What is the Best Budget Gaming PC build in 2024?

Graphics Card

This is the most important component you need to play games on your PC. This important piece of hardware is what draws the game graphics on your screen, and all the accompanying eye candy.

Graphics cards come in various sizes and specifications. Just like the processor, there are two major brands: NVidia and AMD. Both brands offer a variety of cards for budget, mid-range, and extreme gaming. Here are some factors to consider.

Factor to consider when buying a budget GPU

• Form Factor: Make sure the card you’re buying can fit into your PC case and GPU socket. Graphics cards come in various sizes. It doesn’t make sense to buy a huge card and try to fit it in a micro-ATX case. It just won’t fit. Some cards are up to 10 inches in length.
• RAM Size: Graphics cards have dedicated memory banks that graphics-intensive apps can access directly without recourse to the system RAM. This memory is highly optimized for speed. There are different generations of Graphics memory such as DDR2, DDR3, GDDR5, and recently HBM memory. When buying graphics cards, understand that the size of the RAM is not a major consideration for performance. RAM size of 2GB is more than enough for most games in the market.
• Supported Resolution: You must seriously consider this factor before buying graphics cards. Check the specifications to ensure the native resolution of the card is supported by your monitor. This is not a serious consideration because most modern display monitors support very high resolutions unless you want to use multiple displays.
• Memory Bandwidth: This is the maximum bandwidth your GPU memory supports. This is a serious performance factor; as high bandwidths allow the GPU to run demanding applications such as ultra-high settings in games without lag. This is one of the figures you should watch out for. At least a bandwidth of 128 bits is enough for most games at normal settings. When it comes to bandwidth, the higher the figure, the better performance you can extract from the card. Go for cards with the maximum bandwidth you can afford.

We’ve assembled the best budget graphics cards under $100 dollars you should be checking out.

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CPU Cooler

Well, that is just what this does. It is responsible for cooling the CPU, which can get hot with usage. There are air coolers and liquid coolers. The former relies on fans while the latter makes use of enclosed liquid, mainly water, to cool the CPU. Please note that some processors have air coolers bundled with them, in which case you don’t need to purchase another cooler.

Our processor of choice for this guide, the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 Desktop Processor is bundled with a stock cooler – we won’t be needing a separate cooler because we want to limit costs to build a budget gaming PC.  

Power Supply

This piece of hardware is responsible for supplying power to the PC. Power supplies come in various power ratings, such as 500W, 600W, 750W, etc. These days there are modular power supplies that are better designed with respect to cable management than non-modular power supplies.  

Boot Drive

You need a high-speed drive for your PC operating system, and an SSD is the best choice. A fast 128GB SSD should do just fine. SSD drives are solid-state memory drives that are electronic, unlike traditional hard drives which are mechanical.

Because of this, they are much faster and more responsive than mechanical hard drives. The only downside is that SSDs are more expensive compared to traditional hard drives.

Storage Drive

This is where you store your files and other utilities such as software installations. These classes of storage are much slower than SSDs but are much cheaper per gigabyte. Popular brands include Seagate and Western Digital among others.  

Motherboard

This is another important piece of hardware as it is responsible for holding all the PC components together and connecting them to work together. You should bear in mind that your motherboard must support the RAM type and CPU you intend to use.

Motherboard CPU sockets are classified according to the number of contact points on the CPU, that’s why you have LGA 1155, 1150, 2011, 2011v2, etc.  

RAM

The RAM or Random Access Memory is a fast volatile memory for storing your operating system and applications while the PC is powered on. This memory is more expensive than storage memory and comes in standard sizes of multiples of 2, ie, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, etc. Variants of RAM include DDR2, DDR3, and DDR4 (the most recent).  

Casing

This is the housing of your PC. Various models and form factors are available. Some even have colorful lighting installed for aesthetics. One thing to consider before picking a case is the size of the motherboard you want to fit into the case.  

Keyboard and Mouse

These two peripherals enable you to control the PC. You can choose from a variety of keyboards, both wired and wireless. Some keyboards are backlit, with different colors assigned to common keys used during gaming. There are higher resolution mice available, with some having as many as 6 programmable buttons for better game controls.  

Display

Your monitor plays an important role in your gaming setup. Typically, a 1080p LED IPS gaming monitor will suffice for most gamers, but if you want the best performance, you should go for a 1440p 125Hz monitor. This is the sweet spot for gamers today.

MONITOR RESOLUTION

Monitor resolution is simply the number of pixels your monitor can display at any time, as received from the graphics card. It is measured in pixels or px. Most budget gaming monitors are 1080p monitors. But when you get to the high-end stuff, you begin to see up to 4K monitors.
When buying a gaming monitor, the higher the resolution, the better the images appear. Here’s a table showing the different resolutions available for gaming monitors.