Budget 0-20k Building an APU build on a very tight budget

Shadowfell

Shadowfell

Disciple
An acquaintance's old dell desktop pc gave up (mobo dead), they don't use the pc much as all of them have phones and tablets, but they do need one for their kids' school projects and light office work, As the PC is not a priority they were looking to get a used office desktop from a re-seller, something like an i5 4th gen Optiplex/Elitedesk, I offered them to build an APU build, as I have a Ryzen 3 2200g lying around which I got for 4k from Olx a few weeks ago and an old Antec 450w PSU in working condition which I got for around 1200, I don't have much experience with Ryzen motherboard compatibility, that's the main reason I am posting my query here.

I am able to get an

A320M-A PRO MAX​

OVERVIEWSPECIFICATIONSGALLERYSUPPORTBLOGAWARDS
http://www.msi.com/service/wheretobuy/#,1
with box/bill and one year warranty left for around 2k, I am not sure if this mobo will support 2200g out of the box, or do I need to do a BIOS update? (which I really don't want to get into)
I would really appreciate it if someone can give a concrete answer on this one as google has been a mixed bag so far. otherwise, I will be going for


Please keep in mind, that their budget was just 12k, I am throwing in 3k extra without them knowing as I want to introduce their kids to PC gaming as they are already really into mobile games, will be adding a small SSD for bootup and a 500GB HHD in which I'll install some games and get them familiar with steam and other platforms, so please don't suggest something over the budget.

Thanks for reading.
 
Honestly, for an ultra cheap budget PC, usually I pick up one of those used i5 4th gen office PC or something for 6-7k and add a <75W GPU to it.
750Ti, RX 560, 950, etc should be all under 5k at this point.

For 10k budget, just grab an office PC and add a 750 Ti to it. Would easily outperform just about any APU build you'll get for that budget.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
SangeetDev said:
Honestly, for an ultra cheap budget PC, usually I pick up one of those used i5 4th gen office PC or something for 6-7k and add a <75W GPU to it.
750Ti, RX 560, 950, etc should be all under 5k at this point.

For 10k budget, just grab an office PC and add a 750 Ti to it. Would easily outperform just about any APU build you'll get for that budget.
Click to expand...
That would be the ideal scenario, unfortunately, In my personal experience, most of the second-hand sellers (I primarily surf Olx) are as stubborn as they come. Even a i5 4th gen is not easy to find under 9-10k as this segment is dominated by second-hand wholesalers who sell decommissioned desktops bought from offices in bulk with fixed prices which have gone up significantly after the pandemic, and when it comes to GPUs, people overvalue their old GPUs by a lot, second-hand market always takes time to adjust even if the retail market has starting correcting itself, Another factor that contributes to overpriced old GPUs aside from shortage is that there has been next to no improvements in the sub 20k budget GPUs for at least 5-6 years, Last month I build a second system primarily for retro emulation with a budget of 20k, I was able to get all the parts except a GPU for under 11k, It took me weeks of painstakingly surfing multiple websites every day, messaging 10-15 sellers a day, I was finally able to get a gtx970 for 7k for which I had to travel from west Delhi to Noida via metro (4 hours of travel in total), Although the final product was very rewarding, I don't think I have the energy to go through that whole experience at least for a few months.
 
Shadowfell said:
That would be the ideal scenario, unfortunately, In my personal experience, most of the second-hand sellers (I primarily surf Olx) are as stubborn as they come. Even a i5 4th gen is not easy to find under 9-10k as this segment is dominated by second-hand wholesalers who sell decommissioned desktops bought from offices in bulk with fixed prices which have gone up significantly after the pandemic, and when it comes to GPUs, people overvalue their old GPUs by a lot, second-hand market always takes time to adjust even if the retail market has starting correcting itself, Another factor that contributes to overpriced old GPUs aside from shortage is that there has been next to no improvements in the sub 20k budget GPUs for at least 5-6 years, Last month I build a second system primarily for retro emulation with a budget of 20k, I was able to get all the parts except a GPU for under 11k, It took me weeks of painstakingly surfing multiple websites every day, messaging 10-15 sellers a day, I was finally able to get a gtx970 for 7k for which I had to travel from west Delhi to Noida via metro (4 hours of travel in total), Although the final product was very rewarding, I don't think I have the energy to go through that whole experience at least for a few months.
Click to expand...
That's primarily because you are probably limiting your options to local physical purchases. You very commonly see GPUs priced well in this forum for example. OLX in general is a garbage forum to purchase things from. People are sometimes expecting 40k for their FX8350 + 770 builds just because it has some RGB stuff going on. Avoid OLX for your own sanity haha.

For office PC I can understand. In Bangalore at least, you can get used office PCs for dirt cheap so that difference I can understand.
 
SangeetDev said:
Honestly, for an ultra cheap budget PC, usually I pick up one of those used i5 4th gen office PC or something for 6-7k and add a <75W GPU to it.
750Ti, RX 560, 950, etc should be all under 5k at this point.

For 10k budget, just grab an office PC and add a 750 Ti to it. Would easily outperform just about any APU build you'll get for that budget
Click to expand...
If he can spend a little more for an apu build apu can outperform in newer titles and gives a better upgrade path. 750ti and rx560 suffer from vram bottlenecking. It is better to recommend a second hand t400 4gb. Those used to sell for a decent price.
 
I recommend watching lowendgamers benchmarks on this apus to get an idea of the kind of performance you can expect,
Although the videos are quite outdated now
 
I recently just finished an APU build for someone for around 15k + 500rs approximately on shipping.

2200g + A320m + d30 8gb 3200mhz 9k
600w old Corsair psu 1.5k
240gb SSD 2.5" 1.5k
Chiptronix cabinet 2.1k

Just wanted to say, it's possible within your said budget (15k). These were all Used parts except for the Cabinet.
 
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