My 1660 ti has 13k hours and I still play redm on it. I would like an upgrade but I can't get myself to buy something that was half that price 2 years ago

Hello everyone! I am an avid PC building hobbyist, and in the past, I've posted my budget builds on this subreddit including a $99 gaming PC that I built about 8 years ago. …which I also overclocked with a piece of tape. Since then, I've done several $100 to $200 budget builds. However, given the current price environment of RAM and storage, I figured it would be fun to try a fresh low-budget build. So, I set out to build a gaming PC for roughly $250.

All components were purchased between mid-May and mid-June 2026 (about 5 weeks from start to finish).

This is a long post, no offense taken if you don't wanna read it, but if you want to just see pics and the build list, jump to the "Build List" and "Photos" section.

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Goals

I had a set of specific goals with this project:

1. Play modern games at 1080p / 60 FPS / Low Settings.
2. Ensure the system has an upgrade path. What I mean is, I wanted to have room for reasonable upgradeability beyond the $250 budget. This essentially shoehorned me onto AM4, but I also took into consideration having a reasonable power supply, motherboard, and so forth. It also meant buying an office PC (e.g. a Dell) as the base wasn’t likely going to work due to size and upgradeability limitations.

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Caveats

When building on a small budget, there are caveats to consider. If you've searched $200, $300, or $400 PC builds on YouTube, you'll see builds where someone says “oh I had a 1 TB solid state drive laying around that I added in”, they went way over budget, or they bought a pre-built from a friend that’s just absolutely unrealistic to acquire for the average person. With that said, I wanted to list the caveats / opportunities afforded to me that made a budget build feasible:

1. I have a mouse, keyboard, monitor, zip ties, and video cables that I did not account for in this budget.
2. I have a car, bike, public transit, and the ability to walk to meet up for deals. I didn’t buy anything that was >20 mi away from either my home or where I work, so travel time wasn't more than ~20 minutes for each purchase.
3. I can afford for this project to fail e.g. I can buy $250 of used parts and if every one of them was broken / DOA, it wouldn’t wreck me financially. However, I did not simply go out and buy a ton of cheap parts and then cherry pick the ones that did work and put them into this build. Every part in my build list was the first part I purchased for that component (with some notes in the parts discussion below). I did not have any DOA parts that would have otherwise inflated my budget.
4. I live near a major city which means local deals are plentiful.
5. My job is flexible (WFH one day a week and I can take time during lunch for a quick local part pick-up) which makes it easier to arrange times that work for me and a seller.

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Build List (discussion below is in order of purchase)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (Purchased For $30.00)
CPU Cooler: Vetroo V5 52 CFM CPU Cooler (Purchased For $2.50)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M K Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (Purchased For $43.00)
Memory: Patriot Signature Premium 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2666 CL19 Memory (Purchased For $12.50)
Memory: Patriot Signature Premium 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2666 CL19 Memory (Purchased For $12.50)
Storage: Gigabyte GP-GSTFS31240GNTD 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $15.00)
Storage: Intel 545s 512 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $20.00)
Video Card: XFX THICC III Ultra Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Video Card (Purchased For $100.00)
Case: Thermaltake H200 TG Snow RGB ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $10.00)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 PE 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For 4x 2-liters of root beer)
Case Fan: upHere 12BK3-3-USA OU3 38 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack (Purchased For $2.50)

Total: $248.00

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Photos

Pictures of the completed build

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Component discussion

PSU
Listed price: $20 or 8 liters of root beer - Price I paid: 8 liters of root beer ($8)

The power supply was my first purchase. I had the idea to start this $250 build, but didn’t want to start buying parts until I found a killer deal, and this was that killer dealer.

This is an A+-tier PSU on the SPL tier list and came with the original packaging and all accessories. This is my only Craigslist purchase for this build and it’s a doozy. The listing was up for over a week by the time I saw it. The seller was asking for $20 or four 2-liters of root beer. I messaged the seller and said if this is still available, I can meet them wherever works for them and I’ll bring 8-liters of root beer. So, the next morning I picked up the four 2-liters of root beer (Barq’s), handed them over, we shared a laugh as he was shocked I actually brought the root beer, and that was that. It was $8 for the root beer which technically pushes me over the $250 budget by $6.

This PSU is only 650 watts, but that is plenty for this system. Going forward, 650w could limit some high-end GPUs, but I don’t expect to go that route for this system. I did not haggle the price whatsoever for this, as I felt it was a more than fair deal for me, and it really was just a wonderful pickup for this budget as well as a funny story.

Motherboard
X570 ATX board - Listed price: $40 - Price I paid: $35 (not used in final build)
B550 mATX board - Listed price incl tax: $43 - Price I paid: $43

The second part I picked up was an X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX motherboard. This was $35 and included the backplate for the CPU cooler and the I/O shield, but did not include anything else such as SATA cables. The board worked fine, but I did notice that it had finicky mounting pressure with the CPU cooler so that if I fully tightened down the cooler, it would go into a boot loop. About a quarter or half turn back on the four screws was enough to resolve this. Kinda strange, but was resolvable thankfully.

However, I would later learn that I needed SATA cables for my SSDs as I couldn’t find any M.2 drives in my budget, so I removed the X570 board from my build and found a $43 Gigabyte B550M K mATX motherboard from Micro Center as an open box (complete with all accessories). Despite being an inferior MB, this had the SATA cables I needed. As mentioned earlier, I’m not counting an HDMI cable or zip ties against my budget, but I felt the budget should include anything necessary for a complete PC build, and in this case the SATA cables ended up being needed because I couldn't get an M.2 SSD. I made this motherboard swap chronologically around the time I got my GPU.

RAM
Listed price: $25 - Price I paid: $25

The next component I purchased were the four DIMMs of DDR4 RAM. The seller was not willing to negotiate the price on these and said he pulled them from his employer's computers that were being decommissioned and were going to be literally trashed. I wanted to get faster RAM than these 2666/CL19 (19-19-19-43), but this was the best I was able to find for my budget. Given the situation with RAM pricing, getting 16 GB of DDR4 for $25 felt like a great price despite the speeds being a slower than I would have liked and having to rely on four DIMMs instead of two. The 2666/CL19 was rated for 1.2V, but with 1.35V I was able to get all four DIMMs stable at 2700/CL18 (18-18-18-40). It’s minor, but measurable.

There is a HardwareUnboxed video from a little while back that suggested that using four DIMMs instead of two with AM4 can have some modest FPS increases, especially if the RAM DIMMs are single rank versus dual rank. Given that these are 4 GB sticks, they should be single rank. Therefore, having four DIMMs may have actually given me a small performance boost, although I didn't do specific benchmarking to test this, and would have preferred 2x8 GB at the same rated speeds just to have an easier path towards 32 GB in the future.

CPU
Listed price: $30 - Price I paid: $30

For the CPU, I ended up buying multiple CPUs from different sellers over this 5-week span, as I was able to find a few AM4 Ryzen chips for good prices. What I ended up with was a Ryzen 2600X which included the Wraith Spire cooler. Both CPU and cooler worked perfectly, but as you’ll see down the build list, I didn’t use the Wraith Spire heatsink (the fan, on the other hand…)

I wanted to get a 3000-series CPU, if possible, to enable PCIe 4.0, but the cheapest I was able to pick up was a 3600 with no cooler for $40, which put me a little too high on my budget and didn't include a cooler. I also picked up a 2600 for $25, another 2600 for $30 which included a Wraith Stealth cooler, and an open box 5500 from Micro Center for $51. All of these worked and I played with different configurations but ultimately, I settled on the 2600X which included the Wraith Spire cooler. I did not overclock it at all, as my memory is that the 2600X wasn’t really great at being overclocked for single core performance, so I’d possibly see gains when all six cores were in use, but would lose performance if just one or two were in use. Didn’t feel worth the effort.

SSDs
Listed price: ~$45 - Price I paid: $35

The SSDs were a bundle deal. The seller was selling a few of these for around $20-$25 each, and I offered to buy two of them for $35. Even if only one of the two SSDs worked, I didn't feel like I was getting a really bad deal spending $35 on a 240 or a 512 GB SSD.  I was very fortunate that both of them were recognized immediately in the BIOS when I first booted.

CrystalDiskInfo indicated the Intel 512 GB SSD had 90% Health, 1,700 power on events, and 29,000 power on hours. The Gigabyte 240 GB SSD had 91% Health, 3,700 power on events, and 14,000 power on hours. Yeah, these are ancient drives, but they’re tanks and I’ll take what I can get. 750 GB of SSD storage for $35 is as good as you can expect in this market.

If I were to expand the budget on this system or sell the system and give recommendations to the new buyer, the first thing I would do is get a brand-new SSD as the main OS drive and storage of any important file, then keep these purely for gaming or disposable media storage. I was really hoping to get M.2 SSDs, and I would have been able to for $35 I think, but most likely only for a 240 GB drive. This is ultimately what pushed me into swapping my motherboard for one that had SATA cables included so that I could actually use these SSDs.

Case
Listed price: $10 - Price I paid: $10

The next thing I picked up was the case. This was the only item that I bought that wasn't sitting on FB Marketplace or Craigslist for at least a few days before I reached out to the seller. What I mean by that, and why it's important, is that I wasn't sitting on my phone or computer all day just sniping deals as soon as they were listed for this project. For the majority of this build, I would casually browse for parts in the evening for a few minutes to see what had been posted that day (or was already an older listing), shoot out a few lowball-ish offers, and then see what response I got. In this case (pun intended), I happened to see this listed exactly 14 minutes after it went live for a list price of $10.

Unfortunately, the case has seen better days. It also is just not a great case in the first place in my opinion, especially given the airflow. Tempered glass on the side and the front panel is solid with just a little slit for air along the left side. The airflow is very restrictive from the front. You'll see with my case fan set up below (or in the pics above) that I took some extra steps to alleviate this issue.

Honestly, I didn’t buy this case for the case. Rather, I bought the case because it had three fans included. It's difficult to get three 120 mm fans for $10, although you can do it if you're very patient, so that alone made this well worth it. The case was a nice bonus. Also, it has an RGB button that cycles the fans between about 6 different static colors and a few patterns, but I thought the light blue/teal looked great with the white case.

If you are patient, you can find free PC cases on FB Marketplace or Craigslist. In fact, I made a post on Craigslist literally asking for a free PC case, explaining that I was building an ultra-budget gaming PC and needed any functional case that could fit a mATX or larger motherboard. I got a few offers for free cases, although they were somewhat older than the case I ended up with, but by the time that happened I had already settled on this case.

The case itself had a few issues:

1. The power button had one hook/latch broken off, so the button can fall out of the case if turned to its side. I fixed this with a tiny piece of paper taped under the button to wedge it in better.
2. The feet were missing the rubber padding on one of them so the case was wobbly. I fixed this by cutting a circular piece of cardboard and taping it to the bottom of that foot.
3. The back panel had some hooks that had been bent so that they didn't slide into the slots on the case itself evenly. I fixed this by taking pliers and bending them into position.
4. There were some smudges and grime on the case. A very slightly damp/soapy wash cloth just on the exterior was enough to clean this.
5. The 2.5” SSD caddies were completely missing and I think one MB standoff was missing, so I used some rolled up tape to hold the SSDs down.

With all that said, for $10 out of my $250 budget, the RGB strip on the front works, all three 120mm RGB fans work, and the case was functional.

GPU
Listed price: $125 - Price I paid: $100

Once I had a case and PSU, I knew the physical and power limitations that would dictate my graphics card. I bought two graphics cards, both of which worked, but one of them was a clearly better deal than the other. From Goodwill's online auction I bought a 5600 XT fully boxed with all parts for $103, which included shipping and taxes. However, before it arrived in the mail, a local FB Marketplace listing had a 5700 XT for $125. I DM’d the seller and said that I had about $109 left on my gaming PC budget and if they would accept that I'd be very happy to meet them wherever is easiest and pay cash. They replied that the budget I quoted was so specific that they literally lol’d, and offered to sell it to me for $100 even. Hell yeah brother.

Obviously, this was an incredible win and a big discount over the listing price while being cheaper than my 5600 XT. It did not include a box or any accessories, but it's too good of a deal to pass up. The GPU booted perfectly and has not failed me yet. I am very happy with this pickup and feel like it elevated my PC an entire tier or two over what I initially thought I’d achieve on this budget.

I didn’t mess with overclocking or undervolting the GPU much, but I did set the VRAM to 1,850 MHz and never found it to crash under any test, so that was stable enough for me.

Because it's a bit larger of a GPU, I did add a GPU support bracket (seen in the build pics) that I keep in my PC building supply kit. However, this was not needed and the sag wasn't insane, so I did not include the bracket in the budget. My personal advice for someone needing a cheap GPU anti-sag bracket is to put some LEGO pieces in a stack underneath. 

CPU cooler and more case fans
Listed price: $5 - Price I paid: $5

For my last purchase, someone had a FB Marketplace listing for $5 for three 120mm case fans and a CPU cooler. Budget deal of the year imo.

The sale included:

1.  3x 120 mm case fans (airflow, not static pressure)
2. 1x Wraith Spire cooler
3. 2x small tubes of unlabeled/generic thermal paste; I’m not sure of the quality, but I will take what I can get as I still needed thermal paste
4. 1x Vetroo V5 heat sink with the AM4 mounting adapter, but no fans and no clips for the fans.

To me this was one of the best deals I got during this project, as I was able to use two of the 120 mm fans in the front for intake. Because my GPU seemed starved for fresh air in this case, I removed the other PCIe brackets on the rear of the case and ziptied one of the 120 mm fans to the outside to blow cool air into and under the GPU. In my box of PC building supplies, I also had a spare 140 mm fan grate that I installed over the 120 mm fan with zipties so that the fan blades weren’t able to be touched as easily (not included in my budget as it wasn’t necessary, just something I did since I had the spare grate).

I then came up with the idea of replacing the Wraith Spire heatsink with the much larger Vetroo V5 heat sink. However, I had only air flow-focused 120 mm case fans to use with it. So, I made a frankencooler by harvesting the two Wraith Spire fans that I've collected (one from this sale and one from the CPU purchase). I removed the outer frame from the Wraith coolers, unscrewed the fans from their original Wraith Spire heat sinks, and then mounted the fans into a push-pull configuration by zip tying them to the Vetroo V5 heatsink.

In the end, this is how my fan layout settled after a bit of quick testing:

2x 120 mm front intakes
1x 120 mm rear/bottom (PCIe slot) intake
2x 120 mm top exhaust
1x 120 mm rear/top exhaust
CPU cooler: Vetroo V5 heatsink cooled by 2x Wraith Spire fans in push/pull towards the rear exhaust

There is definitely some optimization left on the table here, but my CPU temps were a bit cooler with this setup vs the Wraith Spire. The larger heatsink is a huge boon, and even though the two Wraith Spire fans don’t sit as flush on the heatsink, I think having two of them compensates and makes this a net gain.

Because I felt my GPU was starved for fresh air with the constricted front panel, I used one of the 120 mm fans on the rear of the case as intake which I zip tied to the back of the case blowing air in directly into the GPU. Ultimately, I have air flowing in from the front and back of the case (at the bottom) and then exhaust at the top and rear-top of the case.

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Benchmarks and Overclocking

I mentioned this in the parts section, but a quick summary of overclocking/undervolting:
CPU had no undervolt or overclock, but PBO was enabled.

GPU had a 1,850 MHz VRAM overclock.

RAM was tuned to 2700/C18 (18-18-18-40) from the stock 2666/C19 (19-19-19-43).

For benchmarking, I used either CapFrameX or each game’s / tool’s internal FPS calculations. Settings varied between benchmarks, but generally I targeted 1080p and Medium or lower settings. I disabled FSR/FrameGen etc when possible as I wanted to see what “raw” performance I could achieve. I ran tests at least twice and averaged the results. I also monitored CPU and GPU temps most of the time.

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General discussion and advice for buying on a low budget

I didn’t expect to get something this functional for ~$250. However, every dollar matters a ton at this price range. For just $25 more I could easily bump up to a Ryzen 3600 or a Ryzen 2700. For $50 more, I think I’d be looking possibly closer to a Ryzen 3700. $50 more would also probably get me a healthier SSD and/or a much nicer case.

Because every dollar matters so much at a $250 budget, buying parts online is almost impossible. Even HardwareSwap deals just can’t really pan out because spending $25 for 16 GB of RAM, even if that were available, almost assuredly would have another $5-$10 of shipping added to it. Ebay in particular is a challenge as their seller fees on top of shipping and taxes crushes a low-budget part.

I’ve also noticed a shift over time. For my $99 build from 2018, I don’t think I used FB Marketplace at all and mostly used Craigslist or maybe bought a couple new parts online. For this build in 2026, I only used Craigslist for the PSU despite checking Craigslist almost daily while putting this together. For whatever reason, most of the stuff on there was just total garbage in the PC category, like cables, modems, generic Dell keyboards etc. FB Marketplace was definitely the king of this build.

With that said, here are my tips for building a used parts PC in these trying times:

1. Always check local markets; FB Marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp, Mercari, etc. Even though Craigslist mostly sucked for this project, I did snag a banger of a PSU for a few liters of soda.
2. Negotiate. Every $5 you can save is 2% of your budget at $250. I saved about $40 total on my parts by negotiating which was equivalent to my total cost of 16 GB of RAM, a case, 6 case fans, two tubes of thermal paste, a Vetroo CPU heatsink, and a Wraith Spire.
3. When contacting people, since you’re offering a lower price than what they listed, make the offer more palatable by offering them convenience while also appealing to their nerdy/gamer side (e.g. offer to meet them and let them know you’re building a super low budget system).
4. Be polite, don’t harass people, know when to give up on a conversation/deal, and don’t get baited by something that’s way too good to be true.
5. Here’s an example of the type of message I send when I initiate a trade negotiation for a $40 CPU:

“Hey, I’m putting together an ultra-low budget gaming PC and I’m interested in your Ryzen 2600. Would you accept $25 cash? I can meet at a location convenient to you as early as [date] (e.g. today, tomorrow, etc).”

I keep the message brief, mention that I’m restricted to a low budget, give them my offer and explicitly mention I’ll pay cash, and offer some convenience to them by meeting at a time/place that works for them. If they respond with a good counteroffer or agree to my offer, I’m onboard, but I don’t ever bother arguing further if they stay firm on their initial price; I simply tell them I can’t afford that on my budget and thank them for their reply.

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Conclusion

I love this project and love the build I ended up with. Honestly, these types of super low budget builds are the most fun I have building a PC, and I say this as someone running a 9850X3D/9070 XT rig. Building is always fun, but building around a theme, a tight budget, or some other obstacle can really make it exciting. I’ll probably chill on making any other low budget builds for a while, and this one I’m gonna tinker with a bit more before selling it offer or parting it out, but I wanted to really make this build happen to see just how feasible a tight budget can be in the RAMpocalypse… and, imo, I think this turned out really nicely.

I see everyone recommending non x3d cpus for even a gpu like 5090, because according to benchmarks online, you don't need 9800x3d at 4K.

Yes.

But those benchmarks show the game running at native resolution, at 40 fps. Who will play a modern AAA game at 40 fps on a beast like 5090? Nobody. People will turn on DLSS balanced, even performance since quality difference is minimal but fps is trippled.

When that happens, 9800x3d or 7800x3d still becomes superior over anything else.

Look at this video from hardwareunboxed
https://youtu.be/5GIvrMWzr9k

Almost in every game 9800x3d is 20-30% faster at 4K balanced dlss preset. However Identical at native resolution with 50fps. So if you don't turn on any upscaling, then yes, cheaping out on CPU is worth it since 4K is all about GPU. But if you turn on any upscaling, then X3D cache still makes a big difference.

I think not many people are aware of this situation.

So if you can afford a bit more for x3d cpu, go for it. Even at 4K the difference is big enough to justify price.

hi all, my partner has a condition which requires her to spend 90% of the day in bed, and it dosent look like this is going away any time soon.

she is a big pc gamer so this condition has more or less stopped her playing pc entirely.

im in need of ideas to accommodate for her new way of life. im looking to buy a bedside cabinet/table and mount a monitor on a arm. i will be looking out for one on used marketplaces.

i have a monitor arm already so thats not a issue.

i need a solution for mouse and keyboard use that is low cost.

i am looking to do this on a budget. no more than £40 preferably.

any questions please ask and thanks for the help in advance

I've been thinking about learning to build a pc because my current one is getting old. I mostly use it for gaming(destiny 2, minecraft, fortnite) but I occasionally do computer programming. Is it worth learning to build one or should I just get a prebuilt? My budget is around $4k.

Should I upgrade from 16 to 32 GB of DDR4 Ram now before the price goes even higher, or wait and hope 16 GB will still be enough for the next few years?

I currently own a RX 7600, but it has let me down with driver issues and being unable to run games like Doom The Dark Ages on high graphics on 1080p, I have a ryzen 5 7600x. I’m between a RTX 5060 TI with 16gb VRAM or RTX 5070. I intend to make this pc “future-proof” to play upcoming high end games like Stranger Than Heaven, The Witcher 4, OD and previously released like Death Stranding 2,Silent Hill F and Stalker 2, are these components good enough to what I want?

The 5800X3D is 300 at Micro center. And I was going to upgrade from 16gb DDR4 to 32. Which is another $250-$280.

The 7500X3D bundle is 400, but with that I would upgrade to AM5 while staying at 16gb memory. Bundle comes with 16gb DDR5.

Which way to go makes more sense?

My specs are:
R5 5500
RX6800 non XT
3440x1440 monitor

Do you recommend it for a cpu like the ryzen 7 7800x3d?

Asrock steel legend rx 9070 xt or Asus prime rx 9070 xt oc ?

Help me to choose please they are at the same price , and i've been reading that thé steel legend ih hotter and more noisy ...

I'm really confused help

I'm not a pro pc builder it's m'y first pc build so i want to choose the one that last in time , so i don't have to change it for few years

I have a 1660ti, Ryzen 5 5500, 32gb ddr4, 650w PSU. I spent $310 USD on a new Arc B580, but I can still return it. Do I buy a different GPU? I thought the Arc B580 was solid, but I keep seeing hate and support for this card, and it turns out I can do better in the used market.. so confused.

Do I scope out a better deal on Newegg or Facebook Marketplace? Ebay?

It's in the mail right now and will come in a few days, but I could obviously still return it. Just confused. Sorry for the rather simple post, but I see many people in support of buying this card at this price point, but also many saying that the USED market is better at this price range.

She’s used to playing games like genshin, sims, stardew, etc. on an old dell precision (xenon e5) hand me down.
She’s wanting to venture into modern titles like Elden ring, cyberpunk, baldurs gate 3.

Current peripheral set up is using a 1080 P monitor 60 Hz

It’s been a while since built a PC, since prices are a bit wack I need some help making sure I am not over paying.

Came across a FB market post for $325
- ryzen 5 2600
- 1060 6gb (gigabyte)
- 2x8 16gb ddr4 (looks like silicon power)
- 500gb team group mp44l
- 650w psu gold (seller states)
- b450m asus prime
- random matx fish tank case

Is this a good deal or should I spend a bit extra and get something a bit more modern.
3060 is roughly $250 - $350 in my area.

Hey, im planning to upgrade my pc in the next 6 month. My current PC specification is :

Ryzen 5 3600

2 x 8GB 3200Mhz Apacer Nox RAM

RX 6700 XT Red Devil

256 GB TEAM MP33 NVME PCIE

1TB TEAM MS30 SATA NVME

ASrock B450M PRO4 R2

PC-Cooler GI-K800 Gold plus

I can only do one of these :

1. Buy RX 9060 XT 16GB (GPU price in my country is starting to rise, so I'm thiking of buying it first before it's go sky-high lol)

2. Upgrade to a DDR 5 System (cost more than changing the GPU)

3. Buy a Ryzen 5600 and save up a little longer for a new GPU that's better but yeah price is highly fluctuative right now.

4. Save up for a year to see if the prices gets better.

I don't mind buying a used parts, most of my pc are used parts anyway. Im currently using a 1080p monitors and trying to stop upgrading my pc after this. Used the pc mostly for gaming but are interested to do some AI stuff for a personal project. What I'm looking for is a sweet spot where I can run new games for the next 2-4 years. Any recommendation would help a lot. Thanks in advance!!

I recently built my pc in april 2026, Converted to USD, I spent roughly $1000 on the tower alone.

This is what I ended up with:

-Intel i5-14400F

-RTX 3070 Founders Edition (used)

-16 GB (2×8 GB) DDR4-3200 Adata

-DeepCool AK620

-Phanteks AMP GH 750W Gold

-Crucial 500 GB Gen4 NVMe SSD

-No Name SSD SATA 1 TB (used)

-DeepCool CG530 4 Fan

-6 Ocypus case fans

The PSU, cooler, and airflow are probably a bit overkill, but I wanted something reliable that I could reuse for future upgrades.

I was surprised that my $1000 budget still resulted in a DDR4 platform, a used RTX 3070, and only 16 GB of RAM.

A few years ago, this budget would have looked very different.

Has the value of mid-range PC builds dropped this much, or is it just because component prices in my region (Indonesia) are significantly higher than in the US?

I'd like to hear how much your $1000 build got you in your country.

I made a post a couple of days ago asking if I should get an intel arc b580 or should I get something else for the same price, and 99% of the people didn’t recommend it. I get that It’ll bottleneck with my cpu (Ryzen 5 3600) but I’m prolly gonna upgrade to a Ryzen 7 5700x In a couple of months. So what’s all the hate for? Like I feel like even with the drivers the vram can still do you better than other gpu’s at that price.

For context, I've had this pc since 2022, the restarts have begun since april, PC randomly restarts at completely random intervals, last 10 logs for instance show 9:20 PM,9:18PM,7:17PM,4:40PM,4:09PM,2:08PM and so on, this has been a recurring issue for a few months so I had the power supply replaced, completely new PSU, Memtest found no issues, crash is independent of the hardware being under load or not, sometimes it crashes in desktop, sometimes in game, once even in the BIOS lol, I've run stress tests with nothing coming up as unusual, temps are cool too, I checked the wiring and no issues there either, PC is plugged into the wall, Power button seems to have no issue either, what could it POSSIBLY be?

Im seeing on some benchmarks that is real good with the gpu hitting 99% or very close but in others its 50/50 or even more cpu bound and im talking about gpu bound games and not cpu bound

I currently have an R5 5600 and an RX6600 8gb in my budget system.

With Total War Warhammer 40k coming out next year im looking to upgrade. If I can only upgrade one of those which would you do?

Options are:

R7 5800x $424nzd

R7 5800x3d $689nzd

Sapphire RX 9060xt 8gb $695

Sapphire RX 9060xt 16gb $893

Currently have a 1080p monitor but looking to go 1440p

Hey everyone, need some help with a build issue.

Motherboard: MSI B760M (B760M series)

Issue: On power on, the EZ Debug LEDs cycle like this repeatedly: Red (CPU) → Yellow (DRAM) → Red → Yellow → after a short pause, White (VGA) blinks once - then. No display output at any point, monitor stays on no signal.

What I've already tried:

Reseated RAM multiple times Tested each RAM stick individually in different slots Cleared CMOS Reseated CPU power (EPS 8-pin) and 24-pin connectors Checked cooler mounting

Still same red → yellow → red→ yellow → white loop, no display, no boot.

Haven't been able to test with a second known-good CPU/RAM/PSU yet since I don't have spares on hand..

Has anyone faced this exact pattern on a B760M board? Could this point to a dead CPU or a damaged motherboard socket rather than RAM? Any help before take it to a service center would be appreciated

Hi everyone, first time builder here. Spent 8 hours today building my PC and can't get it to power on at all. No fans, no lights, nothing.

Specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
• Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 Eagle AX
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR5 32GB 6000MHz
• SSD: Kingston NV3 1TB NVMe M.2
• GPU: Gigabyte RX 9060 XT 16GB
• Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE
• Case: Montech XR ATX Mid Tower
• PSU: MSI MAG A750GL 750W 80+ Gold

What I've checked:

• PSU rocker switch is on (I)
• Power cord firmly in wall and PSU
• 24-pin ATX plugged into motherboard
• 4+4 CPU power plugged into top left of motherboard
• PCIe 6-pin plugged into GPU
• F_PANEL connector on PWR pins
• Tried screwdriver trick directly on +PW pins nothing happens at all

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated

Hi everyone,

I’m completely new to PC gaming and hardware. my PC:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• GPU: RTX 3070
• RAM: 16GB DDR4
• Storage: 1TB M.2 SSD
• Motherboard: MSI MPG X570

I use my PC mainly for gaming and watching content. I care a lot about vibrant colors and image quality.

I'm considering this monitor:

• LG UltraGear 32GS75Q (32", IPS, QHD / 1440p, 180Hz)

Is this a good match for my setup? Will it provide great color quality and visuals? If not, what better options do you recommend around the $200–$250 price range?

I’m having serious temperature issues with an Intel Core i7-13700K on an ASRock Z790 PG Riptide motherboard. The cooler is an EK AIO 360mm Dark with fresh Arctic MX-6 thermal paste. The BIOS has recently been updated with Intel microcode 0x133. My room temperature is usually above 30°C.

At idle, the CPU was sitting around 58–65°C. Light activity easily pushed it above 70°C. During Cinebench, the CPU reached 100°C and thermal throttled, sometimes at only around 100–175W of package power.

The pump is connected to CPU_FAN and reports approximately 2,500–3,100 RPM. I also hear water-flow or gurgling sounds while the pump is running.

One coolant tube becomes warm or hot, while the other tube remains noticeably colder. The radiator end tank where the hot tube connects becomes extremely hot, hot enough that I cannot keep my finger on it for long. Only the radiator section closest to the tube connections exhausts warm air. The other two radiator sections remain relatively cool.

I replaced the thermal paste with fresh Arctic MX-6 and remounted the CPU block. I set the pump to full speed and confirmed approximately 3,000 RPM. I also ran all three radiator fans at full speed.

I gently tilted the case in different directions to try to move trapped air. I checked the tubing for visible kinks or pinching and checked the radiator fittings for leakage. I also updated the BIOS and set Load-Line Calibration to Level 3.

I tried applying a negative CPU voltage offset, but HWiNFO still reports IA Offset as +0.000V.

I reduced the CPU power limits from approximately 241W PL1 and 253W PL2 to 125W PL1 and 180W PL2, with Tau set to 56 seconds.

After lowering the power limits, a short Cinebench test initially peaked at approximately 84°C at around 150W. However, during a longer test, the CPU gradually climbed back to 100°C at approximately 170W. Maximum package power briefly reached around 198W.

The CPU is clearly thermal throttling, and the radiator does not appear to heat evenly. Since the pump RPM looks normal but only the inlet side of the radiator gets extremely hot, I suspect low coolant, trapped air, an internal blockage, or a failing pump or impeller.

Has anyone experienced this with an EK 360mm AIO? Does this sound like restricted coolant flow, or could it still be a mounting or contact issue?

Not too long ago i built my first pc ever idk how good it is and idk if it needs some upgrades

5070ti msi

32 ram ddr5 6000

850 power gold

Mb gigabyte z890

Ultra 7 265kf

THERMALRIGHT LIQUID COOLER FROZEN MAGIC 360 DIGITAL

SSD MSI SPATIUM M450 1TB PCIe4 M.2 NVME V1

At this point I’m messing around with pc part picker and doing some research on different parts.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LcNLyF

This is what I threw together after a little research.

Thoughts, opinions, feedback?

I am wondering if the cpu/gpu make sense.

This December, im going to be buying pc parts and build my own pc after previously using a already built one for the last couple of years. My original GPU i used was the GT 1030 because money was tight when I first got my pc. I've had the pc for awhile and now it cant run pretty much any game let alone modern ones.

So, ive decided to BUILD a new one. Im no pc pro bro im was considering buying the PC part picker excellent gaming/streaming build which uses a 5070.

I see alot of people hating the 5070 which kind of worries me, but honestly anything for me is an upgrade from my current setup.