Whether you are new to PC gaming or simply tight on budget, in this guide, we are going to take a look at How to Build the Best Gaming PC for under $500.
This $500 PC gaming build is as low as you can go in terms of budget and gaming performance, but I was able to actually come in around $400 to $450, giving us a nice bit of extra cash to spend on some other extras/upgrades.
Do note that Amazon prices, (especially electronics) fluctuate significantly and quite literally by the hour, so depending on when you read this guide, the price of the components might exceed the $500 mark depending on whether a certain component has increased on price due to stock levels or demand.
Table of Contents
In the two days that I was putting this PC build together, the two motherboards I selected, both doubled in price due to AMD B450 motherboards being replaced with B550 motherboards. The B550 motherboards do have better technology but are also slightly more expensive, causing many people to buy out the remaining B450 boards, which is causing a fluctuation increase in their prices.
In other words, if you see a good deal in my below recommendations, I would suggest buying it before it becomes unavailable or more expensive.
I do edit and update this guide every month or so or when new hardware is released, but I simply cannot do it everyday, whenever there is a price change. For this reason I have given two product recommendations in most of the component categories as a fail safe.
NB: I am naturally aware that the new Ryzen 5000 CPUs, as well as Nvidia RTX 3000 and AMD 6000 graphics cards have been released, but at the same time, its incredibly difficult to get hold of any of these components due to severe shortages.
I have therefore kept this build guide based on current generation components, as they are very much available and there is no point giving you guys advice on parts you can’t get your hands on. When stock normalizes I will update this post accordingly. But for now, this is still the best buy list.
With that said, lets begin building our sub $500 Gaming PC.
Best CPU for Gaming PC Build under $500
For this $500 Gaming Build, there are no better CPU options, than the AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 4-Core Unlocked Desktop Processor with Radeon Vega 8 Graphics ($81.39) or AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-Core, 12-Thread Desktop Processor with AMD Radeon RX Vega 7 Graphics ($129.85)
- Includes advanced Radeon Vega 8 graphics, no expensive graphics card...
- Can deliver smooth high definition performance in the world's most...
- 4 processing cores, bundled with the quiet AMD Wraith stealth cooler
- Features best-in-class graphics performance in a desktop processor for...
- 6 Cores and 12 processing threads, bundled with the AMD Wraith Stealth...
- 4.4 GHz Max Boost, unlocked for overclocking, 19 MB cache, DDR4-3200...
The Ryzen 3200G is a 4-Core, 4-Thread CPU, with more than enough processing power to run your PC and games at 1080p, with a 3.6GHz base clock, which can be overclocked to 4.0GHz.
On the other hand, the newer Ryzen 5600G is a 6 core 12-thread CPU, making it far superior in its single and multi-threaded performance. It has a 3.9GHz base clock, which can be overclocked to 4.4GHz.
Clearly the 5600x is the better buy, but its also limited in availability. However if you can find one, definitely buy it over the now older 3200G
The main reason we want to buy either of these CPUs, is because it has built-in 8-Core Radeon Vega Graphics, meaning that we have no need to spend extra money on a dedicated graphics card (which are also currently in short supply).
While this graphics card cannot deliver the same performance as a dedicated PCIe Graphics Card, it does do a great job at playing many games at 1080p. Here again the 5600G has a better GPU, than the 3200G as well.
The CPUs comes bundled with an AMD Wraith CPU cooler as well, so you won’t have to buy a 3rd party one, saving you some cash.
For the price, these are amazing value.
Here are some alternative AMD CPU options, although do note that these do not have a built-in Graphics card (APU), so you will need to buy one separately if you choose one of the below CPUs.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core, 12-Thread... | $110.50 $84.00 | Buy Now | ||
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core, 12-Thread... | 12,113 Reviews | $249.00 $210.00 | Buy Now | |
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core, 16-Thread... | 27,437 Reviews | $329.00 $205.00 | Buy Now | |
AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8-Core, 16-Thread... | $295.00 | Buy Now | ||
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-core, 24-thread... | $445.00 $395.00 | Buy Now |
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-core, 12-Thread... | 24,747 Reviews | $149.99 | Buy Now | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core, 16-Thread... | $449.00 $199.99 | Buy Now |
Best Motherboard for Gaming PC Build under $500
At this point in time, there is only one real motherboard choice for our sub $500 Gaming PC build, which is the MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max Motherboard ($99.99).
- Supports 1st, 2nd and 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen/ Ryzen with Radeon Vega...
- Supports DDR4 memory, up to 4133(OC) MHz
- Lightning fast game experience: Turbo M.2, AMD turbo USB 3.2 gen2,...
It offers an array of features for a very good price and has great ratings on Amazon.
It’s fully compatible with our Ryzen 3rd Generation CPU, as well as our RAM. This is a full ATX motherboard, so you also get more SATA and PCIe ports than you would on a Micro-ATX motherboard, allowing you to easily add more Hard Drives or SSD drives, should you need to.
Speaking of Micro-ATX Motherboards, the ASRock B450M PRO4 AM4 Motherboard ($120.90) is a great alternative should the above MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max be out of stock or higher in price.
- Socket AM4 Digi Power design 9 Power Phase design Supports 105W Water...
- Country of origin : China
- Memory 4x DDR4-3200+(OC)/2933/2667/2400/2133 DIMM Slots Dual Channel...
Both of these motherboards offer 2x PCIe x16 slots (PCIe 3.0 x16 and PCIe 2.0 x16), which will allow you to easily add to and upgrade your PC in the future, as well as support for 1x NVMe Drive which at this price point is amazing value.
The PCIe 3.0 x16 is where you would plug in your dedicated graphics card, should you upgrade to one over the integrated CPU graphics. See below for the best graphics card options.
The PCIe 2.0 x16 slot can be used to add an additional NVMe drive using an NVMe PCIe card such as the StarTech M2 PCIe SSD Adapter – x4 PCIe 3.0 NVMe ($22.93), or additional USB ports, using the StarTech Dual Port USB 3.1 Card Adapter (Price not available).
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
StarTech.com M2 PCIe SSD Adapter - x4... | $32.99 $22.93 | Buy Now | ||
StarTech.com Dual Port USB 3.1 Card –... | Buy Now |
Best RAM for Gaming PC Build under $500
Your RAM (Random Access memory) is one of the most important parts of a computer and is the second most important part I recommend to people asking how to speed up their old laptops or computers. An SSD boot drive being the most important.
You can never go wrong with too much RAM, but as we need to keep this gaming PC build under $500, 16GB is more than satisfactory.
There are many RAM options out there to choose from, but I would recommend looking at either the G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($41.99) or Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($39.99)
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series (Intel XMP)... | $41.99 | Buy Now | ||
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4... | $49.99 $39.99 | Buy Now |
I personally use Corsair RAM in my system builds, but G-SKill are also a very reputable name in the industry, so you cannot go wrong with either. The G-SKill is also a bit cheaper.
Best Storage Drive for Gaming PC Build under $500
Every computer needs a boot drive and for this we look no further than a SATA SSD such as the ADATA SU635 240GB 2.5″ solid state drive (Price not available) or XPG SX850 3D-NAND Gaming 256GB 2.5″ solid state drive (Price not available).
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
ADATA SU635 240GB 3D-NAND SATA 2.5 Inch... | Buy Now | |||
XPG SX850 256GB 3D-NAND Gaming 2.5 Inch... | Buy Now |
A Windows 10 Installation (Price not available) only requires about 50GB, meaning that this boot drive will leave you with plenty of remaining space (200GB) for other programs, photos and documents.
This is however only meant to be a boot drive, as you will quickly begin to fill this drive up with the files sizes of current generation games, that range around 8GB to 30GB.
Some games such as Call of Duty Warzone, require a whopping 200GB alone, meaning that you will fill your remaining space with a single game.
This is obviously not ideal.
Separate Storage Drive for your Games
For this reason, I would highly recommend a secondary storage drive where you only install your games to, leaving your Windows Boot drive as clean as possible.
This will not only make your PC run smoother, (as a clean PC is a healthy PC), but in the event that your boot drive might become corrupt or fail, your games will still be safe on another drive.
Loading games from a separate drive is also good practice in general, as it means that your Windows can run unbottlenecked by the game you are running, and vice versa.
This allows each drive to perform at its maximum capacity.
This is the exact way that I setup all my PC’s, having separate drives for each of my needs.
I have one boot drive, two drives for games, one for editing my work, one to archive my work, and even one for cache in order to increase my editing performance.
Alright, with that said, let’s get back to what storage drive should you look at buying as your secondary game drive?
Well, you have two options here, depending if you want loading speed with less storage space, or faster loading speeds with less storage space.
Faster Game Loading Speeds, Less Storage Capacity
If you are wanting more performance and less storage space, then I would recommend getting another ADATA SU635 SSD Drive, but a 480GB model ($39.99).
- Sequential reads/writes performance up to 520/450MB/s
- NAND Flash 3D NAND
This will allow you to store quite a few games depending on their sizes. If you average game install at about 8GB each, then you are looking at around 62 games, which is certainly not bad at all.
Remember that if you are installing very graphically heavy games such as COD Warzone, Red Dead Redemption 2 or Assassin’s Creed, you are looking at 50GB upwards so just keep that in mind. On the other spectrum, many indie games, such as Platformer Games or Pixel Art Graphics games are usually no more than 1GB in file size due to their basic graphics.
Installing a few of these games, would naturally even out the large installs of one of the above mentioned heavy graphical games.
So, it really depends on what games you install, but factoring in both very large and very small games, I averaged it to around 8GB per game.
SSD Drives won’t give you better in game performance
Note that I specifically mention LOADING speeds and NOT game performance speeds, as a faster storage drive such as an SSD Drive or NVMe Drive will definitely help your game load up faster, but they are not going to give you any noticeable in game frames per second (fps) increase.
Your FPS is for the vast majority, influenced by your graphics card followed by your CPU and RAM to a secondary and smaller degree, depending on the specific game.
An SSD Drive does however help with the initial load up of the game, but also loading between worlds/maps/levels, which happens a lot in Open World Games, as you transition from one part to the next.
With a faster drive you wait less for the new map area to load, thus giving you a sense of a faster game.
This is the main selling point of the new PlayStation 5 ($449.99) and Microsoft XBox Series X ($481.99) consoles, as they both have very fast NVMe SSD drives, specifically designed to almost eliminate this transitional loading time that plagues the previous PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.
NVMe drives are thus becoming more affordable, offering much faster speeds than SATA SSDs can reach. Check out my list of the BEST Value NVMe Drives available here.
Slower Game Loading Speeds, More Storage Capacity
Getting back to the hardware for our $500 PC building and a secondary game drive, if loading times aren’t a big deal to you and you would rather be able to install many more games, then there is no beating a spinning hard disk drive when it comes to cost per GB.
For this, the Western Digital Blue 4TB 5400rpm Hard Drive ($119.99) is a great option, giving you 8 times the storage capacity of the ADATA SU635 SSD Drive, but a 480GB model ($39.99).
If we now average our games at 8GB per game, we are able to install around 500 games on a 4TB hard drive! With this much storage, even COD Warzone is no match for our huge available storage capacity.
- Reliable everyday computing
- WD quality and reliability
- Free Acronis True Image WD Edition cloning Software
If you are tight on budget then the Western Digital Blue 2TB 5400rpm Hard Drive ($85.98) is around 2/3 the price, making it a very similar price as the 480GB SSD.
Note that, there is quite a big difference in performance speeds between a 5400rpm drive and 7200rpm hard drive.
If you have some extra cash, I would highly recommend going for a 7200rpm drive such as the Western Digital Black 7200rpm 2TB Hard Drive ($99.99) or the larger Western Digital Black 7200rpm 4TB Hard Drive ($129.99).
- Desktop performance gaming hard drive
- Performance storage available in up to 10TB* capacities | * As used...
- Designed for gamers, system builders, and creative professionals.
These hard disk drives are a lot slower than an SSD Drives, so your load times will take a bit longer as mentioned above, but I actually run the majority of my games from my 8TB 7200rpm hard drive, and load times are more than sufficient.
If there is a big open world game that I want to play and have the shortest laid times possible, then I will install it onto either my Samsung 970 EVO NVMe 500GB ($89.98) or Samsung 860 EVO SATA 500GB drive ($102.37), until I have completed the game.
The Samsung SATA SSD Drives are top of the range, which is proven by the over 21,000 5 star reviews.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 250GB 2.5 Inch SATA... | 76,088 Reviews | $79.99 $39.99 | Buy Now | |
Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III... | $109.99 $102.37 | Buy Now | ||
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA... | 76,088 Reviews | $199.99 $149.99 | Buy Now | |
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB 2.5 Inch SATA... | 76,088 Reviews | $279.99 $250.00 | Buy Now | |
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 4TB 2.5 Inch SATA... | $399.99 $380.00 | Buy Now |
The Samsung SATA SSD Drives, the Samsung NVMe SSD drives are also the best of the best if you are looking to add one or two to your gaming PC.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
SAMSUNG 970 EVO 250GB - NVMe PCIe M.2... | 37,110 Reviews | $99.99 | Buy Now | |
SAMSUNG (MZ-V7E500BW) 970 EVO SSD 500GB... | $99.99 $89.98 | Buy Now | ||
SAMSUNG 970 EVO SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe... | $179.99 $157.99 | Buy Now | ||
SAMSUNG 970 EVO SSD 2TB M.2 NVMe... | $234.00 | Buy Now |
Once completed, I will transfer it to my 8TB drive through Steam. Check out my article on How to Transfer games between Hard Drives in Steam if you want to know more.
It is also important to note that neither the 5400rpm or 7200rpm drives should be used as your main Windows Boot drive,as they will really slow down your PC’s boot time by a lot and also negatively influence its overall performance.
Stick with the recommended SATA SSD for this.
Best Graphics Card for Gaming PC Build under $500
As this is an entry level, cheap gaming PC build, there isn’t much room in the budget for a dedicated graphics card.
This is why we selected the AMD Ryzen 3 3200G CPU ($81.39), or AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-Core, 12-Thread Desktop Processor with AMD Radeon RX Vega 7 Graphics ($129.85) as they come with onboard Radeon Vega Graphics.
At the same time, this is onboard graphics and will only be able to output so much before reaching its limitations compared to a dedicated graphics card.
Using the onboard Radeon Vega graphics, you will be able to game at 720p using MEDIUM settings, or 1080p using LOW settings which will both give you an average of about 30fps in most current gen games.
If you are looking for something more, then you will need to invest in a dedicated graphics card, which you will easily be able to do, by simply disabling the onboard graphics in the motherboard BIOS and plugging your dedicated GPU, into the motherboard’s top most PCIe x16 slot.
The entry level dedicated graphics cards are the Nvidia GTX 1650 Super range, such as the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1650 Super Advanced 4GB Edition (Price not available) or EVGA GeForce GTX 1650 Super SC Ultra Gaming, 4GB ($230.00).
These all have 4GB on VRAM (memory) and 1280 CUDA Cores.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1650 Superâ„¢... | Buy Now | |||
EVGA GeForce GTX 1650 Super SC Ultra... | $252.32 $230.00 | Buy Now | ||
MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1650 Super... | $298.24 | Buy Now | ||
ASUS GeForce GTX 1650 Super Overclocked... | Buy Now |
For a bit more cash you can look at the Nvidia GTX 1060 Super graphics card range, such as the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1060 Super (Price not available) or ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1060 Super (Price not available).
These GTX 1060 graphics cards have 6GB of VRAM and 1408 CUDA Cores and will easily achieve 60-80fps at 1080p using HIGH to ULTRA settings, depending on the games.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1660 Superâ„¢... | Buy Now | |||
EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Black Gaming, 6GB... | Buy Now | |||
MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1660 Super... | $359.99 $179.55 | Buy Now |
If you really want to take your gaming to the next level, then I highly recommend looking at something like the Nvidia RTX 2060 Super range, such as the EVGA RTX 2060 Super KO Ultra Gaming ($324.20) or EVGA RTX 2060 Super SC Ultra Black Gaming ($291.58).
With these RTX 2060 Super graphic cards, you will be able to achieve 120fps and higher at 1080p on HIGH to ULTRA settings. You will also be looking around the 80fps mark at 1440p and about 30-40fps at 4K, again depending on the game.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
EVGA 06G-P4-2068-KR GeForce RTX 2060 KO... | $349.99 $324.20 | Buy Now | ||
EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 Super SC Ultra... | 42 Reviews | $291.58 | Buy Now |
Best Power Supply for Gaming PC Build under $500
EVGA are one of the best power supply manufacturers around and I personally use the EVGA SuperNOVA G3 750W Fully Modular Power Supply ($179.99) in my personal work and gaming PC’s, without any issues.
This power supply is however rather pricey due to it being an 80+ Gold rated PSU as well as being fully modular, so definitely not something we can buy if we are building a PC for under $500.
However, EVGA have many other alternatives, of which one is the very popular EVGA 100-W1 80+ White 500W Power supply ($52.99)
- EVGA 500 Watt; Unbeatable value
- 80 plus white certified, with 80 percentage efficiency or higher under...
- Heavy duty protections, including OVP (Over voltage protection); UVP...
500W is more than enough power for this system and even allows some headroom, should you want to upgrade to a dedicated graphics card in the future.
This power supply has a 80+ White rating, meaning it is on the bottom tier of power efficiency under load, but at the same time, it is nearly half the price of the next Bronze tier PSU’s, such as the EVGA BR 80+ Bronze 500W Power Supply ($70.49)
- EVGA 600 BR - "Bronze reliability"
- 80 plus Bronze certified, with 85% efficiency or higher under typical...
- Heavy-duty protections, including OVP, UVP, OCP, OPP, SCP and OTP
I would however highly recommend going for a Gold rated GPU over a bronze, if you can afford the extra cost. This will serve you far better in the long run.
The EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GA, 80 Plus Gold 650W, Fully Modular ($121.93) is a great choice.
- 80 plus Gold certified, with 90% efficiency or higher under typical...
- Fully modular to reduce clutter and improve airflow
- 100% Japanese capacitors, LLC resonant circuit design plus DC-DC...
Best Case for Gaming PC Build under $500
For one of the coolest looking cases, look now further than the extremely popular NZXT H510 ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99).
- New features: Front I/O USB Type-C Port and Tempered glass side panel...
- Enhanced cable management: Our patented cable routing kit with...
- STREAMLINED COOLING: 2 Aer F120mm fans included for optimal internal...
This case has endless great reviews for good reason. Not only does it sport a very edgy and stylish black and white theme with a tempered glass side panel, but it offers great airflow performance as well.
The NZXT H510 even comes with 2x 120mm fans (top and rear) so you don’t have to spend extra money buying those, and has a nice and fast USB-C Gen2 port in front for easy access.
It fully supports all motherboard sizes up to ATX, and can actually house a 240mm radiator. All these features in case this is good looking, for such a low price. You cannot go wrong.
I personally use a Phanteks Eclipse P600S Hybrid Silent and Performance ATX Case (Price not available), which is why I can highly recommend their cheaper cases as well, such as the Phanteks Eclipse P350X Compact EATX Mid-Tower Case with Tempered Glass & RGB (Price not available) or the Phanteks Eclipse 300 Steel ATX Mid Tower Tempered Glass Case (Price not available).
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Phanteks Eclipse P350X (PH-EC350PTG_DBK)... | Buy Now | |||
Phanteks Eclipse (PH-EC300PTG_BK) Steel... | Buy Now |
A great alternative, but slightly more expensive PC case option is the Cougar MG130-G Compact Micro-ATX Gaming Case (Price not available).
- Attractive Visibility. To help you appreciate your system’s full...
- Great Support for Components. You won’t believe how powerful a...
- Top-notch Cooling. MG130-G ‘s compact layout allows you to install...
The Cougar MG130 has similar features to the NZXT, except that it is a Micro-ATX, making it a lot smaller and can ONLY support Mini and Micro ATX motherboards. Full-ATX motherboards will not fit.
Gaming PC Build under $500 - Conclusion
Well guys, that brings us to the end of our budget friendly Gaming PC build for under $500.
Here is a summary of our PC Build’s components:
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 4-Core Unlocked... | $109.00 $81.39 | Buy Now | ||
ASRock B450M PRO4 AM4 AMD Promontory... | $120.90 | Buy Now | ||
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series (Intel XMP)... | $41.99 | Buy Now | ||
ADATA SU635 240GB 3D-NAND SATA 2.5 Inch... | Buy Now | |||
EVGA 500 W1, 80+ WHITE 500W Power... | $52.99 | Buy Now | ||
NZXT H510 - CA-H510B-W1 - Compact ATX... | $99.99 $89.99 | Buy Now |
As of the time of writing this (June 2020), the total for this gaming PC build actually totals up around $400, which is less than our $500 target budget.
Great!
This gives you some extra cash to invest into a gaming keyboard, mouse, monitor, headset.
What’s more, this total is excluding discounts, so you might even be able to get one or two components for cheaper.
I would however, rather invest that cash into one of the following two PC components, being either a dedicated graphics card or that secondary gaming hard drive.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Western Digital 2TB WD Black Performance... | 14,637 Reviews | $99.99 | Buy Now | |
EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Black Gaming, 6GB... | Buy Now |
Remember that prices on Amazon (especially electronics) fluctuate regularly, so this total might also become higher at some point, so don’t wait too long if you see a good price, as you might miss out.
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Happy Gaming
Ozarc (¬‿¬)