Question Some budget builds, needing advice

[kvlt]

Hey mates,

I've decided to get back into gaming after some time off. My current PC is about 8 years old, and even back then it was budget, but somehow is hanging on for dear life. I'm based in Australia and am looking at either building or purchasing another budget rig for <$1000. I'll probably be focusing on Planetside 2, so something that can handle that on high-ish graphics with a large view distance is ideal. There are a few prebuilts that I've got an eye on, but as I've not kept up with hardware I'm needing some more reliable advice! I'm also open to building my own again, if it's really gonna save me a bit of money - I'm just lazy these days.

1st build ($790 AUD):
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500x 4 Core 3.50GHz - 3.70GHz Processor
Motherboard: MSI B350 Pro Series
Graphics: 2x Crossfire Dual Asus Strix AMD Radeon R9 380 4GB GDDR5 OC Edition
Storage: 600GB SSD Solid State Drive
RAM: 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Ram
PSU: Antec 850W Power Supply

2nd build ($799 AUD), a compact PC:
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K CPU - running overclocked at 4.2ghz
Motherboard: ASRock Z77e-ITX Mini ITX
Graphics: Galax Mini ITX NVidia GeForce GTX 970 4gb
Storage: 256gb Samsung mSATA SSD
RAM: 16gb G.Skill TridentX 1600mhz DDR3 RAM
PSU: Silverstone Strider 500w PSU
Cooling: Antec Kuhler 620 AIO CPU Water Cooler

3rd build ($700 AUD):
CPU: i7 4790
Motherboard: ASUS Z97-K
Graphics: ASUS GTX 750 TI OC
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD, Seagate BarraCuda 1TB HDD
RAM: G.Skill 16GB DDR3-1600MHz
PSU: Corsair VS Series 550 Watt


Please let me know what you think! These are quite cheap so I don't doubt spending a couple more hundred, or even working on my own construction, may be a better idea.

 

[Zoid]

Hey mates,

I've decided to get back into gaming after some time off. My current PC is about 8 years old, and even back then it was budget, but somehow is hanging on for dear life. I'm based in Australia and am looking at either building or purchasing another budget rig for <$1000. I'll probably be focusing on Planetside 2, so something that can handle that on high-ish graphics with a large view distance is ideal. There are a few prebuilts that I've got an eye on, but as I've not kept up with hardware I'm needing some more reliable advice! I'm also open to building my own again, if it's really gonna save me a bit of money - I'm just lazy these days.

1st build ($790 AUD):
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500x 4 Core 3.50GHz - 3.70GHz Processor
Motherboard: MSI B350 Pro Series
Graphics: 2x Crossfire Dual Asus Strix AMD Radeon R9 380 4GB GDDR5 OC Edition
Storage: 600GB SSD Solid State Drive
RAM: 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Ram
PSU: Antec 850W Power Supply

2nd build ($799 AUD), a compact PC:
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K CPU - running overclocked at 4.2ghz
Motherboard: ASRock Z77e-ITX Mini ITX
Graphics: Galax Mini ITX NVidia GeForce GTX 970 4gb
Storage: 256gb Samsung mSATA SSD
RAM: 16gb G.Skill TridentX 1600mhz DDR3 RAM
PSU: Silverstone Strider 500w PSU
Cooling: Antec Kuhler 620 AIO CPU Water Cooler

3rd build ($700 AUD):
CPU: i7 4790
Motherboard: ASUS Z97-K
Graphics: ASUS GTX 750 TI OC
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD, Seagate BarraCuda 1TB HDD
RAM: G.Skill 16GB DDR3-1600MHz
PSU: Corsair VS Series 550 Watt


Please let me know what you think! These are quite cheap so I don't doubt spending a couple more hundred, or even working on my own construction, may be a better idea.

I would not recommend buying any of these. The first build is the best of the three in my opinion, although the second R9 380 won't benefit you most of the time, and the processor is already 3 years old. No matter which of these you look at, you'd be getting outdated hardware, sometimes severely so. The GTX 750 Ti was a budget card 6 years ago, let alone today.

Pricing and availability right now are hectic, and the market in Autralia looks pretty wild, but from what I'm seeing you could put together a solid build with a Ryzen 5 3600X (though I'd wait for Zen 3) and a GTX 1660 Super for around about $800, which would offer much better performance than any of the builds listed above.

What monitor resolution and refresh rate are you playing on? Are there any games besides Planetside 2 that you want to be able to play? Will you be using this machine for anything other than gaming?

 

[Oussebon]

These are some strange builds. You don't see Crossfire very often!

The other two are old platforms.

Everything @Zoid said basically

Though curious how to get a 3600x + 1660 Super build for 800 Australian dollars? Did I miss I deal? I tried on PC Partpicker and the best I got was something like:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($329.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Motherboard: MSI B450M-A PRO MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($109.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Memory: Team T-FORCE DARK Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($99.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Storage: Crucial P1 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($89.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Video Card: Asus Radeon RX 570 8 GB STRIX GAMING OC Video Card ($219.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Case: Silverstone FARA R1 ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Power Supply: Antec NeoECO Classic 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($89.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Total: $1013.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-30 00:07 AEST+1000

AUS pricing is never great afaik, and pricing andf especially availability with the pandemic seems pretty bad. However, the above should be viable for the game, and I'd certainly recommend it over the 3 original specs.

If you really are investing mostly into 1 game, check whether that game has any specific preferences e.g. if it's a title where AMD's polaris-based RX 570 significantly outperforms its Nvidia competitor the GTX 1650, or vice versa.

 

[Zoid]

Though curious how to get a 3600x + 1660 Super build for 800 Australian dollars? Did I miss I deal?

Fine I'll share my secret. What you have to do is make a parts list in Australian dollars and then half way through, be sure not to notice that it defaulted you back to USD when you refreshed the page

You're totally right, a 1660 Super is out of reach once I select Australia again.

AUS pricing is never great afaik, and pricing andf especially availability with the pandemic seems pretty bad. However, the above should be viable for the game, and I'd certainly recommend it over the 3 original specs.

If you really are investing mostly into 1 game, check whether that game has any specific preferences e.g. if it's a title where AMD's polaris-based RX 570 significantly outperforms its Nvidia competitor the GTX 1650, or vice versa.

+1 to this, @kvlt. This is a solid build and would give you better value than any of the builds in your original post, even though it's a little more expensive.

 

[Oussebon]

What you have to do is make a parts list in Australian dollars and then half way through, be sure not to notice that it defaulted you back to USD when you refreshed the page

I wish money worked that way sometimes

Also I had a quick look at a few Australian prebuild stores and the hardware for 1000 AUD seems weaker than what you can get for a self build. Sometimes you can get good deals on prebuilds - perhaps there are on other stores I didn't check - but my quick look didn't show any.

 

[mendoripper]

Hey mates,

I've decided to get back into gaming after some time off. My current PC is about 8 years old, and even back then it was budget, but somehow is hanging on for dear life. I'm based in Australia and am looking at either building or purchasing another budget rig for <$1000. I'll probably be focusing on Planetside 2, so something that can handle that on high-ish graphics with a large view distance is ideal. There are a few prebuilts that I've got an eye on, but as I've not kept up with hardware I'm needing some more reliable advice! I'm also open to building my own again, if it's really gonna save me a bit of money - I'm just lazy these days.

1st build ($790 AUD):
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500x 4 Core 3.50GHz - 3.70GHz Processor
Motherboard: MSI B350 Pro Series
Graphics: 2x Crossfire Dual Asus Strix AMD Radeon R9 380 4GB GDDR5 OC Edition
Storage: 600GB SSD Solid State Drive
RAM: 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Ram
PSU: Antec 850W Power Supply

2nd build ($799 AUD), a compact PC:
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K CPU - running overclocked at 4.2ghz
Motherboard: ASRock Z77e-ITX Mini ITX
Graphics: Galax Mini ITX NVidia GeForce GTX 970 4gb
Storage: 256gb Samsung mSATA SSD
RAM: 16gb G.Skill TridentX 1600mhz DDR3 RAM
PSU: Silverstone Strider 500w PSU
Cooling: Antec Kuhler 620 AIO CPU Water Cooler

3rd build ($700 AUD):
CPU: i7 4790
Motherboard: ASUS Z97-K
Graphics: ASUS GTX 750 TI OC
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD, Seagate BarraCuda 1TB HDD
RAM: G.Skill 16GB DDR3-1600MHz
PSU: Corsair VS Series 550 Watt


Please let me know what you think! These are quite cheap so I don't doubt spending a couple more hundred, or even working on my own construction, may be a better idea.

The 3rd build is your best option

 

[Zoid]

The 3rd build is your best option

The 3rd build would offer the worst game performance of the three.

 

[mendoripper]

oh I meant II

 

[Boon72]

All these builds are several years old, im not sure where you're looking but i would look at some decent website for a gaming PC, intel cpus are currently gen 10 so a gen 3 or 4 would be crazy to buy, AMD dont change as much but are still on Ryzen gen 3 so a 1 wouldnt be the best purchase.

check out some PC part websites, Newegg.com have an Aus option if you want to build your own