Seeing a few posts asking what people should get in terms of gaming PCs. I'll talk about what people could get for a budget of 300$ CAD (in Canada).
To order my thoughts I will write component by component, but keep in mind that all components are part of a system and affect each other.
context: It's absolute garbage to build PCs right now, and it will keep on getting worse for the upcoming few years at least. There are shortages of many components that are part of graphics cards, storage, ram, to name a few.
One of the worse aspects of the situation re: AI, is that corporations have basically stopped offering affordable options. GPUs used to be relatively more affordable, then would head onto the used market, lose a few % of value per year, and eventually become affordable. Nowadays, everything that comes out basically costs the price of an entire computer. Anyhow, that being said, what remains available?
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Starting point : DDR3 ram, 16 gig.
RAM generation(3-4-5) is about the speed in MHz, or megatransfers(MT/s, same thing). DDR3 ram goes up to 1600 mhz, DDR4 3200, DDR5 around 8000.
Gigs is about capacity. If you don't have enough capacity, the whole computer slows down and stutters. The computer seems to do one, or the other, but can't do both at the same time.
As technology evolves, it becomes more bloated. Windows 11, standard version, is really wasteful. You'll be using more than 5 gigs in iddle, 8 the minute you have a few tabs open in your web browser. 16 is the new minimum.
DDR3-1600 MHz, 16 gig(2x8 or 4x4) can be found for as little as 5$, but with current pricing trends you may have to pay 30$.
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Storage : HDD is too slow, NVME is too expensive, get SSD.
This is about the loading speed of games and their various components. Certain games won't start at all if you're running an old HDD, but really the issue is that HDDs are about as expensive as SSDs.
So get a SSD, which is still fast enough to play anything, and give you a decent computer experience otherwise. HDDs are still better for total capacity, but they aren't good enough for everyday computing anymore.
Pure budget leads to a 256g SSD, and honestly you can make it work with 256. At worse, play one or two games at a time, delete them when you want to play something else and re-download when you want to go back.
I would still encourage to look for 500g. SSDs should never be near full, and if you use your computer for work, picture and video storage, gaming, etc., you will fill up that 256 eventually.
Try to get life % above 60%, as you will find way better prices the lower that % is. Unless you read and write massive amounts of data, that 60% will last you years and years.
256g = around 40$
500g = around 70$, and climbing. I wouldn't pay more than 80$ for a 500g SSD.
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CPU and motherboard: go ham.
DDR3 era CPUs can be found in the bargain bin. Find the best CPU the motherboard can handle, and try to either find a bundle with it, or resell the one you find, and find the best one.
The I7-4790k is the best one, the i5-3570 is also good.
New hardware can't even run the newest games at high settings, you won't be able to with these CPUs, but, you'll play almost anything else(unless the game requires things like Ray Tracing, or something).
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Graphics card : 1060, RX 580, stay with the know unknowns.
These care still budget kings, and will get you by at a decent price. If you can find better, go for it, but as a starting point, cheap option, go around these models and generation.
They key consideration here is bottleneck. If you get a GPU that is too good, you'll waste your money on hardware that won't be able to work at full capacity, because the CPU won't feed it information fast enough. Get one that is too slow, and the opposite is happening, on the side of the CPU.
That second scenario is more rare because CPUs tend to last longer than GPUs. Hence, GPUs tend to be more recent, and better, and get bottlenecked instead of the other way around.
Another consideration is VRAM, but my opinion is that for 1080p gaming, it is not the end of the world if you get 6g. Anything undre 6g though, and it can be problematic. There is a balance between computing power(Hz of speed) and VRAM availability. You'd rather get a 1660s 6g than a rx 580 8g, for instance.
1060 = 60-70$, wouldn't pay more than 80.
RX 580 = same price, can be found for 50, and maybe less.
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Power supply, fans, CPU cooler, case : you get what you get. Try to find something that is at least clean. What you want is functionnal, something that was taken care of by the seller, something clean.
Things that are caked under 10inch of dust and cigarette oil should probably be avoided.
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What to look for:
Complete builds with more or less what you need. 16g DDR3, a 1060, a 256 or 500g SSD computer is pretty common to find. You can try to wait for a decent price.
Get most of what you want, and upgrade as time goes by. Like I said DDR3 ram is relatively cheap, so is a CPU upgrade of that era.
Bonus : - A non stock CPU cooler goes a long way to keep everything cool and quiet, if you see a standing cooler, someone cared enough to buy it and instal it.
- Get a debloated version of Win 11, through Rufus. Activate it with Windows activation script. It's all free, you just have to watch Youtube tutorials.
- Ask questions and test. What are the temps under load? When's the last time it was used and to do what? You'll want to find out how hot the GPU and CPU got, and if they were performing normally. You'll also want to know if the PSU can handle the computer running at max load for extended periods of time.
If everything is cool, stable, and runs for 30 min straight without anything going wrong, you probably have a nice machine ahead of you.
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Testing software once you buy your machine :
Temps : HWinfo(sensors) + Prime95 for CPU/RAM testing, Furmark for GPU testing. Run Prime 95 and Furmark at the same time to find out if your PSU can handle it. Let it run for 15 min, or more, for a thorough stress test.
Diskgenius for SMART information on your storage(how healthy it is)
Before buying, test to see that all USB and all other plugs are still working, to know if the motherboard has issues.
Listen to the computer. Weird noises coming from the power supply can indicate a unit that is ending it's useful life.
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Anyhow, hope this helps !