Black Friday is approaching and the season for building new PC is also here. Companies have launched their new products and sellers are ready with deals. Each year during the holiday season and Black Friday we see amazing deals. And for a person in a tight budget, this is a great time to purchase and make a new gaming rig. In this article, we will be guiding you on building the best budget gaming PC for Black Friday 2019. Our goal is to get the best performing hardware at the lowest price.
Intel, AMD, and Nvidia are the three main companies in the consumer computer world. They have already launched their products for this year. We saw improved hardware and some better iterations. All of these things give us customers more and more options to have a better choice and get better value. Here in this article, we will be focusing on a reasonably cheap gaming PC that will play modern AAA titles and other games with ease in mid-quality in 1080p.
Our build guide is based on USA pricing and most prices are extracted from Amazon. Our focus is on main components like processor, graphics card, memory, and storage. So these are our recommendations.
1) Processor: Intel or AMD?
Here we have two choices and that is Intel or AMD. Both have toughened up their game with new releases. Intel now has 9th generation 14nm++ chips with no GPU at a reasonable price. Similarly, AMD has 7nm Ryzen 3 which is taking the market with a sweep. AMD Ryzen chips normally don’t have integrated graphics but some special models do have. Following the trend, Intel also launched processors without iGPU and offered it at low prices.
Our target is good 1080p gaming in budget so we will focus on dedicated graphics card. For Intel fans, we suggest picking Core i3 9100F. This is F series which means there is no integrated graphics. Thus it is cheaper but it does come with a stock cooler which is enough. Core i3 9100F is a quad-core CPU with 6 MB cache and a max turbo frequency of 4.2 GHz. The price of i3 9100F is $88.16 in Amazon USA.
For AMD lovers, we pick Ryzen 3 2300x. This is a 7 nm quad-core processor with 8 MB L3 cache and a max frequency of 4 GHz. At the time of writing this, we couldn’t find this processor, so we picked Ryznen 5 2600 at $117. This processor has 6 cores, 12 threads, 10 MB L3 cache and turbo of 3.9 GHz.
If you want to save more cash, we would pick Intel Pentium G5400 at $60 or AMD Ryzen 3 2200G at $78. The 2200G is quad-core chip so it is good but Intel 9100F is better for gaming with GPU. If you plan to not have a dedicated graphics card then Ryzen 3 3200G and 2200G are cheapest and best picks.
2) Motherboard
If your pick is Intel Core i3 9100F or Pentium G5400, then we need the H310 board. This is a reasonably priced entry-level chipset. For the Intel processor, we pick MSI H310M Pro M2 Plus at $60. This board has a M.2 slot and can also support i5 9400F. So future expansion is also open. MSI is very popular in the PC world and while searching only they had a cheaper board with a bit better features.
AMD users can enjoy better boards at cheaper price due to chipset and feature pricing. Somehow Intel boards are always expensive compared to AMD ones. For our AMD build, we are picking up ASRock B450 HDV R4.0a which comes at $60. This is a very good board for the price and it provides many good features.
3) Memory and Storage
This subject is clear. We need at least 8 GB DDR4 RAM and at 2400 MHz. Intel Core i3 9400F processor can take 2400 MHz RAM but AMD processors can handle and demand high-frequency memory. We recommend picking up one stick of Corsair Vengence LPX 8GB DDR4 2400 MHz stick at $40. Our board has two DIMMs so if we leave one empty then we can install another 8 GB stick in the future and enjoy 16 GB memory with dual channel.
Now for AMD, we need high-frequency memory so we take Patriot Viper 8 GB 3000 MHz stick at $32. You can have this cheaper module in Intel as well. Even if you install high-frequency RAM, the system will automatically decrease the frequency and use in 2400 MHz.
Now for storage, we recommend having one SSD. As our budget is smaller, we recommend ADATA SU635 SSD with 240 GB capacity. It costs just $25 and is much faster with 3D NAND. However, the most ideal decision is to have 500 GB WD Blue SSD at $65. If you want to save you can just opt for 500 GB WD Blue hard drive for $25. Actually SSD only affects game load time so for a tight budget conventional hard disk is a reasonable choice.
4) Graphics Card
This is the most crucial part of a gaming PC. All the gaming and rendering power is provided by this piece of hardware. It is also the most expensive part of the system. For graphics card also we have two options from Nvidia and AMD.
Here we are selecting Zotac GTX 1050 TI 4 GB at $115. This is a very capable GPU and it can drive games at mid setting in 1080p with very good FPS. If possible try to find GTX 1650. On the other side, we are picking XFX Radeon RX 560 4 GB at $110. You can save a bit by choosing GT 1030 2 GB at $90 or RX 550 at $85. BUt slowly 4 GB is becoming bare minimum so we would advise getting 4 GB VRAM at least.
5) Casing and Power supply
Casing with good ventilation is important as much as we need efficient and well-rated SMPS. For us 450W is enough thus we are choosing EVGA BR 450W 80+ bronze rated power supply which comes at around $40. There are cases that come around $30 but we are choosing Cooler Master Masterbox Q300L which is priced at $45. This has a magnetic dust filter and an acrylic side panel. So uses can put some LED Fans, lights and show off as well.
Conclusion
To sum everything up we have made an Intel system of around $405 and an AMD system of $435. This is ideal for low budget gaming PC that you can build in this Black Friday. It will provide very good performance because we know GTX 1050 TI is great. We still use this graphics card to play games. So for this Black Friday, make your target on this hardware to save money and good performance. If you have a little bit more, then go the extra mile with a better graphics card like GTX 1660, 1650, RX 570 or get a decent SSD. If you can put some extra fans in your PC for good ventilation as well. Our key advice is that if you want better performance in games, use a better graphics card. So our summarized build is:
- Intel Gaming PC
- Core i3 9100F
- MSI H310M Pro M2 Plus
- 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 RAM
- GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB/ RX 560 4 GB/ GTX 1650
- 500 GB Hard Drive
- 450W Power Supply
- Total Price: $405
- AMD Gaming PC
- Ryzen 5 2600
- ASRock B450 HDV R4.0a
- 8 GB 3000 MHz DDR4 RAM
- GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB/ RX 560 4 GB/ GTX 1650
- 500 GB Hard Drive
- 450W Power Supply
- Total Price: 435
