With GPU prices plummeting back to where they should have been all along, the options for gaming PC builds are finally looking good again Howdy howdy guys ponchato here, and welcome to Monthly Builds for July of 2018

In these videos I show you the parts I’d use for building gaming PCs at $500, $750, and $1000 budgets To keep up with new prices and components, I put up a new video every month so be sure to subscribe to stay up to date Before we get to the builds, let’s look at some PC industry news Based on some circumstantial evidence, it seems likely that Nvidia’s next generation of graphics cards, the 1100 series, will launch sometime in the 3rd quarter of 2018 The latest info pointing to a Q3 release comes from a company called Power Logic which supplies fans for a number of AIB manufacturers (like EVGA and MSI)

They recently said they expect “Q3 orders to be through the roof”, which indicates, of course significantly increased demand and production for a product that requires their fans Namely, graphics cards Of course nothing is set in stone yet, Nvidia hasn’t revealed a launch date, and plans can change at any time, but on the surface it does look like the next generation of mainstream GPUs will be launching very soon Still on the topic of graphics cards, according to DigiTimes the entire graphics card industry is preparing for a slump in graphics card demand in the second half of 2018 This is due, almost entirely, to the drop in value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from 2017

Some companies were reporting margins as high as 50%, something almost unheard of before crypto mining became a driving force In my opinion the only thing still keeping graphics card prices above MSRP now is the manufacturer and distributor’s reluctance to give up those insane margins We’ll see what happens as time goes on, but we can reasonably expect prices to return to MSRP or below within the next few months Finally, for some gaming-specific news, 343 Industries announced that Halo Infinite will be coming to Windows 10 This will mark the first time that a core Halo game will be launched on both Xbox and Windows PCs, a trend that I really hope continues

Halo Infinite will be built on the new Slipspace Engine, which will be the second engine ever used in the Halo series, and should allow for some pretty dramatic graphical improvements No launch date is set but most people in the industry are expecting a release sometime toward the end of 2019, at the earliest The waiting game begins And as a final note for gaming news, in an astoundingly rare case of making a smart decision, PUBG Corp, the developers of PUBG dropped their lawsuit against Epic, the creators of Fortnite It started as a nebulous copyright infringement case which, I’m sure, ended when their lawyers finally said “look guys this case is stupid, you are stupid, we’re gonna lose, and your game sucks”

I don’t know if that’s exactly what happened, but I mean, that sounds like the most probable series of events Also PUBG’s player count has been dropping by like 10% every month since the beginning of 2018 Funny how that happens Funny how that happens With the news covered, let’s get to the builds

First up, the $500 build For the CPU I went with AMD’s Ryzen 3 2200G for $96 It’s AMD’s most entry level of the Ryzen 2000 series and comes with 4 cores and 4 threads, up to a 37GHz boost clock, and is unlocked which means you can overclock it out of the box Paired with that, for the GPU I chose an Nvidia GTX 1050 for $130

In my opinion the 1050 is still one of the best budget GPUs out there, and perfect for entry level 1080p gaming It’ll run any game you throw at it, albeit at lower settings, and because it doesn’t require an extra PCIe power connector it’ll produce very little heat and noise while gaming For the motherboard I went with MSI’s B350M PRO-VDH for $71 This board has enough features to cover 99% of all users now and after upgrading; 4 RAM slots, an M2 slot for an SSD, and because it has the B350 chipset it will allow you to overclock your processor and memory

For the memory I went with the Ballistix Sport LT 2x4GB kit for $89 This kit runs at 2400MHz which is just under the Ryzen 3 2200G’s rated speed of 2666 – that means slightly lower performance, but memory speed is far less important than GPU or CPU speed when it comes to gaming (or anything else, for that matter) Storage is left to a Western Digital Blue 1TB hard drive for $44 Despite the massive drop in prices of the flash memory used in SSDs, they’re still just a little too expensive to squeeze into the $500 build Power will come from EVGA’s 450 BT for $30

On its own, not much to write home about, but at this price it’s a steal; 80 Plus Bronze efficiency, a 120mm fan, full circuit protections, and a 3 year warranty Finally for the case I picked Xion’s XON-310_BK for $37 Despite being a very budget case, it has a very good cooling feature: the front 120mm fan actually has a mesh intake That will allow for significantly more airflow and, as a result, better overclocking on the 2200G and less noise overall, since the fans inside the case won’t need to work as hard Altogether these parts come out to $497

For an entry level gaming computer, this a great starting point, and a great way to learn how to build a PC Click the links in the description to pick up these components for yourself Now if your budget allows for it, I’d definitely recommend looking at the next build At $750 it’s right at the price to performance sweet spot and it’ll give you just about the best bang for your buck you can get today For the CPU I went with AMD’s Ryzen 5 2400G for $156

This is the big brother to the 2200G and comes with several upgrades, but the most important are the higher base frequency (36GHz vs 35) and the addition of multithreading, which gives this 8 threads over the 2200G’s 4 As with all Ryzen processors, it’s also unlocked to allow for overclocking Paired with that for the GPU I picked Nvidia’s GTX 1060 6GB for $280

The dramatic drop in GPU prices over the last few months is finally making room for the 6 gig model in the $750 build The 1060 6 gig is more than powerful enough to max out pretty much any game at 1080p, runs well at 1440p, and will even run games at lower settings at 4K Being a higher power card it does require a PCIe power connector, but because this architecture is so efficient, you get great performance per watt The motherboard will come from MSI, their B350M PRO-VDH for $71 This is the motherboard I picked for the $500 build and spoiler alert, is also the one I chose for the $1000 build, because it has everything that the vast majority of users will ever need; 4 RAM slots, an M

2 slot, and overclocking support for the CPU and memory Speaking of memory, I again went with the Ballistix Sport LT 2x4GB kit for $89 It’s a 2400MHz kit and with a bit of overclocking, could be brought up to 2666 or maybe 2900MHz if you hit the silicon lottery For the SSD I picked ADATA’s SU800 for $38 Thanks to dramatic drops in NAND memory pricing over the last few months, you can now get a 128GB M

2 SSD like this for under $40, whereas before they were typically $60 or more By putting your Windows install on this drive, you’ll get to enjoy massively decreased boot times and a much more responsive system overall For bulk storage I went with Western Digital’s Blue 1TB drive for $44 Hard drive prices have pretty much bottomed out, but the good news is that 1TB is enough for the vast majority of people’s needs and it’s extremely inexpensive compared to getting the same amount of storage in an SSD, even with the drop in prices For power I picked Corsair’s VS450 for $35

Corsair has a great reputation in the budget power supply market with a record of high reliability and low noise This model is 80 Plus rated and, like most power supplies in this price range, comes with a 3 year warranty In addition, the cables are all sleeved in black, so you don’t have to deal with ugly ketchup and mustard cables messing up the look of your case interior Last but not least, for the case I chose Thermaltake’s Versa H17 for $37 The H17 is feature-rich for being so inexpensive; the outside has a brushed aluminum finish, it comes with a power supply shroud to hide the hard drive cage and extra cables, and it’s a bit wider than a standard microATX case which allows for easier cable management behind the motherboard tray

With everything together this build comes out to $750 on the dot If you’re deciding between the $500 build and the $750 build, I’d definitely recommend going with this one It’ll give you substantially better performance out of the box and it’s a better foundation for future upgrades Click the links in the description to pick up these parts for yourself Finally, for those of you with a sizable budget for your next PC, here are my picks for the $1000 build

For the CPU I went with AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600 for $185 This is, I’d argue, one of the best midrange CPUs to be released in recent memory It has 6 cores and 12 threads, boosts up to 39GHz, and has a massive 19MB of combined cache Like other Ryzen processors, it allows for overclocking which can net you pretty substantial performance gains

For the graphics card I went with Nvidia’s GTX 1070 for $430 Finally, after many months of it simply being way too much to include, the 1070 returns to the $1000 build It has 8GB of memory and a substantially faster GPU than the 1060 6 gig: nearly 40% faster on average That means it’ll max out any game at 1080p, run most games at high or max settings at 1440p, and run games very respectable settings at 4K I have a feeling 1070s are strong enough that they’ll be common even several years from now, well after 2018

For the motherboard, as promised, I picked the MSI B350M PRO-VDH for $71 More expensive motherboards, particularly those with the X370 or X470 chipsets, will have better heat sinks on the VRM and finer control in overclocking and voltage, but until you’re working with a $1500 budget or higher, I think the extra money spent on those motherboards is better spent elsewhere, like the GPU in this case For memory I went with Corsair’s 3000MHz 2x4GB kit for $101 Ryzen processors and motherboards still struggle with memory speeds above 3000MHz, and prices start to increase exponentially above that speed, so I wouldn’t recommend getting anything faster than this in most cases For the SSD I went with ADATA’s SU800 for $38

At 128GB it’s big enough to fit a Windows 10 install plus a handful of programs and games, and $40 is well worth the snappier system responsiveness that comes with having Windows on an SSD For bulk storage I picked Western Digital’s Blue 1TB drive for $44, though at this budget it might be worth it to opt for the 2TB version for about $15 more Power will come from Seasonic’s Focus Plus 550 for $71 I’m a big fan of the Focus series of power supplies from Seasonic, and in my testing of the Focus Plus it performed extremely well in noise and efficiency It’s rated for 80 Plus Gold, comes with a super quiet 120mm fan with the option to run completely fanless under low load, is fully modular, and it comes with a huge 10 year warranty

Finally for the case I picked Corsair’s Carbide 200R for $60 This is a mid-tower case that supports up to ATX motherboards, which means it offers plenty of room for cable management and airflow It comes with two 120mm fans, one in the front and one in the back, and offers tool-free SSD, hard drive, and optical drive installation Plus, I think the understated styling will stay fashionable for quite a long time Altogether these parts come out to exactly $1000

This build will provide incredible performance now and for quite some time into the future It will also easily support more or faster components like an extra 8GB of memory or stronger GPU whenever you decide to upgrade Click the links in the description to pick up these parts for yourself So that’s it for the July 2018 edition of Monthly Builds If you’re building a PC for the first time, welcome to the community and be sure to check out my build videos to see how it’s done

If you’re a veteran and just needed to catch up, I hope these recommendations helped you If you want to get notified of new videos as soon as they’re up, hit subscribe then click the bell icon to enable notifications So guys if you liked this video hit the like button, if you want to see more hit subscribe, and if you have any questions on these builds, leave them in the comments below Thanks for watching, I hope I helped, and I’ll see you in the next video