Editor’s Note: Due to price / availability adjustments and for the purpose of accuracy of this buyer’s guide, we will regularly update this post and might change something from the parts list to make this recommendation better.
Do you want to game on with the latest or modern titles but don’t want to break the bank at the same time? Well, if you are, then this guide is for you.
And since we’ve previously posted a build guide for the red team, now, we thought that we should do a guide for the blue team this time.
READ: [UPDATED] PhP 35k / $680 Ryzen 5 PC Build Buyer’s Guide
Notes aside. Since we’re always on a budget, we handpicked some components based on their pricing and their efficiency at the same time (as if we don’t want to compromise both) – so here’s the drafted build:
CPU CHOICE
For the brain of this system, we recommend perhaps the king of Intel budget builds, the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560. This is a dual-core processor with hyper threading that gives it a sum of 4 threads (2/4) and runs on its base clock speed of 3.5GHz.
Intel Kaby Lake Pentium G4560
While picking up an aftermarket cooler would be enticing, note that you cannot overclock it and it includes a stock cooler which might suck for overclocking, but for this, it should perform decently.
MOTHERBOARD CHOICE
While our original recommendation states MSI’s B250M PRO-VDH as the recommended motherboard, we’d decided to change it instead to a H110 chipset one, as it is still compatible with our processor choice, and will make us save a few bucks. thus, enabling us to restrict ourselves to the specified budget. [June 29, 2018 – Author]
The motherboard we recommend is MSI’s H110M PRO-VH PLUS – a micro-ATX, H110 chipset-equipped board that comes really cheap but with absolutely winning features.
This motherboard has USB 3.1 support (2 light blue ports beside the PS2 ports), 2-slots of DDR4 memory that supports RAM speeds of up to 2133 in Dual Channel mode, Gigabit Internet and whatever you’re looking for a decent motherboard on this price range.
Learn more about the motherboard HERE.
GRAPHICS CARD
While our original recommendation states that GTX 1050 Ti are not affected by the rise of prices among graphics cards, we’re sad to inform you that even the budget gaming card is also affected by this epidemic already – and the availability of our original recommended card couldn’t be confirmed. [April 7, 2018, Author]
We’ve originally recommended MSI’s GTX 1050Ti 4GB Dual Fan OC, but since we couldn’t confirm its availability on stores right now, we replaced it with something else.
Image: Gigabyte
You might hate this card as the elitists say, but for the budget-oriented sector, this could be the champ for mid 1080p, AAA gaming.
With its boost clock of 1455MHz and a base clock of 1341MHz, the G4560 wouldn’t bottleneck the 1050Ti at all so it suits enough for your decent 1080p gaming (mostly e-sports titles). However, don’t expect to play games more than 1080p, as it will give you the performance that you would not like. For output, you have (1) DisplayPort 1.4, (1) HDMI 2.0 and (1) Dual-link DVI-D.
Learn more about the graphic card HERE.
POWER SUPPLY / PSU CHOICE
It may not be the best budget power supply in the world, but we recommend the widely available, relatively cheap but trusted PSU from Corsair – their VS450 80+ White.
-
- Corsair VS450 with cables
-
- Corsair VS450 fan
-
- Corsair VS450
This would be enough to supply the juice of our system and you’ll be pleased to hear that its fan is thermally controlled so that it will only spin at max speeds when it’s pushed hard (just ideal for silent freaks like me) – and their 3-year warranty is really something they’re proud of.
MEMORY / RAM CHOICE
Team Elite+ DDR4 2133MHz (4GBx2)
Memory / RAM module prices are still a bit high now and our first recommendations are changed due to the motherboard’s compatibility. Our current recommendation would be the Team Elite+ DDR4 2133 RAM modules, and since it is available in 4GB modules, you can get two sticks so that you can run it in dual channel mode, too.
STORAGE CHOICE
Next is the storage. For budget builds, we believe that 1TB is already enough.To support that belief, we picked up again the widely used WDC Blue 1TB, a 7200-RPM mechanical hard drive for storage of your games and other files.
And if you want to go around and break the 25-thousand-peso budget we have, go and pick up some solid-state drives (SSD) and make that your boot drive – I don’t care, this is just a DRAFTED guide for you to help decide, anyway.
CASE / CHASSIS CHOICE
Leaving out nonsense, we are ending this up with the chassis/case. This time, we will pick something that will let you show the beauty of what’s inside – the Tecware Edge Gaming Case.
Tecware Edge TG
The Edge is a compact size mid-tower case that is modern and minimalist at the same time. It can support up to standard ATX motherboards and even a 240mm water cooling radiator at the front. The Edge also comes with 3 x 120mm cooling fans(2 front, 1 rear)which might be enough for a decent cooling solution – and it has support for (1) 120mm fan at the rear, (2) 120mm at the top (could be a water cooling radiator, too) and (2) 120-240mm at the front. It also has support for 2x 3.5” drives, 3x 2.5” drives (SSDs) and 1x 5.25” (for optical drives).
Finally, you’ll love the PSU chamber, routing holes for effective cable management, the magnetic air filter at the top and of course, the clear side panel window.
TOTAL PRICE / PARTS LIST
| ITEM | PRICE | PRICE BASED FROM |
| CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 Kaby Lake @ 3.5GHz | PhP2,990 | PCHub |
| GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Dual Fan OC | PhP10,300 | PCHub |
| MOBO: MSI H110M PRO-VH PLUS | PhP2,850 | PCHub |
| RAM: Team Elite+ DDR4 2133MHz (4GBx2) (PhP2,350 x 2) | PhP4,700 | DynaQuest PC |
| PSU: Corsair VS450 80+ White | PhP1,930 | PCHub, DynaQuest PC (PhP1,720) |
| HDD: WDC Blue 1TB (7200RPM) | PhP2,180 | PCHub |
| Case: Tecware Edge TG Gaming Case | PhP2,000 | PCHub |
| TOTAL | PhP26,950 | $505 |
*pricing may vary in other stores
CONCLUSION
So what we’ve got here is a decent Kaby Lake system that can be used to play games at least 1080p medium to high settings. However, if you aren’t satisfied with the performance, this build is actually designed to have a good upgrade path in the future – so you can swap out the CPU/GPU easily without changing motherboards (like upgrade the CPU to an i5 or i7 ‘non-K’ and swap the GPU for up to GTX 1080) unless you tend to buy AMD Ryzen 2nd-gen chips or upgrade to the newer Coffee Lake (8th Gen) platform.
We expect this build not to be used for heavy content creation like 4K video editing or 3D-rendering and stuff because of our limited CPU. However, for gaming, we believe that the G4560’s performance is enough to bring you up to the race and give you that Chicken Dinner you want in PUBG and the victory in either DotA 2, League of Legends or CS:GO.
And that’s it. Thanks for reading this build guide and your opinions will be deeply appreciated – comment on this post using the Facebook comments module below and let us know what do you think of the build as well as what you can suggest aside than the items we’ve mentioned.
If you liked this build guide then you can do it and share this guide for people who are looking for a guide on building probably their first PC or perhaps, a budget-oriented Kaby-Lake system which will serve as their battle station for some years. Try to build it, and let us know how does it perform in the comment section.
PHP 35K / $680 RYZEN 5 PC BUILD BUYER’S GUIDE
PHP 25K KABY LAKE STARTER PACK PC BUILD BUYER’S GUIDE
ULTIMATE YET BUDGET-FRIENDLY RYZEN 3 PC BUILD BUYER’S GUIDE
PhP55K / $1080 Editing and Gaming PC Build Buyer’s Guide
ASUS ROG ‘PAYAMAN EDITION’ COMPLETE Coffee-Lake PC Builds
PhP40K / $800 ENTRY GAMING PC BUILD BUYER’S GUIDE
PhP75K / $1500 Red Velvet Special Edition PC Build Buyer’s Guide
DISCLAIMER: This build guide isn’t sponsored by either MSI or PCHub or DynaQuest PC.
