Can You Build a Gaming PC for $1,000?

error1984 said:
I dont think is a good idea to buy new hardware and using old pcie 3.0. Rx 6600 has pcie 4.0 8x and will definetly lose some perfomance.
Click to expand...

It's not a bad idea, but it's worth noting.
I'd change 5600x to 5600 and mobo on b550.

Also I consider 1TB ssd a better choice, so to get rid of hdd at all. It's much comfortable in terms of noise and it's more capable overall in terms of performance and system/app responsiveness.
 
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Just went over to Newegg and put the following in my cart.
5600X - 157.99
MSI B550 Gaming PLUS - 159.99
ASRock RX6700 XT - 369.99 ($20 mail in rebate not included in price)
Samsung 980 Pro - 109.99 ($10 instant rebate included in price)
Corsair Vengeance 16GB 3600 - 63.99
Montech X3 Mesh - 64.99
EVGA 650 N1 100-N1-0650-L1 PSU- 51.87
Total - $968.81 before taxes

Not too shabby, but just to be honest, this is roughly the equivalent of the XSX which you can get for $500.00. This is definitely not a console killer PC. The $600.00 console killer PC build is definitely not attainable and likely will never be again. I did not include a monitor in the price.

A little could have been saved. There were $99 motherboard options. I could have added the 5600 instead and saved $20, I could have reduced by $40 on a smaller SSD (512 vs 1TB), none of these seemed like good tradeoffs though. But you could get similar performance for $850ish if you are willing to make those tradeoffs. With this though you could get that $120 monitor too.

Windows 10, $20 at WhoKeys.com
 
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I would have saved some cash on the cpu, I just upgraded my son's pc from 2600X to 5600. Picked it up for $119 and got a free game included!
Probably would have eliminated the HDD in favor of bigger SSD with the savings. 6600XT is a solid choice for this budget.
I've been very impressed with the performance of the 5600. I have the 5600x in my pc along with a 6700XT and my son's 5600 can keep up with it easily enough.
 
You can build a really nice gaming PC for under $1K, especially if you're willing to take advantage of used GPUs coming off of the end of crypto mining. I built my brother a fast-as-hell PC for under $600, he's not a gamer so this price is sans-GPU. You can find a good used gaming card (like a 3070) for $400 right now. His PC has an AMD 5600G CPU, and I actually put one of my unneeded 3070s in it to test this, it games like a totally modern kick-butt gaming PC.
 
error1984 said:
I dont think is a good idea to buy new hardware and using old pcie 3.0. Rx 6600 has pcie 4.0 8x and will definetly lose some perfomance.
Click to expand...

If I read that right you're saying that using a PCIe 3.0 video card with a PCI 4.0 mainboard (or maybe you meant the opposite?) will make you loose some performance.

That is incorrect, either way the difference in performance will be single digits and you won't see a difference.

PCIe 3.0 16x slots do not see saturation till you are gaming at resolutions well above 1440p.
 
I don't know any hardcore fps players anymore. They've chilled out to slower paced games and don't need more than 60fps. These PC's would work perfectly fine.
 
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If you buy a used gpu and used cpu, you can build a hella strong gaming pc.
For a 1000 pc, I would insist you buy a used cpu, preferably one of those amd ryzen that sell for almost nothing. Cheap everything but a good video card. I could get a 3070 at least with these current prices.
Some risk with used gpu is there. But again, the prices are worth it
 
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phxrider said:
You can build a really nice gaming PC for under $1K, especially if you're willing to take advantage of used GPUs coming off of the end of crypto mining. I built my brother a fast-as-hell PC for under $600, he's not a gamer so this price is sans-GPU. You can find a good used gaming card (like a 3070) for $400 right now. His PC has an AMD 5600G CPU, and I actually put one of my unneeded 3070s in it to test this, it games like a totally modern kick-butt gaming PC.
Click to expand...
So technically it is not a sub 600 gaming pc since you added your own gpu
 
Aranarth said:
If I read that right you're saying that using a PCIe 3.0 video card with a PCI 4.0 mainboard (or maybe you meant the opposite?) will make you loose some performance.

That is incorrect, either way the difference in performance will be single digits and you won't see a difference.

PCIe 3.0 16x slots do not see saturation till you are gaming at resolutions well above 1440p.
Click to expand...
No, you didn't get it.

RX 6600(XT) is PCIe 4.0 x8 video card. AMD B450 supports PCIe 3.0 and below.
So that RX 6600(XT) will work in PCIe 3.0 x8 mode.

RX 6600(XT) put in AMD B550 mobo will work in PCIe 4.0 x8 mode.
 
True, a very good idea to write article like this every months with updated offers. Keep posting.
 
bluetooth fairy said:
No, you didn't get it.

RX 6600(XT) is PCIe 4.0 x8 video card. AMD B450 supports PCIe 3.0 and below.
So that RX 6600(XT) will work in PCIe 3.0 x8 mode.

RX 6600(XT) put in AMD B550 mobo will work in PCIe 4.0 x8 mode.
Click to expand...

According to TechPowerUp, who did a 6600 XT PCIe scaling article, running the 6600 XT in PCIe 3.0 mode loses you a whopping 2% performance compared to PCIe 4.0.
 
poshflamingos said:
According to TechPowerUp, who did a 6600 XT PCIe scaling article, running the 6600 XT in PCIe 3.0 mode loses you a whopping 2% performance compared to PCIe 4.0.
Click to expand...

Well known article. I guess you also use the word "whopping" when you lose 10-15% of performance in your fav game or two. Just because you've invested into PCIe 3.0 instead of PCIe 4.0 in the late 2022.
 
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bluetooth fairy said:
Well known article. I guess you also use the word "whopping" when you lose 10-15% of performance in your fav game or two. Just because you've invested into PCIe 3.0 instead of PCIe 4.0 in the late 2022.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, I bet going from 175 FPS to 165 FPS in Battlefield will be devastating.
 
m3tavision said:
I know plenty of people who would sell their Haswell rigs for $1k or less...
Click to expand...
I bet they would LOL, they better because Haswell is pushing 10 years old and isn't even close to today's CPUs' single thread performance.

For a grand you can get an AMD 5600x, a low-end (but good) B550 MB, 500GB PCIe 4 SSD, 16GB of DDR4 3600, a good 750w power supply, and an OK case off Amazon, plus a used 3070.

You might even be able to squeeze the SSD up to 1TB and still be about $1K.
 
The biggest issue I've noted in this build is the idea that most of us live in a state with no sales tax. The days of buying online and saving on sales tax are LONG GONE. So, whether it's a pre-built or all parts in a DIY in my state you need to add 8.40% which means that the total cost of your build needs to come in at $925 (or lower). Unless you're in love with building your own PC you're probably best off with a pre-build with the second tier builders (iBuypower,etc.) who have excellent warranties and nice selection of parts. I'm not much of an FPS (or other games requiring a high end graphics card) and recently bought an HP with Core i5-400, 8 GB of DDR-4 3200 RAM, a 256 GB NVME SSD, a 310W Gold PSU, in a standard HP case. I added a 14 TB Seagate EXOS 7200 (for a sale price of $189.99) and an Nvidia GTX 1650 (Zotac with single fan) with 4 GB RAM. It greatly improved the picture on my TCL S535 PC and it's noise levels are imperceptible. I would have been another couple hundred to get to an RTX 3050. JMHO.
 
Found this pc after reading this article on Newegg. Shell shocker MEK HERO G1 A5636 Gaming Desktop Powered By Zotac - Ryzen 5 5000 Series 5600X (3.70 GHz) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB Dual-Channel 16 GB DDR4 1 TB HDD 500 GB PCIe NVMe SSD Windows 10 Home 64-bit. $949
 
I don't get why people still spend money on Windows. Like honestly. We all should know by now that those 20-30$ Windows keys are not for retail consumers. They are for bulk purchases for business. They will work, but it does not mean that you won't be breaching license agreement. I.E. they're waste of money.

Go Linux and never come back again. It's a no-brainer.
 
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