A mid-end PC system keeps many types of enthusiasts and PC users happy. Beyond gaming, this gives an edge to those who either play/stream games or require for video editing, rendering and content creation. While the Rs. 60,000/- IN build inherits few components from the earlier recommended build guide, the processing system and its native features are significantly higher. Unfortunately, AMD Ryzen is not out. While its wise to say that with such budget its best to wait, the waiting game is not everybody’s cup of tea. For some, its leisure. For some, its for work. So I am merely suggesting what you could get within or around this budget.
While I used Amazon India prices as a reference for this guide, there’s a good chance you may get it locally for a cheaper pricing.
Core System Build for Rs. 60,000/- to Rs. 70,000/- IN
Processor: Intel Core i5 6500/ CPU
Mid end desktop processors take a lot of time to become obsolete and hence it really doesn’t make sense to jump in the kaby lake plans. But the Intel i5 7600 is actually cheaper than the previous generation Intel i5 6500. While in gaming it shouldn’t be any significant difference, I am sure the Core i5 7600 will have a better advantage than the Core i5 6500.
Motherboard: MSI B150M MORTAR/ Asus B150M Plus/ GIGABYTE GA-B150M-D3H
Three motherboards are often picked by system assemblers for this budget, but with Gigabyte B150M-D3H being the most common. The main physical difference is that the B150M MORTAR from MSI provides M.2 capacity for the short 40mm drives. If at some point you would like to buy a good M.2 drive, you’ll be stuck somewhere due to the space restriction. Another main benefit is that the D3H provides eight SATA III that shares bandwidth with M.2, while Asus B150M Plus simply provides six. On the other hand, B150M has a type-C port towards the rear I/O. The choice depends on your need.
Why not H270? Because of the pricing. The B150 series motherboards that’s shortlisted have an M.2, USB 3.0 and in one case a Type-C port.
Storage: Kingston UV400 120GB/ WD Blue Desktop 1TB IWD10EZEX HDD
Storage and RAM recommendations are also made in the low-cost builds. This is simply because the primary objective to spend more money should be on the processing part of the system.
For storage, I’ll recommend two options. The Kingston UV400 SSD and the WD Blue mechanical HDD. As an end user, you will love to have quicker load speeds. An SSD gives you that advantage. Since you are getting a cheap solution, why not grab it? If you need larger storage space, just like a memory kit you can buy one later. If you can spend a bit more to get more storage, SanDisk Ultra II 240GB is also a good choice.
Not everybody’s requirement is the same. Hence I’ve included WD Blue series drive that provides a much larger storage space but with the natural con of mechanical drives. Kingston UV400 is already reviewed here.
RAM- Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR4 RAM
I have the 16GB and 32gig variant of the Kingston Savage DDR4 rams. With the older systems, I’ve used various HyperX Blue DDR3 sets. While you do get from other brands, typically prefer to recommend some things that they’ve used over the years. The Savage sub-brand is savagely priced for this low-cost build and the motherboard does not support anything more than 2133MHz. Hence, the Fury 8gig 2133MHz kit.
These kits are low-profile and nicely made. There’s really nothing to say except you have a choice of either two of these to use 16gigs or just stick with an 8gig for the moment. Do keep in mind that the pre-selected motherboard provides two DDR4 DIMM slots.
Graphics Card: Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1050 Ti/ZOTAC GTX 1050 Ti OC
With graphic cards, it’s a little challenging to recommend.
At the time with RX 480 was new, it was a lagging a bit behind the GTX 1060. Moreover, the Indian distributors screwed up the pricing to a point where AMD Vice President had to call out their bullshit. During this time, AMD was working on its driver. As of now, RX 480 has an advantage, but a lot of people prefer the Nvidia cards for video editing as well. For those who are using Adobe Premiere Pro, the Mercury Playback Engine uses CUDA cores. Had the engine been using OpenCL, things would be a bit different.
I am adding Gigabyte RX 480 G1 as a link purely because Amazon India has a strange issue to generate a product widget for the same.
Choose wisely!
- Gigabyte RX 480 G1 Gaming 8G Graphic Card Review (OLD Drivers)
- Zotac GTX 1060 AMP! Edition Graphic Card Review
- MSI GTX 1060 GAMING X 6G Graphic Card Review
Power Supply: Antec Basiq VP 550P Power Supply
The Antec VP550P has been around for a while, but its still a good and reliable power supply. Its low priced, has an active PFC, good ripple and noise suppression and good reliability. If for some strange you plan to buy this system but not use a graphic card at all, switch to VP450P. The reason being that this power supply is not efficient at low power consumption. Besides, it wouldn’t make sense to spend more when the system won’t have a component that consumes a lot of power compared to other parts.
The alternate option that you can look out for is the new Coolermaster watt lite series. Unfortunately, this is a brand new series that’s just released and there are no reviews available for this unit.
PC Case: Antec VSK-4000B-U3 PC Case
The only reason why I chose this over the Spec-01 is because this is with 2x USB 3.0 while the other was a single USB 2.0 and a single USB 3.0. I would have liked to see cases with 2x USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 as a norm, but alas this is the situation.
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