I'm working with a $350 budget to help my brother build a PC. A colleague is offering an older PC for $125, which has an i5-7400 processor, a Gigabyte B250M motherboard, 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, a decent case, a PSU, and 2 TB of storage. I'm considering upgrading the CPU to an i7-7700 and adding an RTX 2060 Super or RX 6600 XT. Given the rising RAM prices, I've noticed alternatives like old Xeon builds or AM4 systems with only 8 GB RAM within my budget. I feel my plan could yield better performance considering the existing 16 GB RAM and solid components. Does this make sense, or am I missing out on better options?
2 Answers
Consider the i5-7600K instead of the i7-7700! It's cheaper and offers good single-threaded performance, which is crucial for gaming. You could invest the savings into a better GPU, and it would still be a good setup when you decide to upgrade the CPU and motherboard in the future.
I think it's a solid choice, especially since 16 GB of DDR4 is worth around $100. That build combined with an RX 6600 XT should perform quite well for your budget!
Are you sure the i5-7600 will be close enough to the i7 for FPS games like CS2?