I'm putting together a budget-friendly PC for my son, who's about to turn 13. He's saved up a decent amount of cash, and I want to help him get the best possible setup for his $500 budget. We've already got a SATA SSD for storage and a GeForce 1060 GPU, but the rest of the parts are in need of an upgrade. The previous case was a cheap find that is barely holding it together, and after the power supply failed, we had to replace the motherboard. I'm steering away from DDR5 due to high prices, so I'm sticking to DDR4 for now. Any advice on how to optimize this build or ways to stretch our budget would be much appreciated!
3 Answers
Are you set on only brand-new parts? Buying used could really help you save. For cooling, opt for an air cooler – you can get one decent for about $30. Also, consider buying 16GB of RAM now and upgrading to 32GB later when prices drop; it’ll be friendlier on the wallet. Plus, with the cash saved, you could think about a better CPU like the Ryzen 7 5800X or a used GPU on eBay to enhance gaming performance.
You might want to consider looking for a used PC instead of new parts at this budget level. Sometimes you can find better deals for similar performance without breaking the bank.
I’d suggest swapping to an air cooler instead of sticking with a liquid cooler. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 is a solid choice and it's around $30. Also, if you have a Microcenter nearby, I once managed to piece together a build for around $400 before taxes.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a Microcenter close by. But I appreciate the suggestion on the cooler!
That's actually not a bad idea! I’ll have to explore some used options.