Building an Affordable Gaming PC for Streaming
Keeping the above rant in mind, we decided our max budget would be 40,000 INR ($580 USD) to build an entry level Gaming/Streaming PC for popular eSports titles such as CS: GO. Considering the fact that this is an entry level build, our target is to Stream @720p 60FPS medium-high, so building such a PC isn’t that tough unless you don’t know what you’re doing. Having said that, we decided on a Ryzen Build once again. It’s a no-brainer to use a Ryzen CPU in this price range but if you don’t really know how to build yourself, you can always purchase one of the best cheap gaming PC these days.
The Parts
As said earlier, we’d be going over a Ryzen Build featuring the ever-so-popular Ryzen 3 1200 to be the heart of our build. Yes, guys, you can stream with the cheapest Ryzen CPU and a GTX 10 series GPU easily. I’ve seen people stream with a G4560 paired with a 1030 and still be able to achieve [email protected] high settings in CS: GO. So I guess that gives you all an idea of the basic hardware you could need. Keeping that aside, let’s dive into the parts in detail.
CPU
The Ryzen 3 1200 is a 4 Core, 4 thread CPU coming in at just 6,150 INR (5,800 if you’re lucky on sales) which is really great for entry-level gaming. For lighter titles such as CS: GO you can easily do up to 200+FPS in high settings with some tweaks. This particular CPU is clocked at 3.1 GHz and has a boost clock of 3.4 GHz. On pairing with a decent cooler, you can go up to 3.9 GHz on a B350 motherboard or higher. Intel Alternatives: Pentium G4560, i3-8100
Motherboard
Well, we have two choices here, whether to go with a 320 or 350 series motherboard. If you’re on a budget, have no plans of upgrading or overclocking then definitely stick to a 320 series motherboard, else go for the 350. As far a 320 series motherboard is concerned, one cannot go wrong with a Gigabyte GA-A320M-S2H. This board is of Micro ATX form factor which supports up to 32 GB of 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM. It also features an M.2 slot for fast storage and has support for only single GPU and just 2 RAM slots. It’s a basic board with basic functionality and no support for overclocking. On the other hand, if you would like to go with a B350 board, an ASUS Prime B350 K Motherboard would do just fine. Standard features such as support for 64DDR4 3200MHz DDR4 RAM, m.2 slots, User-friendly BIOS and also support for overclocking is what makes this board a go-to over an A320 series board. Intel Alternatives: Gigabyte H310-S2
RAM
Since we’re going with a Ryzen build one must go for fast RAM but as we’re on a budget, overclocking RAM seems to be the fitting choice. Which is why we went with 2 stick of Adata 4GB RAM clocked at 2400 MHz. They neither cost a fortune nor do they look good but damn they fit the budget. So a total of 8 GB Dual Channel Memory is what we’ve chosen to add to our Build.
HDD
As always, I would recommend a 1TB WD Blue or 1TB Seagate 7200 RPM Barracuda drive for mass storage. If you have a little extra cash, feel free to slap in a WD Green 120 GB or Kingston A400 120GB SSD to use as OS and Softwares drive.
GPU
Considering the parts we’ve chosen so far, we definitely saved enough for a decent 10 series GPU. So our obvious choice was a Zotac GTX 1050 Ti. The GPU is a definite performer for entry-level gamers who’re looking for some casual gaming and is also decent enough to stream @ 720p 60FPS. For the exact benchmarks and comparisons with similarly priced hardware, do check the following videos.
Power Supply
With the hardware we’re currently using and considering the fact that there won’t be any significant upgrades, a 450W PSU will be the sweet choice. Hence we went with the Cooler Master’s Masterwatt MWE450 which costs 2350 INR but then again if you’re looking for Bronze certified PSUs then do look for Corsair’s CX450 PSU coming in at 3,400 INR. The difference being reliability and efficiency, the Corsair PSU is a better choice, but if you’re on a budget, don’t hesitate to go for MWE450.
Case
If we take a look at all our parts, it’s totally obvious that they are totally ugly. So I say why to be ugly in open xD, which is why any decent case with front USB 3.0 ports will suffice our build. Housing all our parts is a Circle EPIC Black Case coming in at just 2,450 INR. There’s really not much to speak for a case since it’s always the user’s preference. But do make sure your choice of a case has sufficient expansion drive bays for additional HDD/SSD upgrades.
Summary
When you put everything together, you’d have to pay the salesman a decent sum of 40,200 INR only. The build would last you 2 good years provided Valve doesn’t intend to add more Graphic Updates to the game/maps. If you’re interested in more benchmarks with same hardware do check out Santiago’s Youtube Channel, he has done all of us a favor with all the info we would need. That was our take on Entry Level Gaming/Streaming PC at a Budget. As always, do let us know your suggestions/ corrections in the comments section. See you guys in the next one!!
