By Bhavin Thakkar – August 2, 2019

A short while back we put together a gaming PC build guide for 1080p 60 FPS gaming at the absolute highest graphics settings for under 60K INR. While some of you found it useful, many viewers were adamant that you can build a similarly performing system for much less. In this post, I’ll be addressing those concerns. For starters, yes you can build a 1080p gaming rig for less using a lower-end CPU and GPU but you won’t be able to run many AAA titles at the ultra preset (we’re aiming for 60FPS) and will have to make compromises with regard to the visuals. However, considering the prices of computer hardware in India, we’ll try to put together a guide to build a 1080p PC gaming build for just 35,000 INR. Keep in mind, we’re aiming for 1080p-60FPS at the high graphics preset as ultra won’t be doable within these price constraints.

Best Budget Motherboard: Asus Prime H310M

Price: Rs 5,550/-

The Asus Prime H310M board incorporates a premium build quality for less than 5K and supports the 8th and 9th Gen Intel CPUs. You are limited to 32GB of DDR4 2666MHz RAM on two DIMMs, but that’ll be sufficient as Coffee Lake chips aren’t that sensitive to memory, unlike their Ryzen counterparts. It comes with one x16 PCIe 3.0 slot for a discrete graphics card and has decent I/O options with two USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, each. You’re not getting any RGB here and at this price point, it’s not surprising.

Best Budget CPU for 1080p Gaming: Intel Core i3-9100F

Price: Rs 8,749/-

The 9th Gen Intel Core i3-9100F is a quad-core chip that boosts to as much as 4.20GHz. The reason we opted for an Intel chip is: In comparison to the 1st and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen parts, the 9th Gen lineup performs notably better in games thanks to the superior IPC and higher clocks. The 3rd Gen Matisse products are comparable but they cost more than 15K for the lower-end Ryzen 5 3600 which isn’t really required.

Best Gaming Graphics Card for 1080p Gaming: AMD Radeon RX 570 (4GB)

Price: Rs 11,990/-

The Polaris based Radeon RX 570 is by far the best value-for-money graphics card if you are planning for a 1080p build and are bound by financial constraints. Yes, it won’t run every game at ultra and compromises are required, but you can comfortably yield 60 FPS using at least the high preset. At just over 10K, it’s much better the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or the GTX 1050 Ti. If you can snag a GTX 1060 for about the same price, then that’s a better deal but it’s unlikely that you’ll find one for less than 16-18K.

Best Budget DDR4 RAM: ADATA DDR4 2400 8GB RAM

Price: Rs 4,050/-

As we’re bound to 2666MHz by the motherboard, there’s little reason to look for faster RAM and ADATA’s XPG DIMMs work just fine, all the while costing only 3K INR. We recommend 8GB memory to begin with. If you fall short in the future in the future, you can buy another DIMM, but 8GB should be enough for now. Also, make sure you buy an 8GB module as 4GB ones will cripple your upgradability and you’ll have to ditch the older module in the future.

Power Supply: Gigabyte PB500

Price: Rs 3,549/-

Gigabyte’s PB500 is a suitable PSU for a sub-40K build. With a Bronze standard power-saving rating, it should provide enough juice to run all your components with relative ease. It’s better to avoid modular power supply units as they usually cost north of 4-5K and push your overall system cost higher than necessary without providing any practical benefits.

Case: Gigabyte C200 Glass

Price: Rs 3,800/-

If you are looking for a cheap system case that retains that premium feel, then the Gigabyte C200 is perhaps one of the best options. With a price tag of just 3,800 INR, you are getting three years of manufacturer warranty and a glass window for that classy look along with a snazzy design. It doesn’t get any better in this range. You can also go for the Cooler Master MasterBox MB511 but you’ll have to pay slightly more and honestly the C200 looks better in my opinion.

So, that’s about it. The total cost comes down to approximately 32-34K and you get a clean build with decent components that should be able to run most games at 1080p for the next couple of years. If you throw in a monitor and the peripherals, the total cost should come around 40-45K which again is a very reasonable price for a budget gaming PC. Some monitor and peripheral suggestions from our side are:

• You can skimp on the image quality and brightness and go for a TN panel for as low as 6K, or you can pay slightly more and opt for an IPC panel for a bit over 8,000 INR.
• When it comes to the keyboard/ mouse combo, you’ve got tons and tons of options, you can go plain and simple or if you like shiny things, snag a backlit gaming combo. I’d suggest sticking to membrane keyboards as the mechanical ones cost well over 5K and aren’t quite worth it given that your entire build budget is just over 40K:

Posted on: August 3, 2019, by : Bhavin Thakkar