I'm on the hunt for a gaming PC build that costs less than $600. Right now, I'm stuck with a Dell Latitude 5300 laptop, and let's be real, anything is an upgrade from that. I'm located on the East Coast and I want to be able to play games like Ready or Not, Arma Reforger, and ideally Red Dead Redemption 2—though I'm okay with lower graphics settings if needed. I have 16 GB of DDR4 RAM already, so I don't think I need to worry about that too much. My main uses would include basic tasks like Excel and web browsing, along with some medium-quality gaming. Is it possible to find something that meets these requirements without breaking the bank? Thanks in advance!
3 Answers
Check out these fully built PC options under $600: [link]. If you want a better setup, look into getting a prebuilt Intel with a few tweaks like swapping the power supply for better performance.
Also, I found a decent rig that runs Red Dead Redemption 2 smoothly at 60 fps for a bit more if you're willing to stretch your budget.
For your budget, I’d suggest looking at a mini PC with a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7, which you can usually find between $400-$600. It should perform really well for the games you mentioned, at least on medium settings.
That's a solid point, but how long do you think a mini PC will last before it feels outdated? I just don't want to invest $600 for something that will slow down in a year or two.
Consider going for a used corporate PC and adding a small GPU. I got an i5-12500 setup with 16GB RAM for $200 and then added a $300 GPU. Just make sure the power supply can handle it!
But the problem is that those used Dell PCs are getting harder to find at good prices. A lot of them have been snapped up, and now it's tough to get the latest models without spending $300 or more.
I appreciate the suggestions, but I'm really on a tight budget; I can barely hit $700, and with extra costs like a monitor, I can’t go over that.