We are all painfully aware of the declining popularity of PC building due to current GPU market conditions. What began as a surge in PC building in March 2020 is now a flat-out lack of interest. However, despite the scalper prices, there are actually still PCs you can build that at least wouldn’t have gotten you laughed out of the room at a PCMR meetup pre-pandemic. Today I will go over four builds at four drastically different price points: $600 (budget), $800 (budget/mid-range), $1,800 (mid-range/high-end), and $3,100 (high-end but not too overkill). In fact, some of these options might even be cheaper than some comparable pre-builts, and they definitely have higher quality parts. And I’m not talking about MSRP. You can buy these builds at these prices right now. Let’s go!
$600 build: 5600G, stock cooler, MSI B550M PRO-VDH Wi-Fi, 2x8GB DDR4-3200 CL16, Western Digital SN550 500GB, Cooler Master MB311L, EVGA G+ 650W
The $600 build should be able to achieve 60 FPS at medium settings in most games, and it leaves room for upgrades. The Ryzen 5 5600G is a $220 APU featuring 6 cores and 12 threads. The chip also features AMD’s Zen 3 architecture and Vega 7 GPU cores. It is slightly faster than the 3600 in CPU performance in games, and much better in productivity thanks to IPC improvements. It is slightly worse than a 1050 Ti in GPU performance, but it leaves the door open for future upgrades. Just slot in a GPU in the future and you’re off to the races. But for the sake of the budget build, we will stick to the 5600G and no discrete GPU. The included Wraith Stealth cooler should keep the 65W chip plenty cool inside a mesh case. The $105 MSI B550M PRO-VDH Wi-Fi isn’t pretty, but it’s a micro-ATX board that will handle the CPU just fine. Crucially, it has a BIOS flashback button, so it will be able to support Ryzen 5000. You don’t need to cheap out on RAM either. Silicon Power currently sells a 16GB kit of DDR4-3200 CL16 memory for just under $60, which is a steal. You can always slot in another two sticks of the same RAM later on if you want to do some video editing. For storage, I recommend the Western Digital SN550 500GB NVMe SSD. It’s plenty fast, reliable, M.2, and cheap. To house this $600 build, get the Cooler Master MB311L for $75. This mesh-fronted mATX case comes with two front RGB fans at an optimal price point. Last up is the EVGA G+ 650W PSU, currently on sale for $70 on Amazon. This PSU is in the second tier of Linus’s PSU Tier List, and all for just $70! If the G+ goes off sale, you could always get a Corsair CX650M. The total of this build is just $595, which is very impressive for a build in 2022 with a good upgrade path.
$800 build: 12400F, stock cooler, Gigabyte B660M DS3H, 2x8GB DDR4-3200 CL16, Western Digital SN350 960GB, used GTX 980, Cooler Master MB311L, EVGA G+ 650W
The $800 build is a massive step up from the $600 build, and it might even achieve twice the FPS in games, albeit with similar multi-core performance. The Intel Core i5-12400F is a beast of a $200 CPU. It may not have overclocking, but it has amazing single-core performance that puts it within striking distance of the 12900K in games. It also beats the 5600G by a few percentage points in productivity, and it’s cheaper. Of course the integrated graphics aren’t as good (they don’t even exist on the F SKU), but that’s not what the chip is made for. Plus, this build will feature a discrete GPU. The stock cooler will be just fine for this CPU. The motherboard is the $120 Gigabyte B660M DS3H. Yes, I wanted to go H670, but the price is slightly higher and the ASRock H670M Pro RS is no longer in stock in the U.S. I would not upgrade the CPU, as the DS3H’s VRM cannot handle any chip above the 12600K. At least the B660M DS3H supports memory overclocking. Speaking of memory, I recommend the same kit of 16GB DDR4-3200 CL16 for this build, as it’s a cost-effective solution. The storage will be upgraded as well with the price hike from $600 to $800. The Western Digital SN350 960GB NVMe SSD provides fast read and write speeds for just $75! Dang, storage prices are amazing right now. Here’s where it gets interesting. My GPU recommendation is a used GTX 980, which can be found on eBay for $245. The 980 consistently beats the RX 580 in games to achieve comfortable 144Hz gaming at 1080p. Yes, the GPU is old, but NVIDIA hasn’t dropped Maxwell support just yet. I would recommend the same MB311L case for $75, and the same EVGA G+ 650W PSU for $70. The cost of the build is $845.
$1,800 build: 12700KF, Noctua NH-U12S, MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4, 2x8GB DDR4-3600 CL16, WD SN550 1TB, 6700 XT, Lian Li Lancool 215, NZXT C750
Stepping up to $1,800, you can expect 1440p 165Hz, 1080p 240Hz, or maybe even 4K 144Hz in some games. This build is by no means a slouch, even with the current GPU situation. The Intel Core i7-12700KF trades blows with (and often beats) the 5950X in games, and its hybrid design of 12 cores (8P + 4E) and 20 threads allows it to just barely fall behind the much more expensive chip in multi-core workloads. The 12700KF allows for overclocking, which should be possible with the Noctua NH-U12S cooler. I was going to choose the similar yet cheaper Arctic Freezer 34 eSports DUO, but Noctua’s legendary mounting system and customer support means you will be able to continue using the cooler for years to come. It should be able to tame the 12700KF just fine. The MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 is a cheaper Z690 ATX board that has all the necessary features: PCI-e 5.0, memory overclocking, and a decent VRM. It does have BIOS flashback, but Intel doesn’t support their chipsets for very long. For the $1,800 build, we will upgrade from 16GB DDR4-3200 to 3600. CL16 is important as well, and Crucial’s Ballistix kit is cheap at $86. The SSD will be the WD SN550 1TB NVMe, which should be enough storage for most builds. The GPU will be upgraded to the 6700 XT, which currently goes for $770 on eBay and matches the more expensive RTX 3070 in most games. The Lian Li Lancool 215 improves on the MB311L in that it is ATX and comes with three fans, rather than two, including an exhaust fan. It is also mesh, as I will never recommend a non-mesh case. The NZXT C750 is a fantastic modular PSU on sale for $70 on Best Buy’s website. If the sale ends, you can check out the Corsair CX750M, a slight downgrade. The build currently totals $1,790.
$3,100 build: 12900KF, Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360, MSI Z690 Tomahawk Wi-Fi DDR4, 2x16 GB DDR4-3600 CL16, Samsung 980 Pro 1TB, 6900 XT, Phanteks P500A, Corsair RM1000x
If you’d rather not make any compromises even with the current market, and you want a high-end build right now, I have one just right for you. This $3,100 build is expensive yet not too exorbitant. The Intel 12900KF is the best gaming CPU in the world (besides the 12900K which features integrated graphics), and it even beats every AMD Ryzen chip (besides Threadrippers) in multi-core workloads. It is also the hottest chip, so only the best AIO will do: the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360. This $110 AIO is surprisingly budget-friendly, and also highly recommended by Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus, and most importantly, me (that was a joke, by the way). A nice VRM upgrade from the motherboard in the $1,800 build, the MSI Z690 Tomahawk Wi-Fi DDR4 is reasonable at $285 on Amazon. It also features an I/O shield, BIOS flashback, Wi-Fi 6E, all-black aesthetic, and 2.5G Ethernet. Only 32GB of RAM will do for a build of this caliber, and I’d suggest a 2x16GB kit of DDR4-3600 CL16, which is plenty amazing (despite what Intel would like you to think). It’s also $154 for the G.Skill Ripjaws V kit, which isn’t unreasonable. The Samsung 980 Pro 1TB is a super-fast and amazing-quality PCI-e 4.0 SSD on sale for $170 on Amazon. If the sale ends, check out a Corsair or AORUS PCI-e 4.0 drive. Keeping with the trend of better AMD scalper prices than NVIDIA, the 6900 XT can be found for $1,450 on eBay. It’s close to the RTX 3090, which costs an astonishing $2,300. It features an amazing VRAM buffer that will never run out, good power efficiency compared to the 3090, high boost clocks, and better overclocking potential than the 3090. The Phanteks P500A is a premium $150 ATX case with a phenomenally-easy way to take off the side panel (by far my favorite feature). The case comes with three RGB front fans, cable routing ties, and a nice RGB strip along the side. It’s my personal case, and I can’t recommend it enough. The Corsair RMx line has always been one of the best around, and the RM1000x is no exception. At $190, this PSU provides 1000 watts of power for high-end parts. It’s in the top tier of Linus’s PSU Tier List as well. You can’t get a good enough PSU when you’re spending over $3,000 on a PC, and this achieves that. This high-end system costs $3,090.
I hope I was able to prove today that the situation isn’t totally hopeless. Whether you have $600 or $3,100 to spend, you can get decent performance in February 2022. If the GPU market ever normalizes, we are going to be in for an amazing treat of price-to-performance and competition, especially with Intel entering the fray.
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