I put together a budget gaming PC with a target price of about $600–$650. The current parts are a Ryzen 5 5600, Thermalright Assassin X120 cooler, refurbished Intel Arc A750 8GB, Team Group NV5000 1TB M.2 SSD, 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory from an existing PC, Gigabyte B550M Gaming X WIFI6 motherboard, ASRock Phantom Gaming 750W power supply, and a Thermaltake View 170 micro-ATX case. The total comes to $617.06. I'm not particularly concerned about moving to DDR5 because of the current platform and memory costs. Are there any parts I should replace or any compatibility issues I should watch for?
4 Answers
A used RTX 3060 Ti around $200 could be worth considering because it is generally faster than an A750 and has mature drivers. That said, your concern about used cards is reasonable. A refurbished A750 with a genuine three-year warranty from a reputable seller may be the safer purchase, especially if the warranty terms are clear.
The Ryzen 5 5600 and Arc A750 prices look pretty good, so I’d be inclined to buy those first if the deals are reliable. The motherboard should support the CPU, but check that it has a compatible BIOS before assembling everything. Also make sure Resizable BAR is enabled in the BIOS, since Intel Arc cards perform much better with it enabled.
The overall parts list is compatible and the 750W PSU has plenty of wattage for this system. I’d still verify the power supply’s review history and return policy rather than choosing solely by its wattage rating. Also confirm the case includes enough airflow, since a front intake and rear exhaust fan setup would be a good minimum for this hardware.
I’d compare the SSD price against other 1TB PCIe 4.0 drives. Around $135 seems high for a 1TB model in a budget build, and saving $40–$60 there could let you upgrade the memory or graphics card without increasing the total. Your existing 16GB kit will work, but DDR4-2666 is relatively slow; a 2x8GB or 2x16GB DDR4-3200/3600 kit would be a noticeable improvement if the budget allows.
Agreed on checking the SSD. The reused RAM is fine as a temporary choice, though I’d make sure it’s actually two matching sticks so dual-channel mode is enabled.