Are you potentially overspending on your next gaming PC build? or trying to trim down a parts list that’s gone just a little over budget? Well if so, you’re in the right place because in this article we are going to show you how to save money on your build without necessarily losing out on frame rate.
Picking the components for your first or next gaming PC build is a challenging task. It also doesn’t get easier necessarily with the more PCs you build. With so many parts choices out there for different components, it can be tricky to know which ones to pick.
There are a million and one ways to change a build part’s list and save some money but in this article, we are going to look at the key mistakes people often make. We will also point out the areas we think you’ve got a good chance of saving some cash.
Table of Contents
Saving on Motherboard
The first of those is with your motherboard choice. At a really simple level, motherboards come in a range of different chipsets. On the new Intel 12th Gen lineup you’ve got Z690 at the high end, B660 on the slightly cheaper end, and right down to Intel’s H lineup of chipsets 2. You might by default go ahead and pick a budget Z690 board thinking that you’re being quite shrewd with the cash. So, a high-end chipset but a slightly lower motherboard is a win-win right? Well, that all depends on the features you’re looking for. Let’s look at the Z690 and B660 motherboards. Both of these motherboards offer quite similar feature sets. They both support DDR4 memory. They both support at least two gen four PCIe SSDs and also support CPU and RAM overclocking. Yet, B660 is a hundred dollars cheaper than the Z690.
A motherboard is a great way to save money because it’s not going to directly impact your performance. The speed at which your CPU, Memory, and GPU communicate with one another out of the box is no different from a low-end board to a high-end board. That’s not to say you should go onto “PC Part Picker” and sort by price “lowest to highest”. Because if you do so, you will make some serious compromises. Instead, you should look at the features you’re going for and see if they’re available in a cheaper design. Thus, the motherboard is the first great way to save a bit of cash.
Saving on PC Case
The next way to save some serious money is with your case choice. It is an easy way to save out on your build. A case does not directly impact your system’s performance as long as it fits all your PC parts inside and gets decent airflow. For example, you could spend 150 USD on a high-end Corsair 4000 or 5000 Series Chassis. However, it is not going to give you any more frame rate than their 275R airflow which you could easily pick up for about fifty dollars. Keep in mind that these are extreme examples.
If you’re trying to save a hundred dollars in your thousand dollars build where you’ve overspent very slightly, all you need to do is save twelve dollars per component. This will help you get to that one hundred dollar saving. That could be the difference between buying a comparable case from Corsair and Cooler master with a very similar feature set and saving yourself ten dollars.
You can also go for Corsair’s Airflow case rather than one of their iCUE versions. Buying some RGB fans yourself rather than picking one up with them already installed will help you save a couple of bucks. However, remember that saving money on your build doesn’t mean drastically ruining the pretty look of something or part of your PC.
Saving on CPU
The next key way to save a bit of cash is with your CPU choice. There are a few ways to save money with your CPU. If you’re going for an Intel chip, are you going for a K series processor? If so, why not consider a KF processor? The F designation just means it’s the same CPU without any built-in graphics. Since you are building a gaming PC and will need a GPU anyway and thus you won’t need a CPU with graphics on board. Because your GPU will take over all of those responsibilities and your CPU graphics will never get used. It is a similar story with Ryzen 2 where cost savings can be made bare.
Another great way of saving money with the CPU is to look at the overclockable version and the non-overclockable version. Typically, people will buy the overclockable CPU and then an expensive motherboard that is purposely good at overclocking. While the overclocking CPUs often come with better clock speeds out of the box.
We suggest that rather than going for a cheaper motherboard and CPU and just getting crap clock speeds, buy a chip with a better clock speed for another 20 USD. This will help you save yourself about 50 USD on the motherboard. It doesn’t have to be an all-overclocking or no overclocking choice at all.
Saving on GPU
GPU designs are designed originally by NVIDIA or AMD. They create what’s called the reference board which manufacturers like ASUS or GIGABYTE can then take tweak and add their cooler to. Each manufacturer will then release a range of different coolers.
Let’s compare the two GPUs. The first one is GIGABYTE’s lowest-end RTX 3050 design which is designed very close to the reference board. The second one is ASUS’s high-end RTX 3050 designs. The ASUS 3050 card has three fans rather than two, a faster clock speed from the factory, and overall it just looks a lot nicer. But you’ll have to pay a huge price for it. So, is this a better card than the GIGABYTE 3050 card? As far as raw performance goes, yes. However, on a price-to-performance metric, this throws away many of the gains that a card like the 3050 gets in the first place. Furthermore, this RTX 3050 is probably priced closer to a cheap RTX 3060. It means that you need to be careful in opting for an upgraded GPU. Because it might get closer to its bigger brother counterpart in price than it does in performance away from the lower-end models.
It is better to buy the best possible GPU you can but with the cheapest cooler. This is a pattern that carries on throughout GPUs on both AMD and NVIDIA. For example, the MSI Gaming X Trio 3060 probably costs you just about the same amount of money as the founder’s edition RTX 3060 Ti. Likewise, the MSI RTX 3080 Suprim is a gorgeous and incredible one but for price wise it’s far too close to GIGABYTE 3080 Ti.
Due to high GPU demand, the manufacturers have been able to get away with selling their higher-end designs like the Suprim Strix or Gaming X Trio because people were so desperate for GPUs. As the market returns to normal, more of the dual fan coolers for lower-end cards and designs like the GIGABYTE Eagle range will come to the fall. It will then help gamers save money. Thus, watch out for the GPU you buy because it may not be quite what it seems and it doesn’t end there, especially for the budget gamer out there.
Saving on CPU Cooler
As point number five your CPU cooler choice is perhaps the best way to save a bit of cash. Recently, Intel has upgraded their stock cooler putting it pretty much on par with AMD stock cooler design. These cum included with most AMD and Intel chips, especially the ones that aren’t overclockable like the i5 12400F and i312100F. They’re not the quietest in the world and nor will they give you any overclocking headroom. Yet, they can keep your CPU below 85 degrees Celsius.
For some people, a stock cooler may not be enough. It might look a bit too crappy for your build aesthetic or maybe it’s too loud for your silent gaming room operation. To cope with this problem, you should look at high-end air coolers rather than expensive all-in-ones.
For example, you will find a 360 ML Corsair Coolant stunning and great-looking piece of kit but at over a hundred and fifty dollars. Now the question is why would you pick up a double fan air cooler or one of Corsair’s own cheaper 240 ML units? If it is because you want maximum overclocking headroom, the best aesthetics, and a huge radiator for bragging rights then go for it. However, if you are looking to save money consider that 40 to 60 USD Cooler first. Check out the reviews of those coolers and the temperatures. Because the likelihood is if you spend another 50 USD you might only be losing a few more degrees. You should know that losing a few more degrees isn’t going to make any difference to your frame rate when it comes to performance.
Conclusion
To summarize, your Motherboard, Case, CPU cooler, and GPU are all great ways to save money. You can also save some money by looking at your power supply. Do you need that 900 or 800 Watt, 80 plus gold unit? Probably not. According to PC Part Picker, your system only wants 500 Watt. Have a look at your minimum recommended power supply requirements for your graphics card and go from there. Don’t unnecessarily scrimp out on your components but also don’t write off saving 20 dollars here and there. Because those figures can quickly add up and help your build get firmly back on track when it comes to the budget department.