Question New build for my buddy

[Stg-Flame]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for.
Gaming - Doesn't have to be able to max everything and likely will be using his 4K TV as a monitor until he saves up for a decent 1080 or 2K monitor. Nothing fancy. He also doesn't plan on playing that many high-end games (no Cyberpunk for him - yet) so it's basically down to FPS like Tarkov, Battlefield, and CoD.

2. What YOUR budget is.
$1,000 as a bare minimum. We've discussed possibly going up to $1,300 as a max.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Newegg - USA
Amazon - USA

5. IF YOU have a brand preference.
GPU - eVGA
This is flexible since it's not going to be for me. I'll use AMD parts if they have the better bang for buck, but I'm not familiar with them in the slightest and any technical issues with this computer, I will be fixing since his knowledge of computers is about as vast as a turtle's knowledge of calculus.

6. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
I've given him a mouse already - an old Logitech G500 so that's not really a priority at the moment.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Default.

8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?
1080 most likely. Possibly 2k if we can push the parts and budget, but I'm shooting low here.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
As soon as I settle on a part list that I like that fits in the budget provided. Lower is better obviously, especially due to the uncertainty of the economy at the moment.

10. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?
Operating system(s).

I've looked around on Newegg and Amazon and looking back on some of my older builds I had planned, everything has gone up in price. My old $1,400 build I was planning for my ex is now sitting around $1,600 and that's without the keyboard and mouse since they're out of stock. It's been a long time since I built a gaming PC so I'm completely out of the loop here. I've also looked for the old low-budget ($500 - $1,000) thread but it seems to have disappeared or I'm just tired and bad at searching.

I'll update this as I pick out parts and update a final total as I go. I also greatly appreciate any and all suggestions towards this build.

Current build:

Case - $90
CPU - $225 (I know this is the unlocked version for OCing, but I can't find just the straight 9600 anywhere)
Mobo - $172
Sink - $45
GPU - $170 ($150 after MIR)
PSU - $58
RAM - $78
Win10 - $110
Peripherals - $104
SSD - $85
DVD - $18

Current total: $1155 ($1037 after MIR)

OPTIONAL HDD - $44

 

[VirtualLarry]

That GTX 1650 is overpriced. Get a 1650 Super if you're going that way. Otherwise, get an 8GB GDDR6 RX 5500XT for around the same price as that (expensive) 1650 you picked out.


Or is this a EVGA-specific desire?

 

[Stg-Flame]

I personally love EVGA products and their customer support but if there's something cheaper/better, I'm open to ideas.

Edit: I'm not finding any 5500XTs for under $200 and judging by some spec comparisons I found online, it looks like the Radeon card wins vs the 1650 Super.
I found this at Newegg and I'm curious if it's worth trying out. It looks like most of these cards have bad or no reviews, so it makes me wonder what's up with this series.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I thought I saw an RX 5500 XT 8GB for $200-$20 MIR, but possibly I'm confused / not remembering correctly. I was looking at a bunch of VGA cards, and not paying total attention.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I can bump the price up a bit and I just found out another friend of mine sent him a used gaming PC that he has yet to pick up, so depending on what's inside that thing (I was told it's only a mid-range rig), I might be able to cut out some of the cost on this and buy better hardware. But for now I'm going to stick with the budget he gave me and assume the one that my friend sent is useless for parts. If anything, we could likely use the case, but I'm fairly impressed by that Lian Li I found.

 

[Arkaign]

If you're definitely not interested in overclocking, the the Asus Prime B360A is only $75 on Amazon. The fancier boards are mainly for three things :

OC (better VRM for high stable power and switching from low to high outputs smoothly and quickly without vdroop/surge)

Fancy Lights and bling

Extra features, which most never use or could be cheaply and effectively added to less expensive boards (eg; Bluetooth, Wireless AC, etc)

But yeah, non overclocked the $75 board will perform 99.5% the same as the $175 or even 500$ board.

That would definitely give you more budget for things that will be more noticeable, like faster GPU, bigger SSD, whatever.

Speaking of SSD, $85 for a Sammy Evo SATA might be a little suboptimal. nVME are nice to have, and priced well these days. For example the Crucial P1 1TB is about 4x faster and only $30 more than the 500GB SATA. Or the Rocket 1TB 3400MB/3000MB for $130, amongst plenty of super fast 500GB nVME SSDs for $60-$80.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I'll check that when I get home. I'm not sure when that will be but I'll update the list when I do. I'm open to any other suggestions.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Update: I'm not sure I can use the case our friend gave him so I'm keeping the Lian Li for now. This other case isn't bad, but it needs a bit of work (fans were never cleaned so they are locked up) and it doesn't have the ease of access that newer cases provide.

I'll look into nVME but I honestly don't know what they are since they came out after I built my current setup over a decade ago. If they are cheaper and more efficient, I'll switch to those when I have some more time to browse Newegg. For now, it's a pain to browse on my phone so I'll be checking later when I get home.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

the lancool 1? didn't know they still made that. I have the lancool 2 if you have any questions about it. also, stop getting 2.5 SSDs when NVMEs are so much faster and more convenient. you'll regret it after using the pc for 6 months and everyone has NVMEs and the speeds are blowing everything away. why buy yesterdays tech? The storage drive is ALWAYS the bottleneck in overall system speed, until you get an NVME drive.