Help with low budget build

Toxia

I have two Radeon 6850's and 8 gigs of ddr3 ram sitting around, and my spouse has said she would want to play some multiplayer games with me, MMOs, Minecraft, 7 days to die, generally not graphic intensive and in need of a big $$ build.


Hoping for advice on a cheap Mobo, psu, and CPU combo that would fit those items I have sitting around. The 6850's were crossfired and the ram is 4 sticks x 2 gig ddr3 I swapped out for bigger ones on my own computer. 

Also have several hardrives that are available for use, standard and a small ssd.


Shooting for sub 500$ price tag, any ideas?

Vrika

Are you talking about Radon HD 6850 that was launched in 2010? It's getting too old for gaming. It has too little memory for modern games, it doesn't support DX 12, etc. You can't really use it.

As for the RAM, it looks like 8GB of DDR4 RAM are available starting at around $30. Your RAM is older than that, so worth much less than 30$.

Forget about using those old parts at all. They're worthless.



If you're ok with old parts, I'd recommend trying to buy used computer from somewhere.

If you prefer new parts, I'd recommend something like this:
   https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4jh2V7

From your list I assume that you've already got a case + operating system + monitor + keyboard + mouse so I didn't include them.

I added a 1 TB SSD to that package to show how much it would cost to buy a new decent sized SSD, but if you don't need it then without SSD that would cost a bit under $500.


EDIT: I switched the GPU to a bit better model. It still stays at bit under $500 without SSD.

Ridelynn

Unless your willing to go gray market, finding a mobo and CPU to take the RAM may cost much more than its worth.

and the 6850s ... they were great cards but are not much faster than good current APU/IGP speeds.

Yeah I more or less agree with Vrika - just look at a new build. A commodity prebuilt may work out for what your wanting in that price, just don’t expect it to last too long.

ultimateduck

I started looking for the same thing to help my daughter make a VR comp. Components aren't dropping in price when the new version comes out like they used to. A 1080ti is still $1000+ even though the 2080 is out (which is $1050+).

It's insane. I just ended up buying a prebuilt system that had the expensive parts I wanted, then updated the cheap parts (like the HD and RAM)

Cleffy

I don't think you can get a new mobo without also getting new ram. DDR3 isn't really supported anymore. That said, you can probably opt for a Ryzen 2400/3400G and get similar performance to running a setup with an HD6850.

CPU, Mobo, Ram, and PSU would cost around $400. If you do get the 3400G, pair it with a B450 mobo from newegg since it's more likely to have up to date bios.

Quizzical

If you want to build a very cheap computer that can handle some gaming, you could do something like this:

https://www.newegg.com/msi-b450m-pro-m2-max/p/N82E16813144271
https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-3-3200g/p/N82E16819113571
https://www.newegg.com/geil-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820158755
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811147153
https://www.newegg.com/seasonic-s12iii-bronze-series-ssr-450gb3-450w/p/N82E16817151229
https://www.newegg.com/team-group-gx1-480gb/p/N82E16820331319

That comes to $366, including shipping, but before taxes.  There's no OS there, but adding a Windows license will still leave you under $500.  I'm also assuming that you already have peripherals, such as a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

That uses an integrated GPU, not a discrete card, which is the way to keep costs down.  Just about any game will run smoothly at appropriate settings, but you'll have to accept that "appropriate" often won't mean "max everything".  Sometimes it will mean "generally high, but you have to selectively turn a few things down or off".  Sometimes it will mean "roughly medium settings".

You could try plugging in a Radeon HD 6850, but that's a nine year old card that has been off driver support for more than 3 1/2 years.  Results could be anywhere from about double the performance of the integrated GPU to not working at all because the driver is incompatible with a more recent update to Windows.

You can add more GPU performance by getting a discrete GPU, and you could do that either the day you buy the computer or later when you decide that the integrated GPU isn't good enough--which could easily be the first day you try playing games on it or several years later.  As I see it, there's no sense in getting a discrete card that isn't at least double the performance of the integrated GPU.  Today, that would mean a Radeon RX 560 or GeForce GTX 1050 or better, and those are over $100.

Asm0deus

Black friday is coming up so there may also be some half decent combo deals for you to keep your eyes on too.