How to get a gaming PC for only $200

If you're willing to learn and put in a little work, you can get a gaming PC around the power of an entry-level console for the same price.

July 7th, 2020

So you want to get into PC gaming for the same price as an Xbox One or a PS4? Despite what some of the more hardcore enthusiasts who couldn't imagine turning down their video settings from "ultra" may tell you, it's totally doable, if you understand what you're doing. That's the purpose of this article, to impart the "understanding" part on you.

So . . . where do I even start?

First, we need to understand a few things. This will take some work and you'll learn a lot, but it's fun and empowering to know more about these things, especially when it allows you to see past all the lame marketing talk that companies like to use about their machines.

1. What would we want an Xbox One or PS4 to accomplish, and why?

When most people just buy a standard Xbox One or PS4, it's to play a recent AAA game with decent graphics and performance. They don't need the absolute best technology available, otherwise they would have just picked up an Xbox One X or PS4 Pro. They don't need a ton of portability because that is what the Nintendo Switch is for. They just want to play a somewhat recent AAA game at a playable framerate without the game looking like it came straight out of 2005. Maybe they just want a cheap GTA machine, or maybe they want to play all their favorite AAA titles without too much issue. Either way, it just needs to be a reliable and consistent machine, not necessarily the best.

2. What capabilities do we expect out of our gaming computer? What are our demands as a consumer?

If our gaming PC can play a recent AAA game on even medium or low settings at 1080p at 30 FPS or more, our PC is around the performance of a console as we expect. These are the settings most console games run at. High and Ultra do look pretty, but they seem to exchange a little of performance for slightly better visuals, so a gaming PC running at these settings will still be reasonably impressive. Plus, you can adjust the settings or resolution to get 60 FPS in just about any game you would like to, if a high framerate is more your thing.

3. To meet these demands for the price, what kind of hardware do the Xbox One and PS4 pack?

If we want to beat the PS4 and Xbox One at their own game, we need to emulate their tactics. Both of these consoles seem to benefit in price from being mass-produced generic hardware from the early 2010's. They were designed around that time, and they don't use drastically newer hardware as a result, and they're produced in bulk to use economy of scale to reduce costs.

So, we need to obtain a mass-produced 2010's computer that we can use for games. The way I will go about this is by obtaining a capable desktop computer from that era and upgrading it.

Ok, so what are we looking for?

Realistically, all we really need is a computer to beat the specs of an Xbox One or PS4. Not necessarily by a lot, either. A full install of Windows 10 will have more overhead than the OS these consoles run, and the games are optimized a little better for the consoles than for normal computers, but said overhead is manageable, especially since we have a key advantage over the consoles. While the consoles represent midrange hardware from the early 2010's, we can go for high end hardware from that era, and while the consoles use an APU that combines a CPU and a GPU into one unit, we can havea separate CPU and a powerful GPU in our machine.

Hold on, a what now?

I'll probably explain this again in a different article that I'll link to in the future, but for now I'll just explain a few computer parts. It helps to know what they are and what they do.

• The CPU - Central Processing Unit. The brain of the computer, this is the part that performs all the general calculations of the computer, except the rendering of 3D scenes. There's a few ways to measure the power of one.
  • The clock speed, measured in hertz. This is how many times a second a CPU "thinks". Look for one around 2 or 3 Gigahertz.
  • Core count. Increasing clock speeds proved to be less practical up to a certain point, so manufacturers started making CPUs with multiple redundant processing units within them. These are called cores, and they're basically independent CPUs within the main one able to work simultaneously to others. You'll want at least 4 these days.
  • The age of the CPU. As time goes on, we become more efficient with our CPUs. A single CPU may be able to process more math within a single "thought" than one of yesterday. It might use a smaller die size, allowing manufacturers to cram more power into a smaller space. Maybe it'll be more efficient and use less power than before. Generally, the newer the CPU, the more efficient it is. Even despite this, aged CPUs can still hold up if they were higher quality ones of their day.
• The GPU - Graphics Processing Unit. This is a special CPU that's very specialized for 3D graphics rendering, especially complex lighting and texturing. CPUs are terrible for rendering 3D scenes fast, but great at most other things. GPUS are the opposite; a GPU would be horrible for doing your taxes with, but great for rendering the scenes of your favorite game.
  It's a bit more complex to measure the power of these with specs alone, so I would simply recommend judging them based on benchmarks instead. Pick a graphics card that you can find a good price for, and look up the benchmarks it gets in games. The Nvidia GTX 750 ti is a good place to start. It's an entry level gaming card from 2014.
  Most modern CPUs come with a GPU built in, an integrated one. It uses some of the power of the CPU for 3D rendering, and instead of having it's own dedicated "video ram", it shares some regular RAM with the rest of the computer. These are OK for daily use and lightweight games such as old or indie titles, but for anything more, you'll want a dedicated graphics card.
• RAM - Random Access Memory. Think of it as short term memory for a computer. It's fast, but it's also volatile; if it loses power, it completely zeroes out, casting all the data it has into the lovecraftian abyss where data goes to die. RAM is where computers store data needed by running programs, the OS, etc. It's where all the variables and instructions for your games go. There's a few specifications you'll want to pay attention to.
  • Capacity. Measured in bytes. You might be able to do ok on 4 GB of RAM for some games, but you'll probably want at least 8 GB for a machine like this.
  • Generation and age. "DDR" is the standard specification for the RAM of desktop computers, and has been since the early 2000's, and it's suffixed with a number to denote generation. We're currently on DDR4, and we'll probably begin moving to DDR5 within the next few years. Newer generations of RAM are faster than older ones
  • Refresh rate. Measured in hertz. DDR4 has the highest refresh rates. You'll want at least 2000 MHz. The fastest incarnation of DDR3 can reach a little above 2000 MHz, while the slowest incarnation of DDR4 does the same. If you're stuck on DDR2, maybe it's not a death sentence, but it might handicap the computer for some games.
• Storage. This is where apps and your OS and your files go when they're not open. Storage drives are way slower than RAM, but way more stable, and will hold data without an active power source, meaning that once your files are all located in the storage instead of RAM, it's safe to turn off your computer without losing data. Here's the two specs you'll care for.
  • Capacity. Measured in bytes. You'll want at least 500 GB these days for a few big AAA games, and 1 or 2 TB for more.
  • Type. Hard Disk Drives, sometimes abbreviated to hard drive or HDD, use a spinning magnetic platter to store data. It's not the fastest method, but it's cheap for high storage capacities. You can get a 2 TB hard drive for only $60 these days. It's also worth noting that for a conventional HDD, they do have a speed measured in "revolutions per minute". The most common hard disk drives spin at 7200 RPM. I think there's a few that spin at 10000 RPM, but they're not that popular since they fill an odd niche that doesn't apply to most consumers when SSDs exist (more on those in a minute). You'll also find some that spin at 5400 RPM. These are plenty slower than the 7200 RPM ones, but they're dirt cheap, so if you just want a boatload of storage space for data you don't use often, these might be the drives for you.
    Solid State Drives, abbreviated to SSD, use some super fast flash memory with quantum mechanics or something to store data. They're way, way, WAY faster than hard drives. Your games and OS will load extremely quickly when you're using an SSD to store them. However, they're a bit more expensive for large amounts of data than hard drives. But, as the technology becomes more advanced, they drop in price. I got a 480 GB SSD for my laptop for around $40 not too long ago. That's not as many gigabytes per dollar as a hard drive, but I didn't care about a huge capacity on this work laptop, but rather speed, so the size was just perfect and the speed was more appealing than the storage space.

Ok, we know what the parts are. Now what?

Now, we begin shopping. We want at least a decent midrange CPU from the early 2010's (a Core i5 or i7 will do the trick), 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, and a full sized PCIe slot for us to install a dedicated graphics card. This is the part where I hit up eBay. Craigslist is pretty good too, especially if you want to see the PC in person before paying for it and you want to shell out cold hard cash instead of paying electronically. Usually what I do at this part is I go to eBay's advanced search, type "Desktop computer i5" in the "include" search box, type "SFF Small Form Factor" in the "exclude" search box (more on this later), set the price range between 0 and 100 dollars, and I hit enter. Then I browse the listings until I find one with everything I might need; a Core i5, 8 GB of RAM, and preferably some storage already present. Here's what I found up to this point. It's a decent machine for the price. I guess you can get a better machine for the same price if you're OK with a small form factor, but the issue with that is the graphics card. We need to find a "low-profile" graphics card if we want to use a small form factor machine, which can cost a little extra and be a little harder to find compared to the normal version.
So, we buy this machine, it comes in, and we can boot it up and install Windows and even install and attempt to play our games. However, because we lack a dedicated graphics card to play them, they'll run fairly poorly. In order to run our games like an Xbox One or a PS4, we need a dedicated graphics card. So, we'll hit up eBay or Craigslist again, this time in search of a $100 used graphics card. You'll want one that doesn't require an extra power cable or more than 75 watts of power or so, especially if we're just upgrading a standard office PC, and if you did pick a Small Form Factor machine, you'll need to look for a low-profile model, which may only be available brand new from NewEgg or Amazon or whatever. The best candidates are the Nvidia GTX 750 ti, Nvidia GTX 1050 ti, and the AMD RX 560 (note: this one doesn't have a low profile option available).
Here's a graphics card I found that should work well.

Anything else?

If your computer doesn't come with sufficient storage or RAM, you should buy your own. Look up a manual of your model of computer to figure out what RAM it takes, and purchase that so that you're sure to purchase the right kind of RAM. Storage is a little more universal, you can just buy an SSD that has a SATA port.

Getting it and putting it all together

Installing the graphics card in the computer is easy, you just stick it in the PCIe slot and screw it in with a screw that should come with the graphics card.
Installation of RAM is easy. You just press it into the RAM slot until it clicks into place. Line up the groove in the RAM with the plastic bit sticking up, and don't be too timid if it really takes some muscle to get in there. It's gotta click.
Installation of storage is easy. There should be a drive receptacle to store drives in, and a SATA cable coming from somewhere in the computer. Just plug that and the power cable (if necessary) into your drive and you're good to go.
Ultimately, this video explains the ins and outs of it better than I can.

So install your parts, install your choice of OS, install drivers for your GPU from the website for your GPU brand, install your favorite games, and game away!

I hope you enjoyed reading this article! Stay tuned for my article in the future on why I prefer PC gaming to consoles, and why I think the effort of a gaming PC is worth it!