Description
I Have been playing on consoles all my life but when out of necessity I had to buy a new laptop powerful enough for engineering. Ended up deciding on a Predatore Helios 300 which had an Intel i7 and a GTX1060 powering the little guy. Starting playing on mouse and keyboard all the games I played on console (Overwatch, Apex, Fortnite, Monster Hunter) and I was hooked. I realized this laptop wasn't going to be able to handle the load I'd be putting on it. I had mainly been playing on my laptop not my Xbox so I decided to build!! I planned on playing on this build for a few years so I tried my best to make this future proof without breaking the bank. I also bought everything during the prime day 2 day sale. I saved myself probably 150 or so.
Price for everything in the build that I paid: CPU $200, Cooler $60, Motherboard $120, RAM $106, Storage $90, GPU $420, Case $60, PSU $98, Monitor $300, Keyboard $70, Mouse $30, Headset $30, Windows $90
Total : $1,674
Part Reviews
CPU
$200 from Newegg-Decided to go with the new gen of the Ryzen 5 CPU becasue of its affordable price of 200 for 6 cores and 12 threads. Also the ability to OC (not going to now) if I need to in the future. It was the recommended CPU for the games I was looking to play.
CPU Cooler
$60 from Newegg- This is one of the spots on my build I went for cheaper product. I wanted to go with AIO Cooler for aesthetics and to keep my CPU temps under a load down (Biggest problem with my laptop). Its doing well with the cooling (keeping it under 65C under some demanding loads) The RGB looks great and was easy to hook up once I realized I didn't need the included controller Rookie Move. The only negative about this system is the fans are a little noisy but for $50 on sale I could pass it up.
Motherboard
$120 from Newegg- After figuring my CPU/GPU combo I went with B450 so I wouldn't break the bank on the X570 Mobo. I went with this specific mobo because the ease to Flash the Bios that this board paired well with the last gen Ryzen 5 2600. Connecting everything onto the board was very simple after I read the manual.
Memory
$106 from Newegg- Doing research I read that Ryzen CPU love high RPM RAM so decided to try and find an RGB 3600 and found these on sale. RGB looks great in the case.
Storage
$90 from B&H- Didn't want to have a lot of cables to manage so I decided to opt for an NVe M.2 SSD. They had the highest read/write speeds of the different storage drives. To start out I wanted at least 1TB so I don't have to worry about getting a new drive soon. Wanted to grab a Samsung EVO but for the 1TB was too expensive for my budget
Video Card
$420 from Amazon- This was my hardest decision of the build. It first decision that had to be made so I could design the rest of the build to make the most of the graphics card I ended up selecting. I looked at all the recommended requirements for the games I wanted and ended up deciding on the Nvidia RTX 2060 Super Chipset (Choices were RTX 2070/ RTX 2060 Super/ Radeon 5700XT because were all in the similar price range). So far I am very happy with my choice. Paired with the 2k monitor games have been looking great! I have't ran full benchmarks but when I do I'll add them.
Case
$60 w/ rebate from Newegg- Picked this case on a friends recommendation and mostly happy with it. Case is study and has great cable management features. Comes with 2 fans which are pretty quiet and an LED strip to throw in the case. It's maybe a little longer than I needed since I didn't go with the triple fan graphics card. Also, front pane is solid so you can't see RGB fan from the front but didn't matter for me becasue I put it sideways on my desk.
Power Supply
$98 from Amazon- System requirements were around 400 so I picked 650 to leave room for upgrading. Wanted a 80+ gold rating and for it to be fully modular from a trusted brand
Monitor
$300 from Newegg- Friend had recommended looking at Dell for quality gaming monitors. Knew I needed min 144Hz Refresh Rate and 1ms Response Time. At the time of writing this I haven't tried to get G-Sync to work on this monitor but i saw it can be done but it looks so great already that I probably won't mess with that until later. At $300 for you won't a better quality 1440p gaming monitor with the specs and name brand.
Keyboard
$60 refurbished from Newegg- Great feel for gaming but when using as an actual keyboard can feel a little bulky. RGB looks great too.
Mouse
$30 from Newegg- Was using a good mouse with only 2 buttons on the side with my laptop. wanted something with more buttons on the side that was under $40. If you have the money the 5-button Razer mouse is what I really wanted. The button are tougher to click than my old mouse but actually is very comfy to use.
Comments