I built a solid 1440p gaming PC last July in a pretty thrifty way, buying new when it made sense and scouting FB marketplace for deals on good condition used or open box components and peripherals. I thought I did well for myself back then, but since we are in the midst of RAMageddon, I decided to take a look back and appreciate what I built some more, and I wanted to share!
To begin let's take a look at what I bought, if it was used or new, and what I paid.
🍁ALL PRICES ARE IN CAD🍁
The PC itself:
🧠 CPU – I7-12700KF $270 NEW
💪 GPU – Asrock Radeon RX6800XT 16GB VRAM $450 USED
📋 RAM – Corsair Vengeance DDR4 32GB 3600MHz $80 NEW
📥 SSD – TeamForce G70 Pro 2TB w/ DRAM $185 NEW
🧊 Cooler – Thermalright Peerless Assassin SE Black $55 NEW
⚙️ Motherboard – Gigabyte B760m DS3H DDR4 $100 USED
⚡️ PSU – Corsair RM850x $100 OPEN BOX
💼 Case – Corsair FRAME 4000D RS ARGB $160 NEW
🧪 MAIN COMPONET COST 💲1400
👾 PERIPHERALS
🖥 Monitor – Acer Nitro XV271U 1440p 240hz $250 OPEN BOX
⌨️ Keyboard – Corsair STRAFE Mechanical Keyboard $40 USED
🖱 Mouse – Logitech G305 $50 NEW
🎮 Controller XBOX Fusion Pro 3 $35 OPEN BOX
🎧 Steelseries Arctis 5 RGB $50 USED
🔊 Speakers – KRK VXT 6 $100 USED
🎛 Audio Interface – M-Audio M Track Duo $95 NEW
🛸 TOTAL PERIPHERALS COST 💲620
📋 EXTRAS
📶 Wi-Fi Adapter – TP Link archer t3u plus $20 NEW
❄️ Case fans – Thermalright TL-S12 RGB x3 $20 NEW
🌬 Fan Hub – Cooler Master ARGB & PWM hub $30 NEW
🎶 Isolation Pads – Anpro Studio Monitor Acoustic Isolation Pads $20 NEW
🔌 Surge Protector – Belkin 12 outlet Surge Protector $40 NEW
🪑 Gaming Chair – DPS Gaming 3D Insight $50 USED
🗄 Desk – IKEA Utespelare $70 USED
EXTRAS TOTAL 💲250
💥GRAND TOTAL💥
💲2270 for everything from a high refresh rate 1440p monitor, 16GB VRAM GPU, Studio quality sound all the way down to the chair I sit my butt on while I use it.
The best part, and the part that makes it a budget build, is that I sold my PS5, OG Nintendo Switch along with the extra controllers and games I had for a combined total of $1330, my old damaged phone for $100 and a chunk of my vinyl collection that I no longer listened to for $1000 (26 records, for an average of $38 per record). So with those sales I made $2430, more than covering the cost of my PC and everything else to go with it!!
Love my setup, but I loved the journey of putting it all together and gathering the parts just as much!