I just finished my build for about 650 USD, I went with: Ryzen 7 5700G Aorus B450 Pro Wifi GSkill 3200mhz CL16 EVGA 650w PSU Kingston 240gb SSD + Seagate 2TB HDD InWin Sirius Loop x6 1800rpm The systems is blazing fast and can run games at a decent performance, now I only need to be patient for a GPU, I'm not caving into paying 3x retail price
nice I have a Ryzen 5 5600g build with ddr 3200 and ran for a bit with the IGPU and it did decent but the 6500xt I got for $199 woke it up big time well worth $199 .
good job, but there is better I got a system with these specs for ONLY $700 on local markets Ryzen 9 3900x GTX 1080 with a nzxt aio 32 GB DDR4 RAM 1 TB 970 evo forgot what psu it has, but I believe it is a 750w bronze
To the person reading this comment You are awesome & hope you are having a great day My dream is to hit 1k I hope you can help me accomplish my dreams.
You should include something like 20-30% inflation in the value of the dollar relative to everything when considering what's normal. Inflation is inflating the money supply so that there's more money trying to buy stuff according to supply and demand money gets less valuable and therefore you need more money to buy stuff even if the value of the stuff stays the same.
If you wanna save a few more bucks, 12100f is definitely viable, I'm playing Lost Ark at 1440p over 100fps (most of the time) with an RX 6600. DO NOT PAY $500 FOR AN RTX 3050, don't even spend $400! $350 max, otherwise FIND $100 and just get a 6600, which is better than everything else in this price ballpark by a wide margin anyways.
everyone is focused on nvidia and amd xt cards........i think tis because the 6600 got shit on when it was first released because everyone jumped on the 1080p gaming. its a 3060 without the 2nd gen rtx and dlss but rtx isnt worth it at that level of gpu and its 300 dollars less than a 3060
@@imwithyou38 Hey, if (valid) criticism lead to it being easier and more affordable to pick up in the current market, no complaints. Anything that punches at 2060+ level for under $500 in early 2022 gets my seal of "Get it"
I remember when PC builds would go something like this: • $500-750: low end, but still smooth 1080p on e-sports and older games (This would most likely be with a cheap 1060 or 1050 ti) • $1000 - Medium end, you'd be able to crank up the settings in 1080p while maintaining smoothness, or maybe get your feet wet with not so smooth 1440p (now you'd probably be going for a 1070, though maybe not a very elaborate OC model). •$1500: high end, with this money, you'd most likely be aiming at either very high refresh rate in 1080p, or smooth 1440p with mid-high settings. Pretty much the best you could have in the 2016-2017 generation, without going too crazy. (You'd likely go with the 1080, maybe even a pretty good OC model) •$2000: overkill... In 2016-2017, you'd be pretty much going all out by spending $2k on a PC... You'd be able to have the best experience possible at the time, game at 4k, and do so at the then impressive 60fps you'd want to... You'd even be considering a custom water cooling loop, albeit perhaps not the most elaborate or expensive one. (With this money, you'd definitely be going with a 1080 ti, or if you weren't overspending in other areas, perhaps even a GTX Titan) My oh my how times have changed :'(
So fucking depressing.... I built my PC just before GPU prices exploded. My friends have been waiting ever since. I feel like this is killing pc gaming
@@Ga7cun7sSUCK a 1650 is terrible. Its weaker then a 1060... low end that woulda cost 750 for the entire build in 2017. Thats before everything went to shit obviously.
at last a build that isn't a christmas tree in the middle of February, I do love a pc that isn't all singing and dancing. especially when you got the lights off for something like watching a movie on the pc. If I buy components then I look for all round year round use, not just for Christmas!! haha. great build, not sure if I would upgrade from a GTX980TI to a 3050 though, not that much of a hard gamer I do play some demanding titles, but very few and far between, but my pc is used for all sorts not just gaming so flashy lights would be off putting.
@@zr5640 no idea lmao, where i come from 1000 usd is actually pretty high end this is why i refuse to overpay for things, like i even bought an ES laptop I9 adapted for desktop (is basically the same as an i9 in performance tbh) just to not pay stupid prices for an i7 7700k...
@8:19 Hey, Paul, long time viewer, first time commenter here. I just wanted to chime in to say that I have a custom loop with 2x 240 rads in this exact case! It's tight around the VRM area, but I even made it work with a blu-ray burner (which was my motivation for getting this particular case). I collect a lot of physical media still, so it was a must-have for me, and wouldn't you know that modern boxes with 5.25" bays are getting super rare!
Incredible what a visual difference the new Intel stock cooler makes. The old one was such an eyesore, always stuck out like a sore thumb. New one blends in so much more seamlessly with the rest of the components.
At least people will stop bitching about how "bUt AmD hAz a StOcK cOoLer" and using it for some metric on how expensive the CPU is. Wonder how it will handle a 12600k. Seems to be perfectly adequate for a 12400f.
@@bobjackson4287 Unfortunately Intel only amended the look of the cooler so it's not better at cooling than previous generations. Still works fine for the i3 and i5 non k CPUs. The AMD cooler is still better, but as soon as you want to overclock both AMD and Intel's stock coolers should be replaced.
4 years ago a 1k PC was premium. Come back to me when you can build a pc for $500 :) 4 Years ago. B450 pro 80 2600X 120 16 gigs ram 90 Budget GPU 150 Budget case 50 490 excluding monitor, mouse, kb. Granted it creeps over 500 with storage.
@@BALLBOY52 yeah, I know, that wasn't my point. My point was, in this EXACT system, the one Paul built, what's the actual performance difference.. y'know, for anyone looking at this price point.
Love the Focus G. I got Mystic Red for my AMD build. Added Be quiet Purewings 2 140mm fan to front and moved the front fan I replaced to the rear as exhaust. Put aftermarket sliding drawer in the 5 1/4" bay to hold all my USB drives and manuals etc. Note: I have arthritis, having a light weight clear plastic side panel instead of a much heavier tempered glass one is actually a plus for me.
Boards are just too expensive nowadays. I remember Intel and amd supported budget boards you could get anywhere from $50-$100 depending on your budget and anything over that isn't required but has nice features
I just built an intel 12400f. I used the same case also. The stock cooler I find was adequate. I ran it through Cinebench several times. The cooler kept the temps in the hi 60's low seventies. There isn't alot of space to cable manage but, again, it's adequate. Good video.
AMD has way cheaper motherboards. Even Intel does, but not as much. What Paul built here is from a midrange motherboard, not a low budget one even though he claims so. AMD is also better for integrated graphics if you're never gonna buy a GPU.
As someone who's had a Focus G for a few years... I'd say "Take 15 minutes, pull the front off, and pull the foam out from the front." Better airflow, sure, but it's a pain in the ass to clean if it starts getting dusty. Doesnt' blow out, doesn't wash off, just ends up looking bad. I'll take a little less filtering and still have the "mesh" front.
Man times have changed where a _budget_ build is £1k. To spend that amount and only get a 3050, you'd be better off getting a console... If you can find one.
Personally I would have went for the Phanteks P360 for the case. It's like $10 more but with that you get a tempered glass case, Power supply shelf and a lot better cable management and its a better quality of steel and not aluminum like The Fractal G
Building a PC is the best thing ANYONE can do for themselves. My first build was in 2011. It still has an i5-2500K 2nd Gen 3.3GHz. I purchased everything on Newegg back then. That PC is still running today with only a couple of upgrades. First I upgraded the memory from 8 to 16. Then swapped HDD's for SSD's. And after 9 years my GTX 560 TI Graphics Card died and I replaced it with a cheap GTX 1650 in 2020. It's still going strong and showing no signes of slowing down. I love helping family and frields build PC's for longevity.
Its sad that most people lean towards the 3050 in my country.. When the 6600 is the same price and the 2060 outperforms the 3050 for a little more... Nvidia still pretty much dominates the non informed
I just did a build using that exact CPU and mobo! Paired them with an EVGA 3060 ti, 16gb corsair vengeance 3400mhz, 750w psu, and 1tb nvme. For a budget system, it performs amazingly well.
Nice to see an affordable PC solution Paul. I am curious how the cooler fairs, because the mounting pressure looked a little wimpy when you installed it. Awesome to follow along as we get back to reality builds.
Damn, I remember back in the day when ‘budget’ wasn’t synonymous with ‘bad’. I can’t remember the I5 I had with Emmy old computer (but with a GTX 1070), but it performs about as well as this would I think, and Digital Storm (yes the boutique guys) built that for even a little bit less than your setup. Not sure if it’s just me but maybe you’re calling the war over too early.
Yeah, the RTX 3050 is definitely around the ballpark of GTX 1070/1660 Super. Though, the RX 6600 is the same price (sometimes slightly cheaper) and performs slightly better than a GTX 1080.
We used to try and make builds as close to a console's price as possible with similar or better performance. Can't do that now that GPUs cost as much as a middle-high end build would 5 years ago.
@@sokool3994 True, went hunting for those receipts and I actually spent less than $900 on that computer though. It’s nuts the price increases and what they’ve done to our perception of a decent deal.
I got the Fractal-G Mini in a recent build, great case for the cheap price, the drive bays are removable which increases your airflow and the case has more fan mounts at the bottom after you remove the drive bays. The only really dumb flaw is the side mounted ssd screw holes are behind the psu so you have to remove the psu to change that.
Nice case choice. The Focus G really is one of the best budget cases out there. I wish they'd make a tempered glass version. Just make tooling for the side panel. Bottom 1/3 metal (to hide the psu & cables), glass on top, metal trim to use the case's existing mounting. Priced between it & their next teir cases.
Damn Norway is trippin, the RX 6600 XT is still over $675 if you can find one in a store. Huge letdown for those of us who do not want Nvidia over here. Anyways, great guide Paul, will definitely send this to people overseas, who want to build a computer today. GREAT case choice, I'm using a Fractal Design Define Mini C which has a similar layout inside, and it's SUCH a joy to build in.
u can get 6600 for 450, its the same price as a 3050 if not less because i see them for 20-30 dollars more and its preforms near a 3060 without the nvidia perks in certains situation but rts isnt even that viable at that range of card an dlss will help some but its not 300 dollars better. the 6600 is being completely ignored in the gpu market. because everyone is v focused on xt or nvidia. the 6600 got a bad rap from the early on reviews from when it first launched but its legit the best budget card on the market. a 6600 should hold off anything whos building a computer now unless the whole industry starts to straighten out some.
I've got rx 6600 for my brother (because he was using r9 290x and 6600 is better than my gtx 1080) for a near/close to msrp price in UK, msrp of rx 6600 in UK was 299gbp, my brother's sapphire pulse 6600 was 349gbp considering market conditions one month ago, that was a very good deal and the card is better than rtx 3050 - which is unobtanium here in UK.
the VGA port is because the B series chipset are originally intended for Businesses, hence the B in B660. A lot of businesses still use their crappy old monitors because its cheaper than upgrading, and they dont have much need to upgrade their monitors generally anyways. It just happens to be that the B series chipsets are cheaper to produce and still make solid gaming boards.
Thanks for videos like this! I am building a PC for the first time in my life, and really appreciate the detail here. I am having so much fun and I can't believe I never built one before.
Nice to see a build in that case. I need a 5.25 bay for a Blu-ray drive for ripping my collection to Plex and my case is super old - like has no cable management old. Maybe I’ll swap out for this one. 👍
I love how all these videos are made in USA but in Europe everything is much much more expensive. A 1000 dollars pc made in US costs around 1400 euros and that's 1550 dollars 😂🤣😂
Completed (well, without a GPU for now) my first build for 813€, centered around a 10600K and 32 GB of RAM. Got the best B460 for 115€ and the CPU for the price of a 10400 / 10500.
Just FYI to the people who are looking to build a system for the future GPU lineup. (4000 series specifically) Leakers have said that these cards need at LEAST 1000w PSUs that are Gold or better. So, make sure you get something over that or just wait until more information comes out about them.
Paul, pls pls pls when you do the performance follow up: two monitors, with Discord + a few Chrome tabs on one and a full screen multiplayer esports title on the other. I want to build this, but am very interested how it handles a real daily driver use case, not just a AAA title, single monitor, fps count. Thanks and keep up the great work!
I just built a budget build for a server using the 12400. I found that the PRIME H670-PLUS D4 is about $10-$20 more than the 660. I think it's worth the extra few bucks. Has an extra PCIe X16 slot, two additional USB 3.2 gen1 ports on the rear and one extra USB 3.2 Gen1 header on the board.
I have a i5 7400 coupled with a rx 460. I would really like to build a new system but prices are too high at the moment. I am going to wait for the next generation of CPUs and GPUs.
Don't feel bad as I'm on an AMD A10 5800K OC to 4.3Ghz on air cooling, with 16GB of DDR3 RAM OC 2133Mhz on a Gigabyte Micro ATX Mobo, a PowerColor Red Dragon AMD RX 560 4GB GPU with 256GB SSD, and 2TB HDD with a backup USB 3.0 4TB HDD on Solus Linux, and a Rosewill 650 watt PSU, and with the core of this system after an MSI Mobo died a few years back(only had enough funds to replace the Mobo at the time, and keep the system going) will be going on nearly 9 years in Oct as the AMD A10 5800K was released in OCT 2012, and I built the system about a year later during a Newegg sale, but despite that it still handles a lot of games, and daily take fairly well on 2 24in 1080p 75Hz monitors.
other youtubers have seen bad thermals on it though. I think it was Dawid that seen high spikes in temp. from it for one. A $20 deepcool tower cooler from Amazon will be a massive upgrade for the cpu cooling imo
Got my rx 6600 the msi variant and I love it. Got it for $450 and I don't feel bad about it, just in time for elden ring and other games my old gpu would of had some trouble with
Nice build Paul and perfect time too. I just bought that Fractal case in blue. Thanks for pointing out the small oddities of the case. That will make my build go much faster. Take care everyone and be safe. Cheers
Took my friend to Microscenter yesterday for his first gaming pc build and nearly got identical parts. This makes me very happy that we chose correctly. (did go with the 6600 though)
Hey Paul, great video. I am pretty interested in someday going from a 1080 monitor to something better and faster. It would be interesting getting your take on the different flavors of monitors. What components make sense for a gaming computer for these different flavors, whether plain vanilla, mango gelato or Cherry Garcia? I know you steer clear of monitors mostly but I am pretty sure you have valid and useful insight on these. I for one am driving a pc with 3700X paired with a GTX 1080TI and a vanilla 140hz 1080 monitor. Seems like if the price of GPUs come back to earth i would be willing to do an upgrade both GPU and monitor.
Thanks Paul a lot. I been holding back on a new build for gaming and overall use. After watching your Budget build for me the CPU is the right one and put things in prospective and help me understand that who really needs a 125 watt blow touch to get decent performance. With $1500 on hand it's time to do it but I'll get a $200 board and around $100 case for future upgrades. Again thanks for proven what a good budget CPU can do.
Another comment on the igpu, if you choose the 6500xt, you can use quicksync to have full encode and decode support, which works around one of the shortcomings of the 6500 xt.
Nice to see 5.25" bays on a current build. I'm still using a Corsair Red-storm 2, but I had to snip the red LEDs on its' 'stripper-heels' clear fans. Thanks Paul
I highly suggest if you are considering buying an Intel Dgpu, you get the NON-F chip. Intel Dgpu's will access and utilize the IGPU. This may or may not give added performance for little extra upfront cost. It may not. IGPU's are just dam convenient though either way and worth the money imo.
Started seeing a lot of articles pushing the rumour that GFX prices are going to drop hard over the next few months. Fingers crossed there's lights at the end of this tunnel.
My i5 8400 is starting to show its age diping below 144 fps in many cpu heavy games (its a 144hz monitor curse and you can feel it) Upgrading to 12th gen is gonna fix those issues i hope.
I wish I've seen a 3050 for under 600. Which is CRAZY. The only 3050 in North Dakota to be sold in facebook since release was going for 750 and the dude would not budge. AND SOMEONE BOUGHT IT. 2 weeks later, a 3060 ti pops up for 650 then lowered to 550.
Very nice looking build. I like that the build doesn't have a huge cost, but should readily perform most tasks. I also like that there is minimal lighting. For some reason, I was just thinking about that old show called Stargate. A cool show, America's army teamed up with the character named Teilk. He looked like a human, but he was an Alien from another planet. He was also a host for a symbiote. In one episode, they showed the symbiote occupying the host. The host was not happy about the occupation. Tielk was an ally and fighting on our militaries side, but the hosts appear to be captives before they have the symbiote put into their ear. Anyway, that doesn't apply to the build. Hopefully GPU prices will lower sometime soon. But at least those cards you showed in this build aren't that horribly overpriced. Testing methods, 4K ultra, for max performance, 1440 high, with maybe some visual candy that doesn't take away from getting 60-90 fps, and 1080 with high frame rate adjustments for real world usage.
FYI the same day this video went out, Canada Computers had RTX 3050 cards in stock for as low as 430-480 Canadian dollars. The exchange rate is currently approximately 1 USD = 1.275 CAD, so 430 is about 335-340 USD, and 480 is about 375 USD. (Current time is approximately 9.30pm Eastern time, aka Toronto/New York/Miami time.) www.canadacomputers.com/search/results_details.php?keywords=3050&isort=price&cpath=43 The 6500XT is in the ballpark of 350 CAD, or about 275 USD at the same retailer: www.canadacomputers.com/search/results_details.php?keywords=6500&isort=price&cpath=43 Most of the 6600's are in the neighbourhood of 650 CAD which is about 510 USD (with a couple options that are a hundred bucks or so lower but are currently sold out): www.canadacomputers.com/search/results_details.php?keywords=6600&isort=price&cpath=43
I bought a Focus G on sale ages ago for $35 with free shipping (the blue one), and it sat in its box for most of the GPU pandemic. I built a system with a mix of new and used parts using an I7-11700F, MSI Torpedo mobo, Scythe Fuma 2 cpu cooler, 32 gb od ram (8x4), 2070 Super, 2tb M.2 SSD (only gen 3 though) and a 750w psu. Just for fun I got a 5.25 card reader and an old Bluray drive out of my junk bin as well. Clearly, now that this is finished...oit's already junk and I need to upgrade everything. 😎
Nice down to earth build, I'm planning a similar 12400+b660 build and reuse my 1070Ti. Would definitely like to see the real world performance comparison of the graphic cards you showed(maybe add a 3060, 6700 and 3070 to show how versatile this system can be) paired with this system as opposed to results from card reviews when paired with top cpu. Thanks
Would suggest people hold off on spending more than necessary on a PSU right now. The new PCIe 5 standards are going to require more connectors and unless you're at the top end your PSU isn't going to have all the required connectors. Might also introduce more stringent requirements for them at the same time specifically the very spiky current draw that the 3080 and higher produce.
You should do a Dawid "prebuilt" equivilant video. Single channel ram and a GT 710! Ideally you'd build it in a case with little to no airflow rather than the Focus G. It will need lots of RGB to make up for it.
If you do anything besides gaming, the 32GB is a no-brainer upgrade. Not needing to close any other programs while running a game is definitely a huge plus. My rule of thumb is that you should have twice as much ram as the largest program you use needs, therefore you don't need to manage memory usage manually by constantly closing and opening programs, or have the stutters caused by occasional swapping. The high prices of GPU:s currently mean that trying to force a 1000$ budget just causes sacrifices that make it feel like a cheap computer by having absolute minimum viable in places where spending a bit more would make compute feel way better in general usage. This is a minimum viable new gaming computer, but ~1000$ for such a thing seems like way too much for way too little. 32GB RAM and 2TB nvme drive should be almost mandatory for a general-purpose PC build. You don't want to manually manage the storage between devices and it's better to get enough in one go than buy something inadequate and then do it again. I went from 1TB HDD to 1TB nvme drive and I regretted not getting 2TB immediately. Those two sacrifices to fit into an arbitrary budget are going to waste your time. Now we would be something like a 20% higher budget, for things that actually make the overall experience fit what >~1000$ should give you. People are not paying for the performance of PC people are paying for improvement over their existing system, which means budget systems from new components are not really that much value compared to getting a bit more.
I can confirm that a z53 (240mm AIO) does fit on the top of this case. May run into clearance issues depending on VRM heatsinks and RAM height. Also fitting into the optical bay may take some finessing. I was able to make it work though.
Nice to see budget builds return. It would be good to see the performance with the 3050, 6600 and something slightly cheaper from the 2nd hand market such as the 1070. It was a nice build that I thought was let down by the case, even for the budget price of $50. The side panel makes it look like it's a decade old and the lack of a PSU shroud to help hide cable management are big disappointments.
Im thinking of an esports game lan build with the i3 10100f, MSI H510-I pro mini itx, 16gb of ram, a wd SN550 1tb, msi 3050, fractal node 202 and a Gskill KM360/Logi G305 peripheral setup
Just finished building a new pc snagged the rx 6600 for a good deal on Newegg and couldn’t be happier with the performance, I’d recommend to anyone if you can find a reasonably priced one
Hey, that's my case! Its cheap but gets the job done, reason I picked it was for the airflow on the front mesh. I started with the 2 stock fans in the front but got 3 more matching fans for the top and back, then later upgraded from the stock CPU cooler to a tower cooler which fits nicely thanks to the raised side panel.
Maybe it's just the shortages getting to me and missing doing builds, but I actually really like the look of this one. Simple, neutral colors, visible components, and Intel's new non-hideous stock cooler.
Own the Focus G, at normal price its not worth it compared to others but when its on sale down in the 40s, with the mesh front its an amazing value ultra cheap case.
Hey Paul, I have a question. I'm running an i7 3770 in a system that's getting a bit long in the tooth. I don't do anything that puts major stress on my CPU and the 4/8 combination seems to be enough for my general use. My question is, would a 12th gen i3 be a good enough upgrade/replacement and put the few dollars saved into a slightly better GPU? I play mostly older and indy games and I'm not a video content creator, so I think this might be the best move, but your input and opinion would be appreciated.
Strong system base to build on. I built pretty much this same PC 5 years ago for $800 with 7th gen intel i5 and Rx480 8GB.... Ran strong for 5 years until I slowly upgraded to more M.2s an i7 and RTX3070, but the base of the build is still holding on...
Eager to see temps, and I"d hope for commentary (or better yet, direct comparisons between) stock cooler, 120mm Aio (EK specifically), and air (arctic freezer 34 specifically).
