Budget PC build under $5k?

I’m looking for a build that skips the HDD, RAM, case, and optical drive. Just give me the essentials: CPU, GPU, PSU, and the motherboard. If we can squeeze in a 64 GB SSD within the budget, even better. This setup is mainly for gaming, so an Intel + Nvidia combo would be ideal, though I'm not strictly tied to it. Since I'll be paying cash on delivery, I'd prefer ordering from somewhere like Micro Center or a similar retailer.

What kind of case, RAM, and HDD are you running?

Whatever you do, stay far away from a 64GB SSD. Honestly, just skip it entirely. You really need at least 120GB, though if you look at current prices, grabbing a 240GB, 250GB, or 256GB drive actually makes more sense because they've become incredibly cheap lately. Plus, you might actually be able to squeeze a game or two onto it.

I guess we're looking at an Intel Core i5 4460.
Just looking at the specs for this Gigabyte Radeon R9 380 x gaming GDDR5—980MHz/5700MHz, PCI-E 3.0 x16, with DP and HDMI. It seems like a decent little card, I guess.
Maybe a Raid with PSU 550?
It looks like we're talking about the Gigabyte GA-B85M3333HHA motherboard.
Patriot Blast 240 GB SSD, 2.5", 7mm.

All in all: $1693 I guess it’s just Centro.

crimsonstag84 said:I guess we're looking at an Intel Core i5 4460.
Just looking at the specs for this Gigabyte Radeon R9 380 x gaming GDDR5—980MHz/5700MHz, PCI-E 3.0 x16, with DP and HDMI. It seems like a decent little card, I guess.
Maybe a Raid with PSU 550?
It looks like we're talking about the Gigabyte GA-B85M3333HHA motherboard.
Patriot Blast 240 GB SSD, 2.5", 7mm.

All in all: $1693 I guess it’s just Centro.

Skip the Blast. Mine died on me after just 2.5 months (literally the day before yesterday), and from what I'm reading, those things failing isn't even rare.

If you're dead set on an Intel + Nvidia combo, here’s how I'd spec it out:

1x Gigabyte GA-B85M3333HHA
1x Intel Core i5 4460
1x Intel Core i5 4460 1 x GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 960 gaming GDDR5 4
1x Blast 240 GB
1x Raid with PSU 550

Total cost: $1665

If you aren't worried about power consumption, the R9 380x is actually going to perform better than the GTX 960 for gaming.

Oh, absolutely. Especially since the X version packs about a 10% punch over the standard 380, but he was pretty dead set on an Intel + Nvidia combo, so I just threw together one example to show him what I meant.

A little heads-up: the Blast 240 GB is a decent investment while it actually works, but the failure rate is insanely high. If you want to play the lottery with your data, be my guest. Check out the Newegg reviews for the Blast.

Look, anything can fail at any time—even the top-tier, premium SSDs if you just have a run of bad luck. A buddy of mine picked up one of these a few months back, and so far, it’s running perfectly fine. Honestly, it would be incredibly helpful if there were actual reliability statistics out there for all these drives, especially those budget brands like Kingston or Crucial, so we could actually make smarter buying decisions.

There’s nothing worse than buying some cheap, unproven junk just because the price looks good on paper. Like you said, we don't have perfect data for everything, but you can easily spot the real headaches just by reading user feedback online.
I'd much rather grab a 120 GB drive or just wait and save up for something decent than settle for the cheapest possible drive that has a history of dying on you.

If your GPU dies while it's still under warranty, you haven't really lost anything besides the time it takes to get it swapped out.
A failing hard drive is a total nightmare for anyone owning a PC, especially if you haven't backed up all your important files to another drive.

I mean, who actually keeps their vital files on an SSD anyway? If it dies, you just lose your Windows install and whatever programs you had running on it. Use an HDD for storage instead.

And what happens if the hard drive dies? If we’re being realistic, you can't just rely on a single point of failure for anything critical. Personally, I toss my Word docs, PDFs, game saves, and other essentials onto my email, Dropbox, OneDrive, or even just keep them on USB sticks and external drives.

We're talking about SSDs here, and look, obviously anything can fail—an HDD isn't any safer. My point is just this: if his SSD kicks the bucket, he isn't losing much besides those specific files we talked about. I mean, let's be real, who actually keeps their most important photos or critical data sitting on an SSD?

Here’s my fix: just run two drives and four partitions. That’s how I handle it. 😬

I dump all my important stuff into Google Drive (100GB), but I’m definitely not looking to have my main PC drive just die on me—that’s a nightmare nobody needs. We aren't talking about standard failure rates here; we're talking about a product that shows inconsistent quality, like getting a 1-star experience when you paid for 5-star. Something's off.
Besides, like you guys were saying, an SSD isn't primarily meant for mass storage. Personally, I'd rather grab a high-quality 120GB drive than some sketchy 240GB one, then just add an HDD for whatever extra space I need.
If that’s your only drive, you're basically banking on it to hold all your photos, movies, and everything else people actually care about. Trying to force everything into the cloud is just absurd.

wiredotter14 said:I dump all my important stuff into Google Drive (100GB), but I’m definitely not looking to have my main PC drive just die on me—that’s a nightmare nobody needs. We aren't talking about standard failure rates here; we're talking about a product that shows inconsistent quality, like getting a 1-star experience when you paid for 5-star. Something's off.
Besides, like you guys were saying, an SSD isn't primarily meant for mass storage. Personally, I'd rather grab a high-quality 120GB drive than some sketchy 240GB one, then just add an HDD for whatever extra space I need.
If that’s your only drive, you're basically banking on it to hold all your photos, movies, and everything else people actually care about. Trying to force everything into the cloud is just absurd.

Look, if Blast is unreliable (though it might just be a bad batch, who knows?), I’d still choose a more affordable 240GB SSD over some overpriced 120GB model. Honestly, who can guarantee today that a Samsung 850 is actually more reliable than, say, an ADATA SP550? You rarely find solid data like that online. Usually, if a specific product is problematic, it only comes to light after a while, often long after the warranty expires. Take the last generation: the Samsung 840 was the gold standard for a while, but then it ran into issues, and plenty of people ended up regretting their purchase.

I remember one guy on a forum claiming Kingston HyperX drives were failing left and right—not that he was lying, he was just speaking from his own experience with several units—but when I looked up failure rate lists based on much larger sample sizes, they weren't even in the top five for returns. And that list definitely covers them, since a newer, better Kingston SSD was sitting at number five. Man, everything is relative.

Kimberly Gomez34 said:Look, anything can fail at any time—even the top-tier, premium SSDs if you just have a run of bad luck. A buddy of mine picked up one of these a few months back, and so far, it’s running perfectly fine. Honestly, it would be incredibly helpful if there were actual reliability statistics out there for all these drives, especially those budget brands like Kingston or Crucial, so we could actually make smarter buying decisions.

Look, I get it, I'm being biased because I had a nightmare experience with this drive myself. But if anyone's thinking about buying it, they should definitely go in knowing there's a much higher chance it'll just quit on them.

Kimberly Gomez34 said:Look, if Blast is unreliable (though it might just be a bad batch, who knows?), I’d still choose a more affordable 240GB SSD over some overpriced 120GB model. Honestly, who can guarantee today that a Samsung 850 is actually more reliable than, say, an ADATA SP550? You rarely find solid data like that online. Usually, if a specific product is problematic, it only comes to light after a while, often long after the warranty expires. Take the last generation: the Samsung 840 was the gold standard for a while, but then it ran into issues, and plenty of people ended up regretting their purchase.

I remember one guy on a forum claiming Kingston HyperX drives were failing left and right—not that he was lying, he was just speaking from his own experience with several units—but when I looked up failure rate lists based on much larger sample sizes, they weren't even in the top five for returns. And that list definitely covers them, since a newer, better Kingston SSD was sitting at number five. Man, everything is relative.

Honestly? I don't think SSD tech is quite reliable enough for long-term heavy use yet.

If I'm grabbing an SSD, I'm sticking to either an Intel with a 5-year warranty or that SanDisk one with 10 years. Just those two models, maybe.

Everything else still applies, but let's be real: losing a drive is one of the worst ways to lose your data. You can cut corners elsewhere, but picking a product with trash reviews? That’s just asking for trouble right out of the gate, especially when it comes to a hard drive.

There is a massive gap between a product sitting at a 4/5 rating and something stuck at a three.
And looking at the prices, we're talking about a difference of roughly $33 based on what I'm seeing.