Can I get a better deal than this for $225?

Hey everyone,

I just finished putting together a budget build for my cousin—something intended for some light gaming—and I wanted to run the specs by you all. Did I miss anything obvious, or is there room to squeeze out more performance for the price?

CPU Intel Pentium Gold desktop, s. LGA1151 - $155
Gigabyte GA-A320M-H, AM4 - $143
2 X DDR4 4GB Patriot 2666MHz Signature - $107
Crucial SSD 120GB BX500, SATA3 - $81
INTER-TECH K-07 Midi Tower, ATX, PSU 500W - $85

TOTAL (including shipping + 10% cash discount): $529

Best Buy

Thanks in advance for the help! 😵

I don't think you can squeeze any more out of a budget that tight. Maybe just check if there happens to be a board in that price range that actually has heatsinks on the VRM.

If they're planning on cramming modern games and everything else onto an 112GB SSD, they might be better off just going with a classic 1TB HDD.

Or maybe just go for $27 at least double the capacity; 120 GB is honestly way too small KLIK

I definitely agree that it's a bit tight, but honestly, it’s perfectly fine for a starting point. He’s actually planning to throw in another 1 TB 7400 rpm hard drive pretty soon—so the SSD will basically just handle his macOS and core programs, plus whatever games he finds himself playing most often most of the time.

Joshua Jones11 said:Sure, I get it's on the low side, but for a start, it'll do. He’s planning to toss in another 1 TB 7400 rpm HDD soon anyway. So the SSD stays dedicated to macOS and his apps, plus whatever he plays most often.

👍

Just a heads up—he won't be playing much on that rig. "Light gaming" is a pretty subjective term.

If he’s thinking about adding a GPU later (like picking up a used card for a hundred bucks to massively boost performance), then grabbing an Intel Core i3-8100 makes way more sense. It's significantly stronger than that Pentium Gold desktop for roughly the same price, maybe even slightly less, just without the integrated graphics.

It’s probably smarter to grab an R3 1200 and pair it with a used graphics card, like an R9 270, which you can find for about $250 $100 in that case, you'll likely need a beefier power supply. Personally, I'm perfectly fine with my EVGA 600W unit for $100 looking at the link, it handles that GPU and a 125W processor without breaking a sweat.

You could pick up an HD 7770 for around $100 $50 and you wouldn't even need to upgrade the power supply
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Ultimately, it all comes down to what games you're planning to play