Building a Budget PC with the Radeon RX 460: Part 1

I put an rx460 into my dads lenovo (i5-6400) he bought from best buy and it plays all of his games perfect on high. doom, world of tanks, war thunder -- my big gripe with these OEM computers is you never know if a video card will even post. I got a lenovo M91p pretty cheap with an i5-2500 and it refuses to post with anything better then a geforce 630. a 750 ti might work but i dont have one to test.
 
The i3 seems overkill after the Kaby Lake Pentiums for a budget PC. 64$ and you are go for your gaming PC.
 
Shintai said:
The i3 seems overkill after the Kaby Lake Pentiums for a budget PC. 64$ and you are go for your gaming PC.
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Are the KL pentiums out for sale? Looked a day or two ago & couldn't find any on 'egg
 
 
As soon as he mentioned a FreeSync monitor the idea of it being a "budget" build jumped off the top floor of the skyscraper. Who in their right mind would honestly spend the $$$ for one for this budget build? Yes he mentioned upgrading and longevity by using the FreeSync monitor but if that was the case there were other bits that could be used to also increase the longevity of the system. But that will also bump this out of the "budget" category.

Also: no OS mentioned at all in the build, that's extra $$$ right there and still not sure why it was left out.
 
I'm guessing that AMD won't have been too pleased at his choosing an Intel CPU.

Shintai said:
The i3 seems overkill after the Kaby Lake Pentiums for a budget PC. 64$ and you are go for your gaming PC.
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He mentioned in the video that they weren't actually available at the time of filming.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
As soon as he mentioned a FreeSync monitor the idea of it being a "budget" build jumped off the top floor of the skyscraper. Who in their right mind would honestly spend the $$$ for one for this budget build? Yes he mentioned upgrading and longevity by using the FreeSync monitor but if that was the case there were other bits that could be used to also increase the longevity of the system. But that will also bump this out of the "budget" category.

Also: no OS mentioned at all in the build, that's extra $$$ right there and still not sure why it was left out.
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Freesync monitors are pretty inexpensive so, I am not sure where you get the idea that this would bump it out of the budget category. This is not a Gsync tax after all.
 
Quartz-1 said:
I'm guessing that AMD won't have been too pleased at his choosing an Intel CPU.



He mentioned in the video that they weren't actually available at the time of filming.
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Not really sure where you think they would be displeased as even they are producing new cpu's very soon. The old stuff is old and the newer i3 will let them us DDR4. That said, I have no issues if he used a FX 8 core but, DDR3 ram does cost more now so, for a budget build, it just is not the same as it once was.
 
/dev/null said:
I understand why people build PCs for fun.
I understand why people build PCs to accomplish a specific goal or they have niche needs.

Anything else can (from a bang/$ perspective) be done by buying a used pre-built & then updating the graphics card, ram, and ssd and your bang/$ will be much better. Companies that do 3 year leases sell to recyclers that have TONS of stuff for cheap on ebay.
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I'm planning on replacing my current system, and was going to buy a prebuilt system and add a few items to it since I need to replace most my current parts.
However, after looking around, I've decided to just build a system again.
For around the same $, I can build a quieter/faster system with more expansion options for future growth. Since I hope to keep the system for 6+ years, the upgrade options are important.
 
For OS, someone just needs to pick up one of those $10 windows 7 licenses for sale on this forum and upgrade to 10 at will.

I've been looking at a T3600 for my brother in-law and myself. If you can get one with the ~630W PSU, you're set to add any decent video card.
 
ManofGod said:
Freesync monitors are pretty inexpensive so, I am not sure where you get the idea that this would bump it out of the budget category. This is not a Gsync tax after all.
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Did you actually watch the video and catch the part where he mentioned that the FreeSync monitor was a huge % of the overall build (~$250, almost 50% as he put it)? And as a reminder, this is tagged as a "budget" build. Again, if you are building a machine that carries a "budget" tag, why add the extra cost of a FreeSync monitor? I'm not seeing this as a machine that *needs* the feature. :meh:
 
CombatChrisNC said:
For OS, someone just needs to pick up one of those $10 windows 7 licenses for sale on this forum and upgrade to 10 at will.

I've been looking at a T3600 for my brother in-law and myself. If you can get one with the ~630W PSU, you're set to add any decent video card.
Click to expand...

While a little bit more, if you want pro, you can get Win 10 Pro keys all day long here for under $30.
 
CombatChrisNC said:
For OS, someone just needs to pick up one of those $10 windows 7 licenses for sale on this forum and upgrade to 10 at will.

I've been looking at a T3600 for my brother in-law and myself. If you can get one with the ~630W PSU, you're set to add any decent video card.
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I highly doubt those are valid or legal...
 
/dev/null said:
Anything else can (from a bang/$ perspective) be done by buying a used pre-built & then updating the graphics card, ram, and ssd and your bang/$ will be much better. Companies that do 3 year leases sell to recyclers that have TONS of stuff for cheap on ebay.
Click to expand...
I'd never ever touch that shit again. Pre-built systems are the worst pieces of crap ever. Even high end ones.
 
/dev/null said:
I highly doubt those are valid or legal...
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The hundreds of satisfied customers would say otherwise. These are oem keys that were never activated with the computers they originally came with, because the companies just slapped a volume key on them. So they are not associated with any computer yet. I mean one could argue in court that they're not legal because you're not using them with the computer they came with, but I can walk into a store and buy an OEM windows then that's no more legal because it wasn't sold with a PC. I wouldn't use them for a business, but for home use it's all the same. As far as MS is concerned it's a fully legal key that you activate for the first time.
 
/dev/null said:
I highly doubt those are valid or legal...
Click to expand...

Many are not, I bought a few from someone here on the forums and they worked...And then about a year later I got "need to activate" msg, could never get them to work again.

The ones I got from the link I gave have been working for years. The very first one I ordered I called in to get it activated and went through the options to talk to a person and asked if there were any "issues" with the key, and they said it was a never used "OEM" key, so I shrugged and moved on.

M76 said:
The hundreds of satisfied customers would say otherwise. These are oem keys that were never activated with the computers they originally came with, because the companies just slapped a volume key on them. So they are not associated with any computer yet. I mean one could argue in court that they're not legal because you're not using them with the computer they came with, but I can walk into a store and buy an OEM windows then that's no more legal because it wasn't sold with a PC. I wouldn't use them for a business, but for home use it's all the same. As far as MS is concerned it's a fully legal key that you activate for the first time.
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OEM keys and bulk keys are handled a bit different from what I have seen. If they are just normal OEM keys then the "hardware" they come on is a confused issue. MS changed the TOS not long ago to add a section as to what they mean and the reason for the "HW locked" key, which states the ONLY reason for the rule is so that the HW vendor (Dell, HP etc) do not have to support the OS after a "new computer" is made, which is defined by changing of the motherboard to one that is not defined by the mfg as a normal upgrade or replacement. The reason for this is because the vendor has to support the OS on OEM keys, not MS, and MS had to give vendors a point at which they can say it is no longer our problem, while still allowing users to upgrade/expand.
 
M76 said:
I'd never ever touch that shit again. Pre-built systems are the worst pieces of crap ever. Even high end ones.
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Uh, what?

In which ways? They get updates & fixes way longer than any consumer level stuff.
 
/dev/null said:
I just had a choice to build something like this to replace my wife's dead Q8200 based desktop. I considered doing something like that article, but instead picked up an i5-3570 based dell optiplex on ebay for $92 shipped. Added SSD I had sitting around and she has a blazing fast machine for normal desktop usage.

I understand why people build PCs for fun.
I understand why people build PCs to accomplish a specific goal or they have niche needs.

Anything else can (from a bang/$ perspective) be done by buying a used pre-built & then updating the graphics card, ram, and ssd and your bang/$ will be much better. Companies that do 3 year leases sell to recyclers that have TONS of stuff for cheap on ebay.

With a $550 budget+$100 windows license, you can easily pick up and i7-3770 for $250'ish on ebay, and have $400 left over to add SSD/memory/graphics.
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Definitely. I bought a Dell 780 SFF from Ebay for $160. i5 2400, 4GB, 250GB, w/Win 7 Pro. My use case was for an ESXi host, but definitely options out there.
 
/dev/null said:
Uh, what?

In which ways? They get updates & fixes way longer than any consumer level stuff.
Click to expand...
They have the worst compatibility and the lowest quality parts that are all proprietary, meaning you can't replace them in any case.
Unless it's still under warranty and you can get the manufacturer to replace parts in it.

I have a Dell T3500 workstation and it's disgusting. The PSU gives a loud fizzing noise on every startup like it's about to explode, a normal video card just won't fit in the case, and not because of the length. A normal rack also can't be inserted into the 5.25 openings because of the stupid convoluted retaining mechanism designed for nothing but optical drives. Or 3.5 floppy drives in case of the 3.5 slots.
I don't want to be dealing with shit like this for saving a few dimes.

I've had numerous prebuilt PCs go trough my hands from company clearance sales over the years, they all had similar problems. Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather spend an extra $100 and build a proper PC.
 
M76 said:
They have the worst compatibility and the lowest quality parts that are all proprietary, meaning you can't replace them in any case.
Unless it's still under warranty and you can get the manufacturer to replace parts in it.

I have a Dell T3500 workstation and it's disgusting. The PSU gives a loud fizzing noise on every startup like it's about to explode, a normal video card just won't fit in the case, and not because of the length. A normal rack also can't be inserted into the 5.25 openings because of the stupid convoluted retaining mechanism designed for nothing but optical drives. Or 3.5 floppy drives in case of the 3.5 slots.
I don't want to be dealing with shit like this for saving a few dimes.

I've had numerous prebuilt PCs go trough my hands from company clearance sales over the years, they all had similar problems. Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather spend an extra $100 and build a proper PC.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you got a few bad samples. A bad PSU can happen to non-prebuilts as well. I've used multiple (non hp/dell) video cards in HPs & dells with 0 problems. I've had issues with mobile racks in "standard" atx/eatx cases as well depending what the manufacturer did with the 5.25" slots. The problems you mention are in NO WAY confined to pre-builts.

Btw: My example compared with the article mentioned in the OP was $400 not $100...Spending 2x-3x more on something that is 20-25% faster than something off ebay is no value at all. -- also if you need to replace even "propietary" parts on pre-builts, they are pretty much everywhere on Ebay, assuming you go with one of the larger OEMs...

On the other hands, I've had multiple issues with building my own where the manufacturer (Asus/ASRock/etc) simply doesn't CARE if you run non-${windows_lastest} or that you are trying to use a feature in the bios (vt-d/iommu I'm looking at you) that isn't well tested by them. If the motherboard has been out for 12-18 months, the board is pretty much unofficially EOL'd. It's a huge peeve of mine and drives me insane.
 
Building a budget build is far better than buying a OEM machine for personal use. Now, for a business, not so much but, this is about us here, not a business, in my opinion. And yes, you can get a monitor with freesync capability for a pretty inexpensive price overall and it would be worth it in a budget build.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Did you actually watch the video and catch the part where he mentioned that the FreeSync monitor was a huge % of the overall build (~$250, almost 50% as he put it)? And as a reminder, this is tagged as a "budget" build. Again, if you are building a machine that carries a "budget" tag, why add the extra cost of a FreeSync monitor? I'm not seeing this as a machine that *needs* the feature. :meh:
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Was going to say the same, $250 monitor for a budge pc in $550 range. IMO, they should have dumped a mechanical drive in favor of RX470. Kind of an odd decision to use a 2GB card even in a budget gaming build since how little difference in price there is for higher vram or next model. Given that Pentium wasn't out when they tested, no you could change i3 for Pentium and put RX480 into the build as well and still be in the $550 range. Very few games use a quad core so I think given the budget it should work well, especially for 1080p.
 
ManofGod said:
Building a budget build is far better than buying a OEM machine for personal use. Now, for a business, not so much but, this is about us here, not a business, in my opinion. And yes, you can get a monitor with freesync capability for a pretty inexpensive price overall and it would be worth it in a budget build.
Click to expand...

Agreed 100%. If you want to pick out a motherboard with specific features and be able to slap 10 drives or 2-4 video cards in a machine, you'll never do that with an OEM.

My friend's son who is 13 is waffling on this. He wants to switch from console to pc gaming. He's looked at building an i5-6400 & priced out all the parts he thought were decent & it came up to like $800.
His needs are:
CPU for gaming, videocard for gaming, ssd or two & hard drive or two.

Assuming he doesnt' want to go SLI (he doesn't right now..) he's better off getting something for sub $200 & tossing in the fastest video card he can afford and buying the monitor he wants and using the legal/valid windows COA that comes with the machine.
 
Not bad, given I'm looking at building my daughters first real PC here in the near future. This largely looks like it will fit the bill. My only disappointment is it doesn't appear that this is really significantly better than my R7870 @1080p. So unless i suddenly decide to start gaming at 4k (not likely), I still have no incentive to upgrade.

Sad times.
 
Some people just want a new computer, not a used computer. Our company has only purchased off-lease computers, buying in lots of 100's, and is constantly having to fix things that are breaking. Over the course of about a year, we have collected a pile of probably 50 computers that are NER, and will just be scrapped. New computers would have gone back for warranty service, and probably we wouldn't be dealing with as many failures.

Now, to comment on the PCPer build, a few critiques
1. SSD + HDD - If you are thinking about gaming, then you won't want to load very many games on that SSD, since it will fill up quickly. Then the only speed advantage you will get will be on OS boot up. Unless you want to play "install games only while using, then uninstall when done." Now, I personally have this type of combo, but my main system is not a "budget" build. I'd go for a straight performance based spinner, like the WD Black for a budget gaming build.

2. Case and power supply - a 500W power supply is way overpowered for this build. Sure, if you are looking to put in a video card down the road that would cost more than this system, you'd want more, but a 350W P/S will be more than enough and can be found for about $10 less. Or, my go-to case/PS vendor Inwin has case/PS combo available for about $75 shipped, and has front USB 3.0 ports. This shaves another $20 or so from the price.

3. Monitor - you'd save about $100 not getting a gaming 144hz FreeSync monitor. That would allow you to meet the budget if you had to purchase Windows at full OEM price. However, since this is a bit low-end, the gaming experience could be significantly better with the FreeSync than without.
 
I have a Dell Precision T3500 for my cheapo gamer. Removed top hard drive bay on the swing door and installed a PNY GTX 1060 6GB. Had to get creative with HD mounting, but I used parts available and modified nothing. I found a 3.5" hd slid and latched right in the 3.5" slot..
total cost of rig in my sig is $540 with shipping and legal OS. didn't count carried over HD's from my last rig because most cheap builds don't count them. It came with a 1tb Hitachi, which would be enough for many people anyway. If I had used a $98 GPU, my cost would have been under $400

I used to build computers. HATED Dell, and if I didn't build it, I didn't own it. But then I started flipping older Dell Optiplex and Latitude, and setting them up for family and friends. They are not horrible. Now to buy a similar computer as mine NEW from Dell, with a similar but up to date processor and hardware would start at $3k. So it's a only fair comparison if your willing to use used equipment.. However plenty of the resellers of these Dell Precision's will offer a 1-2yr warranty for a small fee
 
jardows said:
Some people just want a new computer, not a used computer. Our company has only purchased off-lease computers, buying in lots of 100's, and is constantly having to fix things that are breaking. Over the course of about a year, we have collected a pile of probably 50 computers that are NER, and will just be scrapped. New computers would have gone back for warranty service, and probably we wouldn't be dealing with as many failures.

Now, to comment on the PCPer build, a few critiques
1. SSD + HDD - If you are thinking about gaming, then you won't want to load very many games on that SSD, since it will fill up quickly. Then the only speed advantage you will get will be on OS boot up. Unless you want to play "install games only while using, then uninstall when done." Now, I personally have this type of combo, but my main system is not a "budget" build. I'd go for a straight performance based spinner, like the WD Black for a budget gaming build.

2. Case and power supply - a 500W power supply is way overpowered for this build. Sure, if you are looking to put in a video card down the road that would cost more than this system, you'd want more, but a 350W P/S will be more than enough and can be found for about $10 less. Or, my go-to case/PS vendor Inwin has case/PS combo available for about $75 shipped, and has front USB 3.0 ports. This shaves another $20 or so from the price.

3. Monitor - you'd save about $100 not getting a gaming 144hz FreeSync monitor. That would allow you to meet the budget if you had to purchase Windows at full OEM price. However, since this is a bit low-end, the gaming experience could be significantly better with the FreeSync than without.
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TLDR:
In some cases it makes sense to buy something new. For many cases it makes sense to buy an old i5/i7 and throw in a graphics card & ssd & save the OS cost.

Long:
This brings up a good point -- employee time is worth something to the business because if the employee is spending his time fixing old used stuff he isn't helping the business make money. It makes sense in that case to buy something cheap from dell or hp with warranty service. I hear you on that. Having new stuff for new features (I have a friend who does programming & uses avx2) is another good reason. For an average user that can make do with whatever (eg: those people who buy $400 wall-mart pcs) but wants to play games, someone hooking them up with an i7-2600 or i5/7-3xxx and a graphics card & small ssd is way more bang/$ than speccing out an i5-6/7xxx build from microcenter where the cpu alone is $200'ish.
 
/dev/null said:
Agreed 100%. If you want to pick out a motherboard with specific features and be able to slap 10 drives or 2-4 video cards in a machine, you'll never do that with an OEM.

My friend's son who is 13 is waffling on this. He wants to switch from console to pc gaming. He's looked at building an i5-6400 & priced out all the parts he thought were decent & it came up to like $800.
His needs are:
CPU for gaming, videocard for gaming, ssd or two & hard drive or two.

Assuming he doesnt' want to go SLI (he doesn't right now..) he's better off getting something for sub $200 & tossing in the fastest video card he can afford and buying the monitor he wants and using the legal/valid windows COA that comes with the machine.
Click to expand...

That's the catch: if you need the customizations and expandability, then building your own is the way to go. If all you need is a simple box to play games on, but your are not content to do so with a console, then a refurbished OEM box with some inexpensive upgrades is a great way to go.

You have to pay attention to the OEM machines because sometimes they are using proprietary components and/or layouts. Not all of them are doing that though. I have reworked a handful of Dell, HP, and Lenovo office desktops into casual gamers for people. As an example, the Vostro 260 shipped with an i5-2400 and up to 8GB of RAM. I've snagged them from refurbished sales for as low as $125 with a 1TB hard drive included. They also had valid Windows 7 COAs. After adding a 750 Ti and a 128GB SSD, they were good to go and are still in use today.

Quite a few of the Dell Inspiron, Vostro, and XPS lines from Sandy Bridge forward (perhaps earlier, but these are what I have experience with) use standard mATX motherboards, PSUs, etc. Even the front panel header pinout is non-proprietary. HP had a bunch of ProDesk models that were the same way and Lenovo did the same with some of their ThinkCenter line. They are all over Newegg and Ebay at this point because they are steadily being retired from business use, but still provide an excellent bang/buck ratio.

Perhaps the use-case isn't [H] though.
 
M76 said:
They have the worst compatibility and the lowest quality parts that are all proprietary, meaning you can't replace them in any case.
Unless it's still under warranty and you can get the manufacturer to replace parts in it.

I have a Dell T3500 workstation and it's disgusting. The PSU gives a loud fizzing noise on every startup like it's about to explode, a normal video card just won't fit in the case, and not because of the length. A normal rack also can't be inserted into the 5.25 openings because of the stupid convoluted retaining mechanism designed for nothing but optical drives. Or 3.5 floppy drives in case of the 3.5 slots.
I don't want to be dealing with shit like this for saving a few dimes.

I've had numerous prebuilt PCs go trough my hands from company clearance sales over the years, they all had similar problems. Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather spend an extra $100 and build a proper PC.
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My experience with T3500 has been exact opposite. As said, you just got a bad sample.

A normal vid card fit just fine. If you call this RX 480 "normal". There is a spot for extra 3.5" HDD at bottom of the optical bay. Mine fit without a hitch. Dell even mounted the screws needed at back of the front plastic bezel. Easy enough to buy $3 adapter and mount another in the 5.25 slot.

Would not hesitate to buy another if the price was right. T3500 is an excellent base for a budget gaming rig in my opinion.
 
Susquehannock said:
My experience with T3500 has been exact opposite. As said, you just got a bad sample.

A normal vid card fit just fine. If you call this RX 480 "normal". There is a spot for extra 3.5" HDD at bottom of the optical bay. Mine fit without a hitch. Dell even mounted the screws needed at back of the front plastic bezel. Easy enough to buy $3 adapter and mount another in the 5.25 slot.

Would not hesitate to buy another if the price was right. T3500 is an excellent base for a budget gaming rig in my opinion.
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There are probably various different designs floating around under the same name. This particular model would only fit video cards that have 1 slot coolers. As an office PC dell is OK. But for gaming you can do better, much better, for not much extra cost.
 
If you wanted to break 3.5 ghz-4 ghz on more than 4 cores, that would be true since you can't oc a Dell. But $250 gets a good base start. Add a video card and play some games.. You would have to add another $100 to above listed budget PC to get a decent procesor, and then still be stuck with a RX460. A waste of money
 
M76 said:
There are probably various different designs floating around under the same name. This particular model would only fit video cards that have 1 slot coolers. As an office PC dell is OK. But for gaming you can do better, much better, for not much extra cost.
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Variations ... the T3400 model - yeah. Very different inside. Would not even attempt a big GPU in one of those. These T3500 are Intel X58 boards, and from what I have seen, perform on par with retail systems running same chipset. They are not going to compare to today's systems, obviously.
 
Susquehannock said:
Variations ... the T3400 model - yeah. Very different inside. Would not even attempt a big GPU in one of those. These T3500 are Intel X58 boards, and from what I have seen, perform on par with retail systems running same chipset. They are not going to compare to today's systems, obviously.
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This was the X58 platform T3500. It might perform at the same level, but really the MB has never made more than 1-2% difference in performance ever. So no surprise there. Still I couldn't put even a low-mid level gpu in it without hacking the cooling of the card. This was a few years ago, but I still have access to the PC.
 
Used market is great, but I wouldn't get anything older than SB. No reason to, considering the performance difference was a big one and the price difference is so small.
 
M76 said:
This was the X58 platform T3500. It might perform at the same level, but really the MB has never made more than 1-2% difference in performance ever. So no surprise there. Still I couldn't put even a low-mid level gpu in it without hacking the cooling of the card. This was a few years ago, but I still have access to the PC.
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Interesting. Would appreciate any info you could provide. May receive more of these through same channels I got this one.
Only fitment issues with these big cards has been removal of the plastic retention swing arm to accommodate width, and small section of the HDD tray for length. Both of which were just a matter of a few screws.
 
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