This is Part 2 of TheGamer's Guide To Building A Budget PC. If 🌸you mi🦹ssed Part 1, be sure to head to our and get all caught up!
Choosing A Processor And Motherboard
There are two brands of processor to choose from: Intel and AMD. Each uses a unique chipset that will determine the type of motherboard you can use and potentially the kind of RAM, graphics card, and monitor you can use as well. When planning out a PC build it's best to start with your processor a🤡nd work out from there📖. It's one of the most expensive parts and the CPU/mobo will be the thing you upgrade least often so it's important to find a good balance between value and future-proofing.
A lot of people are very loyal to either Intel or AMD but we find that each type tends to be superior at different price points. Linus Tech Tips has a great video breaking down the value of both Intel and AMD processors ꦗat each price poinꦕt from December 2019:
In the "let's get serious" tier of $150-$200, Linus recommends the Ryzen 5 3600 for gaming and light workstation use, and we absolutely agree. However, head over to Newegg and you'll find the slightly upgraded Ryzen 3600x for only about $25 more. It's a pretty marginal upgrade in performance, certainly, but it comes with a much better heat sink than the 3600. You'll also get 3 months of Xbox Game Pass, a $🔯29.99 value, so it's a phenomenal deal all around.
We like the Ryzen 5 3600x because, based on what we know about next-gen, it's going to be a solid investment for gaming over (at the very least) the next 3-4 years. Another benefit of the Ryzen 5 3600x is that it is 🐲compatible with a wide range of motherboards, from the most basic to the most feature-complete.
Choosing a mobo compatible with your CPU is most important, but here are a few features to consider when looking at potential motherboards: number of USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth, NVMe M.2 connections, and RGB support. Four our build, we went with a fairly basic mobo, the , and were able to bundle it with the CPU for around $300 total. You could probably go even a ♌bit🅺 cheaper than that, but we like some of the extra features on the X570 like the gaming network chip and M.2 connector.
Choosing A Graphics Card
The NEXT most important component in your gaming PC is, of course, your graphics card. The GPU is the hardware that contributes the most to your framerate and a bevy of other visual processing options. It's the most expensive part and the one𝄹 that get's upgraded the most often. If you're smart about it though, you can get an affordable, high-performance video card now that wi♓ll almost certainly still check the box for "meets minimum requirements" of games made 3-4 years from now.
This time you have a choice between AMD or Nvidia, but luckily it makes no difference at all whether you have an AMD or Intel processor. The best gaming video card for a budget PC right now is definitely the AMD Radeon RX 580, which you can find for around $150. However: this is an older card, meaning it's quickly becoming difficult to find. It also doesn't quite meet the recommended specifications for Modern Warfare. If you🌟 absolutely need the cheapest card possible to play new games, this will work.
Instead, we highly recommend the Nvidia GTX 1660 Super. It's less than a year old, widely available, and meets the recommended requirements for Modern Warfare and DOOM Eternal. This graphics card is available for around $220 and there's nothing at all comparable in that price range. For us, budget means affordable today with as long of a lifespan as possible, and the GTX 1660 Super is t🦩he obvious choice.
In Part 3 of TheGamer's Guide To Building A Budget Gaming PC, we'll be covering🔴 memory and storage.