Best Entry-level rig using "modern" parts?

[Hans Gruber]

Not to worry Larry. Soon they will fine the memory industry again for price fixing. There is no memory shortage. No industry has been fined as much as the memory makers. With that said a Ryzen 1200/1300x or a Pentium dual core would get my vote. The i3 looks interesting.

 

[DrMrLordX]

There is no memory shortage.

What brought you to that conclusion?

 

[VirtualLarry]

What brought you to that conclusion?

I can offer one plausible data-point - are dGPUs coming off the lines, with GDDR5 bought off of the spot market? Like some OCZ and other SSDs that bought NAND off of the spot market? If there really were a DRAM availability crunch, we should be seeing signs like that. That fact that we haven't, does support @Hans Gruber 's position.

 

[Hans Gruber]

What brought you to that conclusion?

Here is some reading material for you. I defer to my previous statement that no other industry has been fined as much as memory manufacturers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing

 

[Ranulf]

I thought the current "shortage" was because samsung had put much of its ddr4 into its phones and thus less available for system ram, raised its ram/ssd prices and thus everyone else did too?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Here is some reading material for you. I defer to my previous statement that no other industry has been fined as much as memory manufacturers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing

I'm aware of that, along with the DRAM manufacturer's reputation for chicanery; sadly, that does not technically apply to today's conditions. People will have to gather evidence and prove price fixing via conspiracy/collusion all over again.

I can offer one plausible data-point - are dGPUs coming off the lines, with GDDR5 bought off of the spot market? Like some OCZ and other SSDs that bought NAND off of the spot market? If there really were a DRAM availability crunch, we should be seeing signs like that. That fact that we haven't, does support @Hans Gruber 's position.

There are - or have been - some DIMMs suffering reduced availability in the past two years. GALAX has pulled most of their products in the range of DDR4-3200. I think the slowest HoF RAM they offer now is DDR4-4000? They used to bin as low as DDR4-3200 and sell it nice and cheap. Now they don't even bother. There are some other DDR4 DIMM types that have just been flat pulled off the market due to selling out.

Also, look at the eBay prices for "naked" generic DDR4 DIMMs. You used to be able to shop around and maybe find some generics with b-die or e-die on there for cheap. Some of that stuff OCed like a beast. Now 100% of those DIMMs are gone, and the Samsung d-die generics are really expensive on eBay. Demand is driving up prices, presumably due to shortage. On a market like eBay, the DRAM manufacturers can't explicity fix prices.

We have also seem possible HBM/HBM2 shortages in the video card arena. There probably isn't a big GDDR5/GDDR5X shortage right now, though I could be wrong.

Regardless we are seeing the sings of DDR4 IC shortages. I read a few articles, like this one:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greats...ces-could-remain-firm-over-2018/#14a640baa410

(sorry, Forbes link)

or this one:

https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1332200

indicating that the major DRAM manufacturers aren't doing much to improve capacity. Is this due to collusion to keep prices high? Good luck sorting out that one.

I thought the current "shortage" was because samsung had put much of its ddr4 into its phones and thus less available for system ram, raised its ram/ssd prices and thus everyone else did too?

That's part of it. Mobile devices are competing for ICs. I don't know how binning comes into play here, but it seems to be increasing prices on DDR4 DIMMs all up and down the board.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I will say, after switching back to one of my DeskMini rigs, with the G4600 Kaby Lake Pentium w/HT and HD 630 iGPU, along with 2x8GB DDR4-2400 RAM, and even a 240GB SATA PNY BX100-clone SSD, not even a PCI-E M.2 SSD, this rig is really actually rocking, for desktop / web-browsing tasks. Even when not overclocked. (Ok, they don't support OC anyways.)

Along with Firefox Nightly (59a1, 64-bit), it rocks. Web browsing is smooth and fast, especially with Ublock Origin, and tracking protection enabled. (Even with a 15/2 internet connection, not even my gigabit connection.)

Newegg's image-heavy email newsletter page comes in great, all in glorious 4K UHD too. (I'm using a Club3D active DP-to-HDMI2.0 adapter, via HDMI2.0 to my 4K UHD TV.)

Barely sipping any power, too.

For desktop / non-gaming rigs, "Mom boxes", kitchen PCs, HTPCs, etc., these are GREAT little boxes. And I'm thinking, along with using Windows 10's built in Defender AV/AM, and an ad blocker, and a multi-threaded web browser, a dual-core with HT is all you might really need, for a while now. (Ok, the G4560 is no slouch either in gaming boxes, capable of playing most AAA games in 1080P, given a decent GPU, like a 1050ti 4GB or GTX1060 3GB.)

Edit: Because of my slow internet connection, YT sends 4K videos at 2560x1440, and at least at that res., they decode and play back just fine on this box, even full-screen scaled-up to 4K UHD res.

 

[jana519]

I will say, after switching back to one of my DeskMini rigs, with the G4600 Kaby Lake Pentium w/HT and HD 630 iGPU, along with 2x8GB DDR4-2400 RAM, and even a 240GB SATA PNY BX100-clone SSD, not even a PCI-E M.2 SSD, this rig is really actually rocking, for desktop / web-browsing tasks. Even when not overclocked. (Ok, they don't support OC anyways.)

Along with Firefox Nightly (59a1, 64-bit), it rocks. Web browsing is smooth and fast, especially with Ublock Origin, and tracking protection enabled. (Even with a 15/2 internet connection, not even my gigabit connection.)

Newegg's image-heavy email newsletter page comes in great, all in glorious 4K UHD too. (I'm using a Club3D active DP-to-HDMI2.0 adapter, via HDMI2.0 to my 4K UHD TV.)

Barely sipping any power, too.

For desktop / non-gaming rigs, "Mom boxes", kitchen PCs, HTPCs, etc., these are GREAT little boxes. And I'm thinking, along with using Windows 10's built in Defender AV/AM, and an ad blocker, and a multi-threaded web browser, a dual-core with HT is all you might really need, for a while now. (Ok, the G4560 is no slouch either in gaming boxes, capable of playing most AAA games in 1080P, given a decent GPU, like a 1050ti 4GB or GTX1060 3GB.)

Edit: Because of my slow internet connection, YT sends 4K videos at 2560x1440, and at least at that res., they decode and play back just fine on this box, even full-screen scaled-up to 4K UHD res.

This is why I kind of feel like if the G4560 or Skylake i3 is in stock and can be had at a bargain price with a B or H series motherboard, this should actually be called "entry level". Most AAA games can be played on 2C/4T at 1080p or less. And with the GTX 1050, you can get a cheap 300W PSU, generic case, and mechanical HDD all for under $400. That to me is entry level.

The downside of the G4560 or Skylake i3 isn't gaming, it's multitasking while gaming. So with the Coffee Lake i3 and the Ryzen 5, you can game while also having a web browser open and watching Twitch. That's an amenity of paying an extra $100, not a necessity.

 

[aigomorla]

(Ok, the G4560 is no slouch either in gaming boxes, capable of playing most AAA games in 1080P, given a decent GPU, like a 1050ti 4GB or GTX1060 3GB.)

im pretty sure that cpu would bottleneck a GTX 1060 ...

normally Celeron / Pentium, and dedicated GPU dont work well together...
IF you going to go celeron / Pentium route, its best to go full budget, skip the DGPU, and go 100% IGP...

 

[VirtualLarry]

im pretty sure that cpu would bottleneck a GTX 1060 ...

normally Celeron / Pentium, and dedicated GPU dont work well together...
IF you going to go celeron / Pentium route, its best to go full budget, skip the DGPU, and go 100% IGP...

Go watch the DigitalFoundry and HardwareUnboxed videos about the G4560 on YouTube. HU found that in most AAA games, the G4560 had enough grunt to scale up to the GTX1080, as a matter of fact. It was NOT CPU-limited with a GTX1060, it was GPU-limited.

Edit: You basically missed the memo on the G4560 CPU. It's basically an i3, minus AVX opcodes, for half the price.

Is an i3 (a Skylake / Kaby Lake i3, at that) not good enough for AAA gaming?

 

[aigomorla]

from what i remember gpu's are most typically bottlnecked until you get to the 4ghz territory, which is why the 6700k and 7700k did so well in benchmarks... i maybe wrong...

And i3 not enough for AAA, i would assume possibly seeing how if its a AAA title game, most of them are multi threaded to handle at least 4 cores, unless its a really really bad AAA game...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, the big fanfare about the G4560, besides the price, was because Intel added HyperThreading to the Kaby Lake Pentiums. If you've never played with them, that might not have been obvious. So they can, at some level, support AAA games that require 4 cores/threads (to even boot or run). They probably don't play AAA games as well as a i5-7500, but they can still mostly play them. (Maybe not BF1 64-player servers, but most games short of that, they will play. GTA V, they will do about 40-50 FPS on, not a full 60FPS like a true quad-core will do.)

 

[epsilon84]

A G4560 (or any Pentium with HT) is more than enough to run games at acceptable framerates (60fps+ AVG, mins may take a hit though)

In saying that, I'm starting to see a clear trend in the latest games where the G4560 is indeed a bottleneck, and the jump to a 4C/4T CPU like a Ryzen 3 or 8th gen i3 shows a significant performance uplift. However, the caveat is that the majority of those benchmarks are done on a GTX 1080 or 1080 Ti in order to minimise GPU bottlenecks. That isn't a realistic pairing with a budget CPU like the G4560.

If paired with a more realistic GTX 1050/Ti/1060 combination the G4560 should still have enough legs to push 60fps, which is really all you need for a budget gaming PC.

The problem with the G4560 is that in the US, for whatever reason, it is price gouged about $20 to $30 above MSRP which takes away a lot of its budget appeal. It's close enough in price to an R3 1200 to make the Ryzen the better choice. An extra $30 for 2 more physical cores is definitely worth it IMO.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The problem with the G4560 is that in the US, for whatever reason, it is price gouged about $20 to $30 above MSRP which takes away a lot of its budget appeal. It's close enough in price to an R3 1200 to make the Ryzen the better choice. An extra $30 for 2 more physical cores is definitely worth it IMO.

Oh, I agree completely. The G4560 CPUs that I got, I obtained for around $62 ea., back before they became unavailable from reliable sources, and instead only from gouging resellers.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I have a G4560, G4620 and R3 1200. You can get by with all 3. When OC'd I think the 1200 with 4 cores and hyperthreading is the better solution. Even @ $60 you can get by with the G4560 which seems to anger people who like justify spending a lot of CPU's. I personally think a 5ghz CPU is the correct path but that is just me. If you pair a G4560 with a 1080 and play BF1 64 player servers, you will do fine. They don't think someone would spend $500 on a GPU and $60 on a CPU.

With that said I play BF1 (64 players) with a 3570K @ about 4.6ghz and a GTX970. It still does well with FPS in the 80's FPS overall. Pushes 100fps on some maps but usually never dips to 60FPS even on 64 player servers.

My Ryzen 1200 is paired with a 7950 if that tells you guys anything about my budget build. I typically use recycled parts from higher end builds. It does have liquid cooling 240mm cooler master an P400 non tempered glass case and 8GB of DDR4 3200mhz ram.

 

[Spjut]

A G4560 (or any Pentium with HT) is more than enough to run games at acceptable framerates (60fps+ AVG, mins may take a hit though)

In saying that, I'm starting to see a clear trend in the latest games where the G4560 is indeed a bottleneck, and the jump to a 4C/4T CPU like a Ryzen 3 or 8th gen i3 shows a significant performance uplift. However, the caveat is that the majority of those benchmarks are done on a GTX 1080 or 1080 Ti in order to minimise GPU bottlenecks. That isn't a realistic pairing with a budget CPU like the G4560.

If paired with a more realistic GTX 1050/Ti/1060 combination the G4560 should still have enough legs to push 60fps, which is really all you need for a budget gaming PC.

The problem with the G4560 is that in the US, for whatever reason, it is price gouged about $20 to $30 above MSRP which takes away a lot of its budget appeal. It's close enough in price to an R3 1200 to make the Ryzen the better choice. An extra $30 for 2 more physical cores is definitely worth it IMO.

I agree that no one pairs a G4560 with a 1080 Ti today, but give it five years and the new Nvidia xx50 might be better. You have great options for upgrading the graphics card long-term.

I don't want to limit the budget too much, but generally, I always prefer prioritizing the CPU, because you can always get the latest and greatest GPU whenever you want.

The Pentium G3258 builds were probably the worst build these last five years.

 

[scannall]

I'm assuming all new parts. So, this will play games reasonaby well for $465.74. If that's not budget for all new parts, I don't know what is. Under $500.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

I'm assuming all new parts. So, this will play games reasonaby well for $465.74. If that's not budget for all new parts, I don't know what is. Under $500.

Very good build. For about the same money I would swap 4 cores for a 2/2 G4560 and a better GPU 1050 ti. It will game better on the same budget.

 

[cbn]

This might all change once Raven Ridge for desktop comes out, that would seem to be ideal chip for both laptops and entry-level desktops. Imagine, Vega-class graphics, without having to pay for a dGPU! OEMs should LOVE that.

Unfortunately AMD APUs on desktop have never worked out to be a good deal compared to Athlon x4 and dGPU (even an entry level one). (Think back to how expensive to top Kaveri and Godavari APUs were when they first came out)

But maybe a harvested dual core Raven Ridge APU would eventually work?

 

[cbn]

Either way, hard to go wrong. I'm personally leaning towards the R5 1600 for productivity and content-creation, but the CFL is possibly better for 1080P gaming.

For the Ryzen Rigs, I hope we get some advancements in consumer hard drives (eg, Multi-actuator to boost sequential read) so 4K video editing can be done on a single large volume. (reason: new PC users seem to like single volume storage).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, multi-actuator is cool, but a Hybrid drive with built-in Optane cache memory, coupled with a decent RPM platter drive, connected by a SATA Express interface, could probably revolutionize OEM PC storage subsystems.

 

[24601]

Anything lower than an i5-8400 would be better off buying a DDR3 equipped EOL machine off ebay.

With the way the memory cartel is going, DDR4 is going to be more expensive per ounce than gold fairly soon.

The blocking of China's bid to purchased Micron means we probably are in for 5+ more years of price fixing.

 

[ao_ika_red]

How about now? (well, February 12th to be exact) With $99 price tag, this thing will dominate low cost rig.
edit: fixed pricing link

 

[24601]

How about now? (well, February 12th to be exact) With $99 price tag, this thing will dominate low cost rig.

Every single AMD desktop chip is currently inferior to i5-8400, and the i5-8400 itself is barely worth buying over EOL intel parts with DDR3 due to the gigantic pricing disparity between ebay DDR3 systems and memory cartel's blood DDR4 (like diamonds, but more expensive).

Realistically if you are considering buying anything less than a 8600k or 8700k you would be better off with a DDR3 equipped system if you care about cost of your system at all.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Every single AMD desktop chip is currently inferior to i5-8400

Riiiiight