Budget 0-20k 10k build for light gaming (older games) and productivity (web design), does not have to be completely new.

Plebius Maximus

Plebius Maximus

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Found a deleted post on r/buildapc where someone who wanted a PC build under $100 USD turned out to be Indian. Their post got removed due to being a "Hypothetical or dream build, meme or joke", but I reached out to see what their scene was. Found out the person was from a remote village in Kerala, and had ₹10000 to spend and not much knowledge about computers. Suggestions for a decent build?

I have put together a few dozen PCs for friends including 20 at once for a gaming cafe, but they have been at least mid-range builds. Local computer guy says he can get refurbish a 2nd gen Intel i5 Optiplex, but I have built something similar for a friend in 2017 and it would honestly be a waste of the 10k in 2024 when even my own i7 7700K feels somewhat obsolete.

Any help would be appreciated, especially if you can provide seller links/contacts.
Thank you!
 
My Suggestion, get a used laptop from a refurb seller - should happen easily within 10K. I got a decent laptop for 15K for a relative who was on a budget, still doing fine. Much more usable given the crappy electricity supply etc that you get in remote areas.
if you feel an i7 7700K feels a bit rusty, you should not even be trying to attempt to solve this question.
My wife is using her 13 year old college laptop with an i5 2410M and it runs just fine for modern tasks with 16G of ram and a 256GB SSD
She uses it mainly for browsing, video calls and her personal web development projects, My son uses it for scratch, youtube etc.
I would suggest he find a shop local to him and get it from there so that he can get support if required

When I landed in the US in 2018, the first thing i bought was a refurb elitedesk 840G1 for $150. that laptop was a workhorse and worked flawlessly, with a bunch of upgrades along the way making it into a firebreathing machine which got trashed by a bunch of stupid drunk in-laws sometime in 2022.
PS: where in kerala?
 
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greenhorn said:
My Suggestion, get a used laptop from a refurb seller - should happen easily within 10K. I got a decent laptop for 15K for a relative who was on a budget, still doing fine. Much more usable given the crappy electricity supply etc that you get in remote areas.
if you feel an i7 7700K feels a bit rusty, you should not even be trying to attempt to solve this question.
My wife is using her 13 year old college laptop with an i5 2410M and it runs just fine for modern tasks with 16G of ram and a 256GB SSD
She uses it mainly for browsing, video calls and her personal web development projects, My son uses it for scratch, youtube etc.
I would suggest he find a shop local to him and get it from there so that he can get support if required

When I landed in the US in 2018, the first thing i bought was a refurb elitedesk 840G1 for $150. that laptop was a workhorse and worked flawlessly, with a bunch of upgrades along the way making it into a firebreathing machine which got trashed by a bunch of stupid drunk in-laws sometime in 2022.
PS: where in kerala?
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The build is not for me, I haven't yet asked the person where exactly they're from. I was thinking of suggesting a laptop, too, but this was a post on r/buildapc so I reckon they probably wanted a desktop? Will ask and confirm. Haha I actually have a 2014~ish 4th gen i3 laptop somewhere that I might be able to offer them for a couple grand, but I am in the middle of uprooting myself, and am probably going to get a visa at the very last minute which has already left me swamped with a lot of other work.

Oh and I didn't mean to say that a 7700K is slow, per se, it just doesn't seem like value for money to buy an i5 2400 in 2024. But I understand, also sending them a link to this thread!
 
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I was agonizing over a low end cpu build, but finally bit the bullet and got myself a ryzen tiny pc from aasim's refurbco. Pretty solid low-mid range config (3400g, 16gb,512gb+ 2tb) for 20k. Was much cheaper than any budget build would be. If he's looking for a desktop, a tiny pc is not a bad idea
 
greenhorn said:
I was agonizing over a low end cpu build, but finally bit the bullet and got myself a ryzen tiny pc from aasim's refurbco. Pretty solid low-mid range config (3400g, 16gb,512gb+ 2tb) for 20k. Was much cheaper than any budget build would be. If he's looking for a desktop, a tiny pc is not a bad idea
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The guy (I'm assuming) is from Malappuram district, just got a reply.
 
When you say older games, how old do you mean? Can you give any examples of the games he might be looking to run and also at what resolution? A 10k build is definitely possible but I need some more information to go off.
 
Kaching999 said:
When you say older games, how old do you mean? Can you give any examples of the games he might be looking to run and also at what resolution? A 10k build is definitely possible but I need some more information to go off.
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I will ask and respond! I think the primary use was web design, and gaming was a plus.
@Kaching999 Got a response quite fast.

"Sorry I have been a bit busy and tired so I will just answer here for the time being because my account creation was rejected because it resembles automated behaviour (am I no longer human?) As for gaming, I mostly play indie games because I never played AAA titles.I play Hollow Knight, CrossCode, Stardew Valley, DeadCells, Slay the Spire, Celeste. Most of these are very less intensive games but I do wish to play Factorio, Sifu, Elden Ring, Need for Speed Rivals and Assassin's Creed Unity as well.

My now deceased laptop was a Lenovo G50-70i3 4th gen4gb ram 1tb hdd"
 
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There are two routes than he can go here:

1. Get a used dell optiplex with at least an i5/i7 6th gen or above and at least 8gb ram. He can either seach the web for it or go to local call centre or other such businesses, they usually have some used one that they want to get off their hands, it should cost him around 5.5k-7k for it depending on his haggling skills. Then he can put in an old GPU such as a rx480/580 in it. These provide great performance for the price and can be found for around 5k.This should give him a good enough pc to work with, it will certainly be better than his laptop.

2. He can also look for older Intel xeon server CPUs with a motherboard and ram combo. It should have atleast 4 cores to work with though and at least 8gb of ram. Such a combo can be found for around 4.5k-6k either on the web or it can also be procured from a local buisness.Then again get a used GPU as described above and get a cheap used ssd and psu for around 2.5k. He would be able to find a used cheap case for around 250-500.

A decent 10k pc is certainly is certainly doable but it all depends on how willingly the person search and haggle for decent componets at a cheap price. Since all the components are already going to be used you always run the risk of something just giving up. What I would personally suggest is to shell out some more money, around 20k, in such a budget you can get a pretty decent build which will definitely be better in terms of performance, durability and bang for buck.

Just for inspiration:

 
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