Building a Gaming PC for 100$: Is It Possible? | Hacker News Reader

Building a Gaming PC for 100$: Is It Possible?

boilingsteam.com

68 pointsekianjo64 comments

This topic is not new, there are a lot of youtube videos about that(and done in exactly same manner - repurposing used office pc with a new video card). The resulting machine is not well-thought, why buying SFF case, if your video card does not fit?

https://www.youtube.com/user/BlastMode7/videos

Lease company surplus is always SFF and those SFF always has x16 slot at the bottom

The one problem I’ve run into with retrofits like that is that, even if your GPU will fit and can pull all it needs from the PCIe slot, the PSUs in the machines are often too weak to provide the extra wattage needed.

Check out the article. Works with GPU where no external power supply connector is needed.

Yeah, I saw. Just saying that not all OEM SFF PSUs are sufficient for even the ~75w that a card running on just the power from the slot will draw.

True, there are some SFF PCs where the PSU is rated for 210W and these may be unsufficient indeed.

Fun fact: “no external supply” cards are supposed to draw no more than 75W, emphasis on supposed to, while your point also standing.

SFF in Japan is widespread compared to more regular form factors.

One time I bought an AGP riser ribbon cable for a retro build in an SFF case and it was a bad time (it was meant for pci-e). Drivers would fail to start or crash randomly using it.

I assume you could get better computers by just buying someone's old gaming PC on Craigslist.

Maybe but certainly not all the time at the same price point. The configuration here is widespread and widely available since office computer stocks and 750ti video video cards are easy to find for cheap as well.

Considering this is buitl around an existing machine that he didn't pay for, I wouldn't call this an "all the time" build either.

Lease machines for offices keep getting recycled after x years so there is an ongoing supply of ever improving office hardware. The same goes for Lenovo laptops, offices get rid of them after 4 or 5 years and they are available at low prices on used markets.

the x220 and x230 laptops you can buy for $100 are incredible machines with another like $45 in parts grab 16GB of ram with a 2.5 ssd and its an entirely adequate computer for the vast majority of people. Ports, expandability, and repairability galore.

It would be harder to write a how-to article that requires luck as one of the steps. :)

> So, you want a card made for hobbits if you can find one. I did not.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/l577547105

The way you find this, first search for say 750ti low profile: https://www.google.com/search?q=750ti+low+profile then get the model numbers and feed them into the yahoo search. There are not that many of these (and if you step up to 1050 Ti , even less).

the secret ingredient is crime

that was really cool. I like the idea of repurposing old office stock. Does anyone else actually prefer the smaller form factor desktop cases? I went for a Fractal Node 202 for current PC build and since then I've taken it in my checked luggage (well-packed and padded) on two international flights. If you move every few months/every year or two, or expect to, it's really nice to have a case that isn't a massive tower and not rely on using your laptop for a desktop PC. You can just sell your monitor when you move and buy the same one or a better one when you get set up in your new place.

I just assembled a mini-ITX computer recently. It's amazing having the entire system on a 6x6 inch motherboard. A few inches deep for the CPU cooler. The NVMe SSD is inside the motherboard.

I do have a gigantic external GPU which almost doubles the size of the entire system, and because of that I also need a decently big power supply. But the entire system is literally just incredictlmotherboard + attached GPU + power supply.

Being able to fit it all into a NZXT H210 (still relatively big compared many other SFF cases) is great, especially for transporting it between college and home.

It was about 50% cheaper than buying an equivalently specced laptop. And any laptop with this performance would need to be really big and heavy to accommodate the cooling requirements (45 watt CPU, 220 watt GPU).

Very interested in knowing the specs of your setup and how you saved.

AMD 3800x processor (8c/16t @ around 4.5 GHz), $330

AMD 5700xt GPU, $450 for the better versions

512 GB Corsair Force MP600 (5gbit/s NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD), around $115 iirc

32 GB DDR4-3200 RAM for around $90 iirc

ASUS mini-itx X570 motherboard, around $200-250 - X570 is the highest tier of AMD chipsets but is needed for PCIe 4.0. Could save $100 here with a lower SSD. This one also has the latest Intel WiFi 6 chipset.

$100 for power supply, $100 for case, $30 for quieter fans.

Including tax and everything the total came out to around $1600. After deciding the specs I spent some time looking for comparable laptops and they were all much more expensive. I didn't do anything special to save. You could get this exact same build for a bit cheaper today I think; I did this in November. I just purchased a second one of the same GPU this week and it was $20 cheaper. The other components have probably also had some drops in price.

I like sff machines like the Dell Optiplex. The problem with them though is the lack of compatible graphics cards.

sff?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form_factor

Dell and HP use same name for MT/DT/SFF/USFF(in Dell nomenclature) within a same product line, e.g. “OptiPlex 5070 DT” and “OptiPlex 5070 USFF”

Same here. Built a Node 202 VR PC. By far the densest PC I've ever built - barely a few cubic inches of free space in there. Very happy with it - much easier to transport than my last setup. I bought a surplus military case that fits it perfectly.

I love small form factor PC's. Recently finished a Silverstone SG13 build, looks just like a toaster oven sitting on my desk it's awesome. Super cheap too, although build quality is meh.

Small computers are pretty handy, but after one mini-itx experience, I either get a regular atx tower or a tiny prebuilt system built from laptop parts, where the only things to change are ram and storage. It's just too messy cramming stuff into small format expandable pcs.

But I don't play many games that need GPUs and I don't mind low settings and terrible framerates.

I’ve had a few fractal cases. The Xbox series x is basically a nice small form factor pc, here’s a lookalike case:

https://www.nzxt.com/products/h1-matte-white

That case alone costs basically what an XBSX is going to cost.

Yeah, seems like it. It looks good, most gaming cases look somewhat childish.

I really like projects like this. My current gaming PC (and work from home PC right now) is an old Dell Precision tower that came with an i7 3770, with an upgraded PSU and a gtx1060. I built it two years ago for about $350 and it runs every game I own.

The old motherboard is a bit limiting (no M.2, and I can't get both PCI slots to work at the same time for some reason), but it was a fun project. It's neat to reuse the old hardware, and I honestly kind of like the look of the dell's business cases.

I wonder if it beats the new mac mini. That would be something....

It will definitely run games better compared to the integrated Intel graphics on a Mac mini or MacBook.

Believe me, I’ve been stupid enough to think MacBooks or Minis can play game. You can maybe do 30fps on low settings on an old games like WoW on low setting on those devices.

Parsec + paperspace. I guess it depends on how many hours you’re going to play but $100 is probably going to get you by for months of play.

I have been using an oldish Lenovo m900 tiny for some time. It covers most of my needs, in a one litre case. It cost me 130 dollars. A SFF case would mean the non-low-power CPU which would mean even higher performance.

Once you go down the SBC rabbit hole, computers with a lot less power than that easily cost just as much when you have all the stuff you need.

Can it run GTA V with a config like this? I haven't played any games in a very very long time but since I got a free copy of gta yesterday, I may as well play it once.

What min gpu do you think will be good enough for it? Fwiw I have a ryzen 3500 / 32gb desktop but a very old graphics card (gt 710 2gb).

If that is your old PC, just buy a used RX580 for $100 or so and call it a day.

Thanks for the recommendation. Pc is not very old but graphics card surely is and I never upgraded it since I hardly play any games on it. Probably just gonna try this game once or twice.

An RX 580 would probably run GTA at reasonable frame rates and settings if your display is 1080p. Doubt it would do too too well at any higher resolutions though.

Not sure how you're coming to that conclusion. A quick search suggests that a rx 580 should handle 1440p without too much problem. https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kL32iysKuX2AuJ9ncWaJqU-650...

Apparently I have managed to misremember the heck out of RX 580 benchmarks. I must've been thinking of RX 480 4GB results or something. I still run GTX 970s, so haven't kept the greatest tabs on anything much newer. Oops.

RX 580 does come in 4GB version, which is cheaper, but the 8GB isn't more pricier.

GTA V is amazing. Well worth playing :)

Yes it runs definitely on a 750Ti at about 30fps on medium details.

If you just want to scratch the gaming itch a bit, hop on the 2 month trial of google's stadia. GTA is not part of it but enough other fun games. I'm playing through serious sam in split-screen.

Prices based on amazon in the US of the same parts (or similar available parts) listed.

Computer: $207 Graphics: $55 Ram: $20

Whats interesting is that (s)he was able to buy the computer for cheaper than the graphics card. And wow, prices are great in japan.

what about ebay?

I've built an x86 box with ssd a few years ago for around a 100 as well,interesting how peripherals and monitors are excluded from the cost.

Peripherals are trivial to reuse if you already have them, so that's not a concern for most people. (Emphasis on "most".)

Lots more options become available with streaming. Geforcenow and shadow are pretty good FPS at 1080p.

Sure, depends on the game. Age of Empires will run wonderfully on $100 of hardware.

That was my first thought, too:) I've played lots of 0ad and xonotic on $50 machines off eBay; it all depends on your taste for graphics-intensive/new games.

Answer: No.

This loose assembly of used parts isn't a gaming pc. Running 5+ year old games at 30fps doesn't really count.

It's an 8 year old GPU that was fairly low end when new, and 4GB for RAM. That isn't meeting close to minimum requriements on most non-indie new releases. This is as much a "gaming PC" as a dusty used PS4.

Doom and rocket league are still roughly current.

Doom was released in 2016. Rocket League in 2015. 5+ years old, like I said.

It seems likely that Doom Eternal would also run acceptably on that machine, but that CPU generation and GPU are definitely on their way out.

Minimum requirement for Doom Enternal is a 1050 TI with 4GB, which is roughly 60% more powerful than a 750, nevermind that his card only has 2GB of VRAM.

(1050 TI: 6400 PassMark, 750 TI is 3800).

He's also well below the minimum CPU requirement.

A Xeon 1225 has a PassMark CPU score of 3,502. The minimum requirement for Doom Eternal is a 3.3Ghz i5, which, depending on which of the gazillions of i5 variants you mean, is a minimum of 5400.

> 3.3Ghz i5, which, depending on which of the gazillions of i5 variants

If they really mean any 3.3Ghz i5, I say the Xeon E3-1225 is clearly superior to the i5-660 (dual core @ 3.3Ghz).

I really wish people would give real minimum specs again. Pick a specific processor you've run it on that it won't run on any worse and specify what cpu features you need, if any, so you know a higher end processor from previous generations won't work.

8gb of RAM.

I am surprised they couldn't get anything better than a 750 for their budget. I think it's clear that at $100 you can still get a lot of bang for your buck by spending a bit more.

Yeah, running from an old 250GB HDD will be horrible tbh.

Ni no Kuni 2 is from last year.

As long as you're enjoying yourself, does it really matter?

In terms of CPU/GPU, my machine isn't much better than the one in the article yet runs plenty of games. I would be hard pressed to provide a list of games that I would want to play that won't run on it because: (a) most of the games that target high end rigs target a particular market segment and (b) there is an abundance of games that cross genres, art styles, etc. that target lower spec hardware. Chances are you're going to find something fun to play on low end hardware if you choose to explore your options rather than limit them.

Dunno about Warzone, but CS:GO, League of Legends, Valorant and Overwatch will all run fine on this box.

And right now, in the UK at least, console prices are mental. This would be cheaper than a PS4.

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