Building a budget gaming PC doesnt have to be boring

Date:
Mon, 30 Aug 2021 13:22:18 +0000

Description:
Powerful, high-end gaming PCs may be exciting to build, but theres plenty to enjoy with a budget build, especially since you wont deal with the same challenges and constraints presented by high-power components.

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Building a new gaming PC is an exciting occasion. You get to hand-pick the parts that are going to power your gaming experience. Youll get to build from the ground up, effectively deciding not only how powerful your PC will be but also how stylish.

Though theres a lot to love about going all-in on premium parts for an
extreme build, there are actually some considerable perks to a budget build. Even if you cant build a PC that can run every game at max settings, theres
no rule saying you cant get creative while building with more modest parts.
If your PC build budget is limited, youve still got a reason to get hyped and can still plan to make something special. (Image credit: Maingear) The beast PC - A perspective

When its time to build a new gaming PC, most of us would love to head online, pick out the most powerful, expensive components, order them all in, and then build a giant, magnificent beast of a machine that wont sweat under the load of any single game.

But, most of us probably cant afford to spend so capriciously, and a lot of the highest-end components have seriously diminishing returns (like the
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and especially the RTX 3090 ). Plus, a lot of those components have a few things in common: They are bigger, require more power, and run hotter.

As you get toward higher-power graphics cards , youre looking at major power draws that require serious power supplies . A lot of these cards can take up two or even three PCIe slots in width and then also tend to be longer, requiring extra space inside the PC case . Large air coolers or extended
240mm and 360mm radiators for cooling higher-power processors also take up more space. As each of these components demands more power or thermal management, it also drives up the price even further, as beefier power supplies and coolers dont come cheap. (Image credit: Future) Your friendly neighborhood budget build

By contrast, components that fall toward the budget end of the market tend to require less power and cooling, and they can take up less space in turn. That opens up some exciting possibilities for what you can do when youre building on a budget.

Thats right were talking small form factor PCs.

Where high-end PC builds that try to go SFX can be a major struggle,
requiring specialized parts and some serious Tetris skills to get each component to slot it nicely without restricting airflow, a budget SFX build for gaming can be much easier.

Youll rarely find a lower-power graphics card taking up three PCIe slots or
an affordable processor with a TDP above 100W. (Image credit: Future) Finding fun in small spaces

Given space constraints wont be as big an issue, youll be able to more freely choose your PC case. You can pick out a sleeper case that will hide its
gaming nature or go for something a bit more fanciful. And, youll get to do
so without having to worry so much about whether your parts will fit into a Micro ATX or Mini ITX case.

There are still a few things youll want to be sure of. Your motherboard will need to fit the case, but with the recent boom in mini-ITX boards, you should have no trouble finding a budget motherboard thatll fit.

Youll also need a power supply that can fit. Thats where going low-power
helps again. Lower wattage power supplies arent always going to be as big (although some sizing is standardized). Going lower power will save you money on the power supply as well. And, if your case can only fit SFX power supplies, you can still find an affordable low-wattage model while a high-wattage option would jump up dramatically in price as it gets expensive to fit everything into the smaller frame.

The graphics card will still be important to ensure a fit for. Though cheaper graphics cards usually arent as thick, they can still be long. That said, youll find a lot more short, dual-fan or even single fan models of low-power graphics cards than you will of high-power ones simply because they dont need as much cooling. Of course, for a budget build, you might not even need a separate graphics card.

If youre getting hyped about the Steam Deck, you may have noticed it is essentially a super small gaming PC running on an AMD APU. If you also opt
for an AMD APU like the recently released Ryzen 7 5700G or Ryzen 5 5600G, youll be getting both your CPU and GPU on the same chip, so you wont even
have to worry about finding room for a graphics card.

Slapping a Ryzen 7 5700G into a compact gaming PC would give you plenty of performance when youre not gaming and can provide speeds thatll hold up modestly well for 1080p gaming on demanding titles while breezing through
less graphically intense games. And, it can do that with some modest cooling in a tiny PC case that you could sneakily hide next to a TV or on your desk. Welcome to TechRadars PC Gaming Week 2021 , our celebration of the greatest gaming platform on Earth. Despite the global pandemic and ongoing GPU shortages, PC gaming has never been more vibrant and exciting, and throughout the week well be reflecting this with a selection of in-depth articles, interviews and essential buying guides.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/building-a-budget-gaming-pc-doesnt-have-to-be-b oring/


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