Older high end, or newer low end components?

Hey all. If you were going to buy a PC for gaming, but wanted to spend less than $500, would you go with older high end components, or newer low end stuff. Research I've done so far has me leaning toward the older good stuff, and that AMD will get you more bang for your buck, but I thought I'd get some oppinions here.

It's been quite some time since I've upgraded my PC, so talk to me like a newb :)

What do you want to get out of it?

• Monitor resolution
• level of graphical fidelity
• frame rate

Older CPUs are better than old graphics cards.

@pyro1245:

I'd like to get a stable 60fps at 1080p on games from a few years ago.

I don't mind gaming on low settings, will generally prioritise performance.

I usually buy older games at a steep discount, so I wont be trying to run Flight Simulator on this.

@judaspete:

Well there are some different paths you could take.

1. Low-end New Stuff: A Ryzen 3 3400g with onboard graphics is actually an extremely capable system for 1080p gaming. Check out this YT vid for an example of performance in different games. You could easily build a system with that CPU for $500 or less because you won't need to buy a dedicated GPU. That said you could always buy a GPU in the future and you would still have a modern CPU. 4c/8t isn't super great, but for gaming I think it should good for a while at least. Most games aren't extremely CPU intensive, but there will be exceptions. The kicker is that B450 chipsets require a BIOS update to work with the 3000-series AMD chips. It's likely at this point that any B450 motherboard you buy will have the latest BIOS version, but not a guarantee. If you end up with an old stock you might be SOL. You can always find a person or store that has a 2000-series chip and they can upgrade it for you. I haven't looked into it, but maybe some retailers can guarantee compatibility. Example
2. Old(er) Stuff: You could find a used or renewed office PC and put a GPU in it. GTX 1060 6GB, 1660 both crush 1080p gaming (maybe even overkill). I would just make sure the CPU is newer than 2014 or so, ~3.5GHz+, at least 8 threads. You can probably get a renewed system with some kind of warranty for a few hundred bucks if you dig. Make sure it's not a slim form factor or you might not be able to get a video card in there. Make sure it has some kind of SSD or allocate for one in your budget.
3. Shop local for someone trying to unload some hardware for cheap (????)

@pyro1245: Thanks. This is helpful. I was planing to go with option 2, but that Rysen 3 build is compelling. Would serve my purposes now, and be a bit more future proof.

Maybe you should try and find a used Ryzen 5 1st or 2nd generation, any B450 board and also a used GTX 1060 6GB. You would still have some upgrade options for CPU, and GTX 1060 is definitely good for 60fps at 1080p. It actually returns 100+ fps on games that I play (with i7-8700).

It depends on a few factors. Let's start with your resolution and screen size. For 500 dollars, I am assuming you are gaming at 1080p. Or hoping you are, at least.

With that said, I would start looking at the minimum recommended requirements and just start from there. Next-gen consoles are coming out so you will probably see a jump in min. requirements in the next year or two, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised just how little you need to run a game, and run it moderately well.

A game as beautiful as The Division 2 requires surprisingly low requirements, and even the recommended hardware is pretty old:

Minimum – 1080p | 30 FPS

• OS: 64-bit Windows 7 SP1 | 8.1 | 10
• CPU: AMD FX-6350 | Intel Core I5-2500K
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: AMD Radeon R9 280X | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
• VRAM: 3 GB
• DIRECT X: DirectX 11 | 12

Recommended – 1080p | 60 FPS

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X | Intel Core I7-4790
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: AMD RX 480 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
• VRAM: 4 GB
• DIRECT X: DirectX 11 | 12

Truth be told you could probably go to Best Buy or Costco, get a cheap desktop, and just drop a 200-dollar video card in there and be fine for the next few years.

You might not even need a video card. There are a ton of cheap and awesome independent games to play that have incredibly low requirements. A game like Factorio worth hundreds (if not thousands) of hours requires onboard Intel graphics

I wouldn't touch older stuff, buy current gen stuff because drivers will be more future proofed than older tech.

I'm still waiting for GTX3060 - not jumping into 3070 nore 3080.

The 3060Ti should be as good as 2080Ti for the same or less money - no point getting older tech.

As for CPUs you can get i5 9400F for 130$ - there's no need going Ryzen 5 and totally not Ryzen 3

In fact Ryzen 5 2600 which costs 150$ is worse than intel 5 9400F.

If you can't wait for lower tier Nvidia GPU you can get 2060 for 300$ right now or 1660Super for 250$.

The 9400F requires a dedicated GPU. You're not going to be able to build a system for the $500 price point. You are looking at ~$700 at that point (1660 Super). At which point I would still recommend the Ryzen 3600 since it has SMT and a higher boost clock.

The Ryzen 3400G also has a higher boost clock than the 9400F at 4.2GHz and decent onboard graphics for 1080p. You always have the ability to upgrade your GPU later, while getting in the door for under $500. You also get 8 threads instead of 6 for normal desktop stuff.

That Intel chip might be the winner if they had enabled hyperthreading, but they did not. Plus with a 3600 you get PCIe 4.0 support.

@pyro1245: I see I thought he said upgrade for 500$ or less, nah you'll need at least 700$ to buy a brand new gaming PC with good parts for 1080p.

Wouldn't got with Ryzen now days, back at series 2000 they had good price compared to Intel but now it ain't worth it, Intel beat them with price and performance.

PCI4 shouldn't be more than 5% boost compared to 3, at least back then the jump between 2 and 3 was 5%.