This budget beast is a powerhouse and will beat consoles when it comes to AAA games for right around $400. It’s packing a lot of power for a small price and also gives you lots of room for future upgrades!

In this budget build you get an AMD R3 2200G, a 4GB RX 570, 8GB of RAM, and 480GB of SSD storage. There’s a ton of room for expansion in almost every way. You could add more storage, more RAM, a better CPU, stronger GPU. I think you get the picture.

Games like DOTA2 or CS:GO and any other popular esports or indie game will run great on this build. When it comes to graphically intensive and AAA games this build won’t do max settings but it will put out good performance on low-mid settings – comparable to the Xbox One and PS4 consoles (not necessarily the One X or PS4 Pro).

Have a question? Ask me in the comment section or look at our PC build FAQ.

Complete Build Breakdown

This $500 gaming PC build is going to get you into modern games and playing them on mid-high settings pushing 60fps or better in 1080p. Some games are still going to give this build some issues at the highest settings, but it’s still going to outperform (or at least keep up with) next-gen consoles like the Xbox One and PS4!

This build will run games like Apex Legends, PUBG, Fallout 4, GTA:V and pretty much anything else on mid settings or better while getting great performance! Less graphically intensive games like CS:GO, DOTA, LoL, or anything along those lines, will easily run at 60-100fps+.

Case: Holding everything together is the Thermaltake Versa H18 micro-ATX case. It gives you lots of options for expansion in terms of added storage, or a more intensive cooling profile.

The H18 comes with a total of 3x front USB ports as well as 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks. It’s also boasting a tempered glass side panel and a full PSU shroud. The compromise being it only comes with 1x 120mm fan – 1 is pretty much good enough for this build, but you might want to add 1 more.

CPU & Cooler: AMD’s 3rd generation Ryzen 3 3200G is a powerhouse when it comes to sheer performance for the price you’re paying. It’s a 4GHz quad-core beast and one of the few AMD processors to include an iGPU. It’s capable of keeping up with all 1080p-grade graphics cards and is quite comparable to Intel’s i3 lineup.

The R3 3200G comes with a pretty good Wraith Stealth CPU cooler from AMD, but if you’re going to be overclocking it would be wise to upgrade. If that’s you, check out the best CPU coolers!

Motherboard: The default motherboard, ASRock’s B450M Pro4, is an awesome mATX option for a Ryzen-based build. It gives you support for all of the features we need with room to expand down the line, including 4x SATA3 ports, multiple case fan headers, 8x USB ports, 4 slots for DDR4 RAM, integrated audio, a built-in ethernet controller, and even M.2 NVMe SSD support. 

If you’re going to be running Windows 11, it will be compatible with this motherboard as it’s loaded with a TPM module as all modern motherboards are. 

Graphics Card: The 4GB RX 570 is a great 1080p-grade graphics card. It’s definitely on the lower-end, but can readily deliver above console performance. PowerColor’s RX 570 Red Dragon is no exception and offers one of the best price vs performance ratios on the market today. It gives you great cooling options, a good ability for overclocking and a low-profile low-noise design. 

RAM: 8GB of RAM is the perfect amount for a gaming PC at this level. With that in mind, this build is running 2x4GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance LPX at 3000MHz. This leaves you with lots of room for future expansion and if you wanted to run more than 8GB that’s completely possible – when you do upgrade try to stick to the same speed as your RAM will automatically change its speed to match your slowest stick.

Power Supply: EVGA’s 500 BR power supply is a good, reliable, power supply. It’s rated to 80+ bronze and comes with a 3-year warranty + 24/7 technical support from EVGA. As the 500 BR is a non-modular unit, all cables are permanently attached. If you’d prefer a semi-modular supply, I’d suggest checking out the 500 BQ instead – it’s a little more expensive but objectively much better.

Storage: When it comes to storage, there’s a Kingston A400 480GB SSD in this build by default. Beyond that, you can easily add up to 3 more drives based on what the motherboard will support. All you’ll need are extra SATA data cables and the additional drives themselves.

Peripherals

Operating System 

WiFi

If you plan on using a WiFi connection, then you’re also going to need some kind of WiFi adapter as very few motherboards come with it built-in. 

You have a couple of options, either a USB-based WiFi adapter, or one that mounts internally, but you only need one. USB is more convenient and much cheaper in most cases, but they’re often less reliable than an internally mounted unit.

Conclusion

If you came here looking to build yourself a kickass and cheap gaming PC for $400, I hope you found what you were looking for. The power this build puts out is nothing to scoff at, and it’s definitely going to outperform your PS4 or Xbone.

This is definitely a console competitor and it’s going to give you quite a bit of power in a nice space-saving package. I set it up so you can easily upgrade components as they go on sale or get cheap – better yet would be to wait until you have the $ saved for a slightly higher priced build.

All-in-all, you will be hard pressed to build a better gaming PC build for around $400. It’s cheap, it’s compact, and it’s relatively powerful.

If you have any questions or comments about this build, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments!