Budget Building PC

[Spoo]

Yeah, I'm back to this.

I'm looking to build a PC again, and same as before, I'm on a pretty tight budget. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to build a decent gaming PC for under $300 USD, but if you can prove me wrong, please do. I might can scrounge up a DVD Burner for free but everything else I need. I have the know-how to do it myself so just recommend me some rigs :wink:

 

[Neo-Bahamut]

Perhaps you can find hardware for that amount but I don't think so.
If you need a PC, I could recommend you an office PC just to "work" with it (internet, watch videos ...).
If you want to play games, you should buy a console :P

 

[Ellie]

I have previously built a PC for £200 (no optical) but I doubt it would be brilliant for gaming.

It had "high end specs" when it was built but no graphics card other than built in.

You could probably built a decent PC for $300 but well I guess it depends what gaming you are going to do with it. If you already have *a pc* then don't bother as whatever you build is gonna be the same.

 

[Venetia]

the problem is that 'gaming pcs' focus heavily on video cards and cpus which are typ the more expensive pieces.

you could build a pc that RUNS and does everything you NEED it to (i.e. internet, word processing, etc) for easily $200 (w/o a monitor) but for a pc that'll run any modern game on even decent settings you have to take a lot of things into consideration. like if you blow a lot of the budget on getting one or two GOOD items and go cruddy with the rest, you'll probably bottleneck and make the better items pointless.

you probably wouldnt want to build one from the ground-up on such a tight budget because, while it can save you money on high-end machines, all the nagging little required parts will kill the first half of your budget. like the power, the motherboard, the sound card (if the mobo doesn't have one built in), the case, the monitor, the cables, the fans, the keyboard, etc.

your best bet would probably be to get an old model pre-built on the cheap that someone is trying to get rid of, then mod it. i personally can't seem to get rid of all the old pc's clogging up the storage spaces in the garage. you could probably find someone to just give you one and then you just bolster what it's lacking.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

I am usually an intel guy, but you can find cheap socket AM3 motherboards, and then get like an AMD Phenom X4 for now and later you can upgrade to a Phenom II X4 or X6 later. The real killers will be RAM and GPU

 

[SamusK]

I do this for a living and gaming PCs almost always use AMD processors. The pipelines are bigger and the multiple processors take the stress off the GPU. The GPU is best put on the PCI-e slot (if you have one). I once built a pc with parts completely off eBay. its possible. I also use wholesale websites like TigerDirect to get the cheapest parts while at the same time getting quality as well.

I would say $300 USD will play games like Sims 3 or something but if you want Call of Duty 4 or beyond to run smooth or at full capacity, I suggest saving at least $500 USD. Pushing for that extra GPU speed is worth it. RAM is cheap. I can get 2 sticks of 2GB for $40 if you know where to look.

Also, your budget should not include a monitor. Towers are the only thing you should look for unless you want to throw in another $200.

btw, you give me $300 and I can make you a pc that looks like an old nintendo. :haha: