Deals, Discounts, and Best PC Component Buys & Builds

Alexander Moore67 said:What I was trying to say is that $500 it's actually a decent price for something brand new!

As for me, I paid full price for my Radeon RX 580 $500 right back before the recession hit. Back then, you were looking at prices around $150-$$667.

Alexander Moore67 said:I've had mine for five years. You won't find anything better or quieter for this price.

I think I've been there already. 🤣

I have the exact same case. Bought it five years ago and it's great. It's dead silent.

wanderingbison9 said:I paid full price for my Radeon RX 580 $500 right before everything went crazy. Back then, you could snag one for like 1500-$667.

Man, me too, but like you said—that was "before the crisis." There was a time when mid-range gear would go for maybe 1500-$733, but nowadays? You're looking at 2300-$1167.

Alexander Moore67 said:https://www.ebay.com/itm/ms-q700-case-listing
I’ve owned this thing for five years. At this price point, you won't find anything better or quieter.

Are the temps holding up? Seems like the airflow might be choked. I'm waiting on a reply from the seller, but I have a hunch the newer MS Q700 model actually performs worse.

I've been browsing some desktop options over at Protis and Instar. I don't really need a beast for heavy gaming; it's mostly for work—running Photoshop and some video/photo editing software...
Also, do these models come with built-in Wi-Fi?
Any help picking between these would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

crimsonridge44 said:I'm looking at a few setups over at Protis and Instar. I don't really need anything crazy for gaming; it’s mostly for work—just running Photoshop and some video editing software.
Also, do they have wireless Wi-Fi built in?
If anyone can help me pick between these, thanks in advance.

Not sure if you realize that video editing actually demands more muscle from a PC than most games do. And yeah, these specific machines definitely aren't up to that task. Main question though: what's the budget looking like? There are motherboards out there with Wi-Fi modules already baked in, which I'd definitely suggest if you're trying to avoid running cables everywhere.

Sam Diaz2 said:I'm not sure if you realize that video editing actually requires more horsepower than gaming. These builds definitely aren't hitting that mark. The big question is, what's your actual budget? If you can't run an Ethernet cable, I'd highly suggest looking for motherboards with built-in WiFi...

Look, this is just a motherboard. I'm not talking about heavy-duty editing; I run Pinnacle Studio on my laptop, which only has an Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-1005G1 CPU @ 1.20GHz 1.19 GHz, and it handles things fine. I'm just not sure how much room there is for upgrades down the road...
As for the internet, could I just plug in a USB wireless adapter?
My budget is around $3,000–$3,500, including a monitor.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...ev-10-12/sp#sp

crimsonridge44 said:It's just a motherboard, I'm not planning on editing high-end video or anything. I have Pinnacle Studio on my laptop (an Intel Core i3-1005G1, 1.20GHz) and it runs fine. Not sure if it'll be upgradable later if I need to.
Also, can I just use a USB wireless adapter for Wi-Fi?
Budget is $300-$350 plus a monitor.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...ev-10-12/sp#sp

In my experience, cheap motherboards are usually the first thing to kick the bucket. They tend to take all the other components down with them. And funny enough, I've had bad luck with Gigabyte twice now.

If I were working with a tight budget like that, I'd honestly look at used gear that still has a warranty. There's actually some decent stuff out there (even if some people overprice it).
I put together a list using parts from Protis—which is what I'd do... leaves you room for an upgrade later (like adding a dedicated GPU) or more RAM. For Wi-Fi, you'll just have to use a USB stick. You won't find any budget boards with built-in modules.

Gigabyte mb B450M h 617
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G 4.6 GHz AM4 1701
G.Skill AEGIS - DDR4 - 16 GB: 2 x 8 GB 424
MS FIGHTER S300 260
Gigabyte Pulse 550W 440
SSD Patriot P300 R1700/W1100, 256GB, M.2 NVMe 172

TOTAL: $1205.

Quick suggestion... you could probably shave $20-$10 off the case price. But you should probably grab at least two extra case fans... maybe $20-$17 per fan.
For the PSU, just go with a basic Bronze rated one. And definitely plan on adding another SSD later for more storage.

Sam Diaz2 said:In my experience, those budget boards are always the first things to die. They fail before any other component. And funny enough, it happened twice with gigabyte hardware.

I’ve had two Dell boards (not the high-end stuff) kick the bucket on me, and they weren't even cheap. Meanwhile, the two gigabyte ones I owned are still running perfectly fine. I'm on my third one now. Honestly, I think it's just a roll of the dice.

urbanheron4 said:I've had two ASUS boards (non-ROG models) that weren't exactly budget options, either. On the other hand, two Gigabyte boards I owned are still going strong. Now I'm on my third. I guess it just depends on your luck.

One of my old builds used a Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME paired with a Xeon x5650, and it's still running perfectly today.

Prices are dropping on older AMD Ryzen 4000 Series chips, specifically the 6-core/12-thread R5 4500, which is sitting at just $227 right now.

https://www.newegg.com/p/example...AWEADQE%3D

The 4-core/8-thread Ryzen 3 4300G and the 6-core/12-thread R5 4600G are actually priced identically at the moment $298. I honestly can't wrap my head around the logic behind that pricing structure, but it doesn't really matter; I highly doubt many buyers will be clueless enough to accidentally pick up the Ryzen 3 4300G when the better option is right there for the same price.🍿

This looks pretty solid to me!
I honestly can't remember the last time an RTX 3060 was this cheap

Lawrence Phillips said:Looks fine to me.
I can't remember the last time an RTX 3060 was this cheap.

https://www.newegg.com/vga-asr-rtx306...m_medium=click

$270 cash.

Zachary Nguyen2 said:$270 cash.

The 70 is better than the 580, but if I can snag that 580 for $500-$233???

Alexander Moore67 said:The 70 is definitely stronger than the 580, but if you can snag a 580 for under 500 bucks--$233???

That's just throwing money away.

I've actually got 580😁

https://www.mobileshop.eu/hr/other/r...m_medium=click

A Biostar RTX3070 for $500 from some German/EU shop?

I'm running a Ryzen 5 3600 with 4 sticks of DDR4 at 3000 MHz and a GTX 1060 3GB.
Should I go with one of these two, or is there a better value option out there?
ASUS ROG Strix B550-A Gaming - $185
ASRock B550 Pro4 - $140

Hey, it's me again. Haven't changed a single thing yet. https://www.userbenchmark.com/PCBuil...365254?tab=GPU
On the left is my current rig, and on the right are some upgrades I’m eyeing—mostly just a CPU and GPU swap. I’d probably toss in another stick of RAM and maybe a beefier HDD too, though I’m honestly questioning if I even need a new PSU since I'm sitting on a 500W unit right now. The headache is that the site says it won't play nice with my motherboard, so which one should I actually grab? Does it even make sense to build a whole new machine if my max budget is around $1,300?

What are you even using this rig for, and where do you feel it's actually lagging? If you're gaming, I guess you should probably grab a better GPU first, then maybe figure out if you actually need a CPU upgrade later. Adding more RAM probably won't do much for you anyway.