PC Build for $200?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
HardwareExtreme

HardwareExtreme

Honorable
Jan 5, 2016
261
2
10,865
I was wondering what I could do at this pricepoint. I don't need a case or PSU or hard drives or graphics card really, since I have some stuff laying around. I would like to be able to get a processor, motherboard, and ram. I don't care if it is Intel or AMD. I will be doing CAD as well as some gaming.

The minimum specs:
8Gb Ram (DDR4 preffered)
Overclocking support
4 DIMM slots
Prefferably a quad core
an ATX (not mATX or miniATX) motherboard


I have:
An ATX case
380 Watt PSU
160 GB HDD, 80 GB, 2 x 40Gb
Radeon HD 7450 1GB
 
Solution
M


In terms of gaming, judging by what I've researched on multiple websites, the single core performance IS very great. While it may have slightly less single core performance than a 2600K, it has twice the cores the 2600K does, and my 2600K already does more than I ever need it to, so just one of these CPUs should be able to take you to hell and back without breaking a sweat. Seeing as you've found these 2670's for dirt cheap, I say that as overkill as it is, jump on it anyways. I don't see any way you could go wrong with the right motherboard and everything else included.
Sort by date Sort by votes
Barty1884

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Apr 16, 2015
22,250
1,350
108,740
I really don't think you can be remotely close to $200 for what you want.

You want DDR4, so really that leaves Skylake. An OC ATX Mobo for Skylake is minimum $90. An OCable Skylake CPU is around $260 minimum alone (and any K series CPU will need an aftermarket cooler). Plus DDR4, the cheapest 8GB i can find is 1x8GB for $37.

So, yeah. $400 maybe.

You might be able to do close Haswell components, or an AMD FX or A10 even Athlon 860k and get close, but I think $200 is going to be too low.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
HardwareExtreme

HardwareExtreme

Honorable
Jan 5, 2016
261
2
10,865
No. On a Z170 board ANY Skylake can be overclocked, with multiplier or baseclock. And, when I say I would preffer something that doesn't mean that I need that. So, Core i3 Skylake or Pentium Skylake? And, what about 1st or 2nd gen processors? I don't REALLY need to overclock, I just would like it.


Edit: This? Pentium Build
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

MrNamegame

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
72
0
10,660
This is the best I can do for you, really...I am not sure if the MB supports overclocking, and your system wouldn't benefit in any way, shape or form from DDR4 with your choice of graphics card, but otherwise this would work.

What I have found that can stay under $200 and be reasonably powerful is this: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200, Gigabyte GA-P43T-ES3G motherboard and a Kingston ValueRAM 2x4GB 1333mhz RAM kit.

This is an older configuration, obviously, and doesn't meet the DDR4 preference as well as the fact that there aren't many CPUs of the LGA 775 socket type that can overclock, but the motherboard is a very late LGA 775 board that can support DDR3 RAM such as the RAM kit I mentioned without issue. The reason I chose 2 sticks of 4GB RAM as opposed to 4 sticks of 2GB RAM is because it's a little bit cheaper due to less material and does not make much difference in performance on this system. I wish I could do better for that price point, but the only way I can see a better setup happening is if you sell off old computer stuff for a little bit of extra money or find a better deal than I can.

Edit: I just remembered this. There's a bit of pain to go with it, but there are ways. [video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epIlB49SNTI"][/video]
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
HardwareExtreme

HardwareExtreme

Honorable
Jan 5, 2016
261
2
10,865
I saw that video. I can get a HP z800 motherboard and two Xeon X55xx processors for it, for about $120 on Amazon. What about a Core 2 Duo? A first-gen Core i5 or i7? My current motherboard supports Core 2 Duos but not Quads, and I have a Pentium D as my main processor.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D

dudeman509

Dignified
Jan 23, 2015
4,077
35
17,040


The Pentium has a very high IPC on its 2 cores, but I would prefer the i3 for literally everything else. i3's actually have fairly decent gaming performance because of the hyperthreaded cores that can somewhat make up for it only having 2 physical cores.

I would not go as old as C2D/C2Q or first-gen i-series chips. They're old, they're slow, and it wouldn't be a great idea IMO to build a current system around one.

If it comes down to between the Pentium and an AMD chip for you, I'd go for the FX-6300 and a decent motherboard at that price point.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Barty1884

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Apr 16, 2015
22,250
1,350
108,740


Ok, that's slightly different. I read that as in you wanted DDR4 (so, Skylake) and regardless of my OC comment, the pricing still doesn't work......at least not quite

If you're looking for a 'budget friendly' build, the a Haswell i3, H97 board & 2x4GB can almost be done. The HT on the i3 will allow it to 'keep up', but no OCing.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($67.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin ECO2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $208.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-06 10:17 EST-0500

At $250 (or so) you can have a Skylake i3 - with a Z board to OC it slightly....but you'll need to look at aftermarket cooling.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($129.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A PC MATE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($36.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $256.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-06 10:18 EST-0500

You can have a quad core Athlon 860k, an aftermarket cooler, a board capable to OC (not sure how well) and 8GB DDR3 for just under $200. Dead socket, but still a capable chip.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($71.88 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X PRO3+ ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($69.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Mushkin ECO2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $196.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-06 10:19 EST-0500
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
HardwareExtreme

HardwareExtreme

Honorable
Jan 5, 2016
261
2
10,865
I think I probably might go with a (2 in this case) Xeon X5570 processor. It uses DDR3, they are relatively cheap ($10 a processor, $40 for motherboard) and I'm pretty sure 8 cores combined with the two processors will decimate a Pentium Skylake if not a Core i3, heck, even a Core i5. Yeah, it is somewhat old, but hey, I can get them for next to nothing, and they still perform well. The only problem I have with going with AMD is that they don't have the same performance as anything Intel. I think the Xeons would serve me well, and work great for CAD, especially with a decent graphics card, and I have A LOT of room to work with for a graphics card, hard drive, PSU, and even a SSD. So, how about a dual Xeon X5570 setup?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D

dudeman509

Dignified
Jan 23, 2015
4,077
35
17,040


Not great for gaming (slow single-core benchmark), but will do multi-threaded tasks like video editing, CAD, etc pretty well. I used to have a HP Z800 with a single Xeon something in it as my work machine and I loved that computer.

You'll need to invest in a decent PSU as well.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
O

Outlander_04

Titan
BANNED
Nov 18, 2008
20,308
4
74,960
Upvote 1 Downvote
HardwareExtreme

HardwareExtreme

Honorable
Jan 5, 2016
261
2
10,865
Are there any socket 1366 Xeons that do have somewhat good single-core performance? I do run some games, but nothing horribly stressing, like Farming Simulator 2015, Kerbal Space Program, and Space Engineers. I am in between the Xeon and Sandy/Ivy Bridge processors, but anything 3rd gen or newer is expensive. Any reccomendations for some decently-priced high(er) wattage PSUs? The Xeons are most definetly power hungry, and I may add a Radeon 7770 or something similar at a later date, depending on the price.
And, does anybody know of any dual-1366 boards that support/can be made to support overclocking the Xeons?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

MrNamegame

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
72
0
10,660


The problem with these Xeon processors is the fact that used server motherboards for them are only custom-assembled with the bare essentials for the original customer of the board. A specific model of board only specifies the features that the board could have come with potentially...the person who originally purchased the server board specifies the capabilities they need for that board alone, and Intel manufactures the boards just so. They are like snowflakes in the sense that they are similar, but rarely the same. As Linus states in the video, he had to do a couple of painful sacrifices to make the setup work such as hacking off the lock pin of the video card because of a capacitor sitting in the exact same spot as the lock normally would be, drilling and threading custom holes in a piece of wood to secure the CPU coolers down, having to use ECC ram as opposed to normal RAM for compatibility reasons, etc.

Another problem with this is that server motherboards have literally no overclocking capability of any kind, ESPECIALLY these earlier ones. The highest hope you're going to get aside from the plausability of overclocking the graphics card is if you get lucky and find a Xeon with an automatic boost clock. That's it.

The upsides, however, are actually quite interesting. While the two Xeons experienced slight choppiness here and there, they worked very greatly in unison combined with the 980 reference card he installed, and ran cool enough to make great use of their stock coolers.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
HardwareExtreme

HardwareExtreme

Honorable
Jan 5, 2016
261
2
10,865
I think a Socket 1366 Xeon will probably serve me well. I can afford them, they use DDR3, and are still good performers. The thing about Linus' video is that he is using 771 Xeons, which are older and worse than 1366. I will either be using X55xx processors or probably X56xx processors since X56 has 6 cores, which are about $100 a piece. Will a higher clock speed improve single-core performance, or turbo boost?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
O

Outlander_04

Titan
BANNED
Nov 18, 2008
20,308
4
74,960
Those Xeon boards dont even have x 16 pci-e slots for graphics cards , I think
They are wired as x8's if I recall rightly .
And they would be pci-e 1.0 which means they would have an eighth of the bandwidth of a current generation pci-e x 16 3.0 slot and choke any graphics card
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
HardwareExtreme

HardwareExtreme

Honorable
Jan 5, 2016
261
2
10,865
The 1366 boards I looked at were true X16. I would like a processor that is good for rendering. Will these be fine or should I get a 1155 Xeon? I also found 12 core Opteron 6172 processors for $25. Are these any good? Or, Phenoms?

Edit: I'm probably going to get a 3rd gen Core i5 or 2nd Gen Core i5 in the end. They are only about $100 on Amazon. The motherboard I can get for around $60, and then it just uses DDR3 ram. I should be able to do it under $200.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

MrNamegame

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
72
0
10,660


Well, what options are you seeing for each the 2nd gen and 3rd gen i5 CPUs?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

MrNamegame

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
72
0
10,660


The cheapest i7 2600K I have seen already goes slightly over the entire $200 budget at cheapest...only way you'd find them cheaper in working order is if some doofus sold a motherboard cheaper than $200 with a working 2600K already installed.

As for the i5 3570K, I haven't done too much research on them. I've only primarily researched the 2600K because I wanted to overclock the one I own and have done so for a long time now.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom