i imagine AAA decently. you can probably get to $650 with different MOBOs/cases. or you can get there by sacrificing SSD for HDD.

A 1070 is overkill for a budget 1080p build unless you are trying to push 120+hz in intensive games. I use a 1070 at 1440p with a 165hz monitor, and i get over 60 fps in almost every title at med-high settings.

Thanks for the links. I will look at them and make a plan. Definitely not going over 650 because its his money and he earned it. I want to teach him to get what he can afford and not to always rely on me for stuff like this (although I will always help him). Trying to teach him to stick with a budget. If he wants something more, he needs more cash!

(Will likely give in at the end...maybe)

I noticed some compatibility problems that they are warning. Is this going to be an issue? I just dont want to to start ordering and then get behind on something like that.

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use a 1070 at 1440p with a 165hz monitor, and i get over 60 fps in almost every title at med-high settings.

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Hate this line of thinking.

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I noticed some compatibility problems that they are warning. Is this going to be an issue?

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i didn't get into that so it's possible. i was just throwing something together to show you that it's possible to get in that range and have a pretty decent system

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that way he would always upgrade with another stick of RAM and SSD down the road when he saves up more

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I would probably recommend getting the SSD out of the gate. It's absolutely possible to migrate from the HDD to SSD, and for someone experienced enough, it's a pretty simple process. It's not something that I'd necessarily recommend for someone who's still learning their way through, unless you just want the experience of doing so. RAM is super easy to add after the fact, so starting smaller there is a good idea and you can double up later easily. Then again, RAM is pretty cheap these days.

Even though its probably the most important component for gaming, there's always the possibility of going with a cheapass video card and upgrading that to something nicer once budget allows. This obviously depends on what else you're looking at; if you can afford a decent one obviously go for it. I just finally upgraded my video card from a GTX 460 that was less than $200 almost 10 years ago. Now, it struggled to play new games at much more than bottom of the bar settings, but I'm more just pointing out that you don't HAVE to have much to be able to play games. You absolutely need some horsepower to play at high settings, high res and/or high framerates. If the rest of your build (including monitor) is budget level, you may not be able to take advantage of all that anyway. You could get a inexpensive video card and display now, and once you/he can afford it, get a nice display with a nice card to power it, then use the cheaper display as a second monitor. Just some food for thought.

Hate to bump a couple day old tread, but felt it was worth as I just finished a build at this price for a friend this past weekend.

Mainly, what g650Tide said about prices being high is 100% accurate. We have a shortage currently on hardware mainly Power supplies and boards. So waiting to do this build may be worthy of a thought. I also agree with others, definitely look into second hand parts. I build PCs for others and with certain budgets and goals I use second hand hardware pretty often (given the person agrees).

$650 budget is definitely do-able for a 1080p gaming rig. If you need further help, let us know.

Update:

So i watched every link and did more research and finally asked what he is looking forward to play. Fortnite and minecraft. Im thinking for 650 I can easily make that happen. He just wants to play games like that. Thanks again for all of the reading material and links. Now I got to go watch how to build a cpu. Still havent decided on what build to go with.