I’m hoping to find the best bang for the buck components whether it’s used or new. I’m located in the u.s. and will look for deals on eBay. I found a case on FB marketplace for $25 already and have a cheap power supply that claims it’s 700w. I’m just not sure what GPU/CPU would be, I figure it should be a ddr4 system to keep costs down. I would be open to a pre built office pc and slapping a GPU into that as well. This would be for “lan” type game nights just to have something that can play pc games as an option.

Edit: I won an eBay auction for an MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus for $60.

  • UntimedDiffusion@piefed.zip
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    3 days ago

    I quickly threw together a full parts list. The RX 580 is not actually $250, one can easily be found for $50-$100 on eBay, bringing the total price down to $475. It’s certainly not ideal performance, but $500 doesn’t go as far as it used in this RAM and SSD market. You might knock the RAM down to 8gb or the SSD down to 512 if you still need room in the budget for a monitor and peripherals

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 days ago

      Not bad, I found a used mobo for $60 and I’m looking at ram right now on eBay. I’m hoping that I can get a higher spec GPU, just not sure what to go with. Sucks that storage is so high right now. I might have an ssd I can use though I’ll have to check.

  • amniotic druid@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Nvidia 1080ti and Ryzen 5 5600x is a pretty solid pairing that will run you a little over half your budget. I had the very same setup until about 2 years ago. You ought to be able to run anything pre~2021 on max settings without any issue, and pretty much anything afterwards with medium-high graphics (YMMV).

    The GPU will be your bottle neck here but is about the most cost effective option. Consider upgrading it if possible

      • mierdabird@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        The 5600G is indeed a combo, but with integrated graphics. It’s obviously vastly less capability than a discrete GPU like the ones mentioned in other comments, but would certainly provide you flexibility and time to find a good deal on a GPU

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Although a 5600G isn’t very good for gaming, it sure is convenient down the line when you repurpose the old machine as a home server.