How to Build Your Ideal Gaming PC for Under 30,000 Pesos: The 13th Month Pay Edition

What if you are not convinced and wanted to invest in something a bit more robust? The Seasonic S12II-520W 80+ Bronze is one of my favorites out there. So the lesson here is you are going to purchase a PSU with a good to be true price, do your research first! By the way, since the current processor and video card line up is so efficient, you don’t really need a PSU with a rating of 600W or more unless you are doing a multi-GPU setup

Fact: A true rated and efficient power supply will actually help you save money in the long run!

The computer case. Who doesn’t love a computer case? Nowadays, the trend is at clean looks with tempered glass panel or panels so that you can ogle all you want the insides of your new toy but since we are on a tight budget, the Tecware F3 is one of the good choices out there. It has all the space you need inside, plus you can attach up to five auxiliary fans that ensure good airflow inside your computer case. Those cheap ones with the free power supply units tend to be hot as an oven.

So what is a computer without a proper monitor? The trend right now are gaming monitors with high refresh rate, Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, or AMD’s FreeSync technology. What these technologies do is help avoid screen tearing and reduce input lag which helps a lot in maximizing the gaming experience. Each of the three technologies have pros and cons, but the common factor is always the price. If we cannot have a nice gaming monitor, a normal monitor would do. And as long as it is capable of full HD resolution, has a response time of less than 8 milliseconds, and has either an HDMI or a DVI connection, you are golden.

The BenQ GW2270 is a good option for this task since not only it has a VA (Vertical Alignment) panel that is a happy medium between the rich colors of an IPS (In-Plane Switching) panels found on most high monitors, it also has some of the speed of TN (Twisted Nematic) panels. Just think of it like looking at a modern day LG G5 (IPS) compared to the old Samsung Galaxy Star (TN).

When choosing a videocard or the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), often times it comes to rabid fanboyism between the Green Team (Nvidia) or the Red Team (AMD). But in reality, this one is really dependent on the budget since they overlap each other on some segments. As of writing, the AMD RX-460 is one of the most affordable GPUs you can find out there that allows you to smoothly game in 1080p resolution. If you can push your budget a bit more, the Nvidia GTX 1050Ti is probably the best affordable GPU that ensures smooth gaming at 1080p which is slightly faster than the AMD RX-460. So which is better? It depends, but the GTX 1050 Ti is PHP 2,000 dearer than the decent RX-460.

So, what do we have now? (as time of writing)

• Processor: Intel Core i3-6100 3.70 GHz Skylake – PHP 5,490.00
• Motherboard: MSI B150M Night Elf – PHP 4,750.00 (or Asrock H110M HDV – PHP 2,950.00)
• Memory: GSkill Ripjaws V / Kingston Hyper X/ Corsair LPX 4GB 4GB x1 DDR4 2400 – PHP 1,600.00
• Hard Disk Drive: 1 terabyte Western Digital Caviar Blue – PHP 2,300.00
• Video Card: Palit GTX 1050 Ti StormX 4GB – PHP 7,400.00 (or Sapphire RX-460 2GB – PHP 5,650.00)
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair VS450 450 watts – PHP 1,650.00 (or Seasonic S12II 520w 80+ Bronze – PHP 2,600.00)
• Case: Tecware F3 micro ATX case – PHP 1,100.00
• Monitor: 21.5″ BenQ GW2270 fullHD monitor – PHP5,300.00

TOTAL DAMAGE: PHP 29,590.00 and we are just a bit under our PHP 30,000.00 budget!

Not only is this build cheaper than last year’s, but it is significantly faster. So what’s next? Probably install your operating system, download Steam, and play for hours! There, a proper and affordable gaming computer you can burn your hard earned 13th month pay on. Please don’t blame me if you ever find yourself sitting for hours playing LIFE is STRANGE or cursing your monitor after bad session of DoTA 2 at the South East Asia server. Damn these peenoise.

Now, where can you source these parts? A quick visit to a PC hardware hotspot at Gilmore Avenue will do the trick, and some spots around the south area (Parañaque, Las Piñas, and Alabang), but I frequent Dynaquestpc Makati more now. Thank you, Dynaquestpc, for always letting me play around with your stuff whenever I’m there!

When on a budget, knowing what and where to get that gaming PC you always wanted can get you a long, long way.

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Dynaquestpc

www.dynaquestpc.com