Budget Intel gaming PC guide: Best parts for a cheap Intel build

It can be difficult to build a new gaming PC with a good amount of performance if you're on a tight budget. You usually have to make feature compromises to afford all the necessary components. But you don't have to sacrifice everything. We've done the math, though, and we've come up with all the parts you need for an Intel gaming PC that will cost you around $700 and can run games at up to 1440p and 60FPS.

Although we're talking about brand-new hardware in this guide, we should point out that used parts can be a good idea if your budget is under $700. Used components tend to have better value than new ones, and that's especially true for the CPU, which isn't strictly important for gaming performance if your desired framerate is low enough. We're not going to discuss used hardware in this article, but you should probably look into it if you want to maximize your value.

These are the best parts for a budget Intel PC build

For the brains of our PC, we’re going with Core i5-12400F. While Intel’s lineup of 14th-generation processors is out on the market, we're going with a 12th-generation option because the 13th-generation Core i5-13400F performs only slightly better than its predecessor and costs much more. And the 14th-gen Core i5-14600K is out of the question as it’s a newer chip with integrated graphics and overclocking capabilities, so it’s far pricier.

The Core i5-12400F doesn’t have integrated graphics and is slower than the Core i5-13400F, but for the $150 price tag, it provides excellent value for money. It’s a 6-core processor with 12 threads, and a base clock of 2.5GHz, which goes up to 4.4GHz under load. That'll be enough for most games, especially if you don't mind lowering settings so you won’t suffer from much bottlenecking. And because it’s a midrange processor, you can use it for light productivity tasks like video editing and basic 3D rendering.

A 13th-gen Core i3-13100F is also a good option if you want to cut back further on your budget. It performs significantly worse than the i5-12400F, has only four cores and eight threads, and might cause a bottleneck in some situations, but if you don’t plan on doing heavy gaming or need to hit 144Hz refresh rate, then the i3 should suffice. Intel’s 12th, 13th, and 14th generations use the LGA 1700 CPU socket, so with the ASRock B660m motherboard we've included in this build, your upgrade path is open until the 14th generation.

To make up for using an older CPU, we’re going with the latest from Team Green, an RTX 4060 with 8GB VRAM. This is one of the best budget GPUs and is more than capable of 1080p 60FPS gaming with nearly every setting maxed out on most games. With slight tweaks to graphic settings, you can hit 60FPS at even 1440p on this GPU. Sure, you won’t be running Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing on, but thanks to DLSS 3, you can still achieve decent framerates.

Nvidia’s 40-series GPUs are built on a 5nm process using the Ada Lovelace architecture. It has all the bells and whistles of previous-gen Nvidia GPUs, including ray-tracing capabilities and DLSS, Nvidia’s AI upscaling solution that works like a charm. With the 40-series cards, Nvidia introduced DLSS 3, a feature unique to these cards only. On compatible games, DLSS 3 uses AI to generate extra frames, increasing FPS and making your games even more buttery smooth. While not a lot of games support DLSS 3 currently, it has a lot of potential in the future and can help lengthen the lifespan of a GPU.

For the manufacturer, we went with Zotac. There isn’t any RGB lighting on it, but you get an adequately beefy cooler that can support mild over-clocking for those extra frames. You also get three DisplayPort 1.4a ports and one HDMI 2.1a for connectivity, which is more than enough if you ever plan to switch to a multi-monitor setup.

In a gaming PC, unless you’re rocking a really old CPU or a processor with only a couple cores, like a Pentium Gold G7400 or a Core i3, a graphics card is usually the bottleneck in most games, and the same applies to this budget build. That’s why we spent almost 40% of our budget on this single component. After all, you do want the best performance out of your machine with the highest possible framerates and the prettiest graphics settings, right?

A B660 chipset motherboard makes perfect sense for this PC. You won’t need a Z690 chipset, which is the most premium one and also the only one that supports overclocking, as the i5-12400F cannot be overclocked. On the contrary, an H610 chipset is cheap, but it cuts a lot of corners, such as on PCIe 4.0 NVMe support. Between the B660 and an H670, the former provides much better value for money while only having a fewer USB ports and PCIe slots than the latter.

We went with ASRock B660m Pro RS, which is a mATX (micro-ATX) motherboard with four DIMM slots at a price tag of only $100. It supports only DDR4 RAM, which is fine as DDR5 is more expensive and brings no major improvement in games. You can install PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD into the M.2 slot of this motherboard and install your OS and games on it for blazing-fast boot times and loading speeds. As a cute addition, ASRock added a small strip of RGB lighting at the back of the motherboard near the SATA ports, which is a welcome addition.

While you're missing out on ports, you still get a decent I/O. There are four USB 3.2 ports and two USB 2.0 ports, along with a single PS/2 port. You get one HDMI and one DisplayPort for getting output from an integrated GPU inside a processor and a LAN port powered by Gigabit. The audio ports are powered by Realtek and support 7.1 channel HD audio with support for Steelseries’ Nahimic Audio.

Even though the i5-12400F comes with a stock cooler, it’s nothing to write home about. Intel’s stock cooler has a bad design, the fan is loud, and it struggles to cool the processor. If you’re strapped for cash, then you can consider skipping a good aftermarket CPU cooler and go with the stock cooler at the cost of loud fan noise, but you should still try to invest in a good cooler as early as possible.

If you want a cooler now, check out Arctic's Freezer A35, which is probably the best low-end CPU cooler you can buy. Not only will the A35 outperform the stock Intel cooler in cooling prowess and quietness, but it's also suitable for a midrange Intel CPU like the Core i5-12400F. It'll probably struggle to cool the higher-end models like the Core i7, and overclocking is entirely out of the question, but for this price, there's not much to complain about.

At under $40, the Freezer A35 takes up enough of the budget that you might consider not buying it. It makes more financial sense to buy a CPU cooler along with a new CPU, especially if you have some extra money to put towards a better cooler like Be Quiet!'s Pure Rock 2 Black or Noctua's NH-U12S Redux. If you value silence though, then the A35 might be worth the money.

What's great about DDR4 is that it's super cheap, and not a huge step back compared to DDR5 for gaming. On a midrange processor like the Core i5-12400F, there would probably be no performance benefit to DDR5 at all. One of the best kits of DDR4 RAM is definitely Corsair's Vengeance LPX, which is super cheap at less than $50 for 16GB while offering high-end specifications.

Good RAM offers a sensible balance between high clock speed and low latency, and the Vengeance LPX nails it. It's rated for 3,200MHz and 16 CAS latency (or CL), which is a great combination. Lots of kits with higher frequencies and bigger price tags also have higher CLs, which mostly negates the benefit of having a higher clock speed. It's also hard to find memory with lower latency that doesn't cost a ton more, as CL16 is close to the limit of what DDR4 can do.

Even if you upgrade to high-end components in the far-off future, it's unlikely you'll ever need to replace this kit. Even on a Core i9-13900K, you're not going to see very significant performance improvements by upgrading to a top-end kit of DDR4 or to DDR5 (which would require a new motherboard). For just about $40, you're set for a long time with Corsair's Vengeance LPX RAM. By the way, make sure to get the kit optimized for Intel CPUs, which is the one we've linked to.

There's about $100 left in the budget at this point, so we can't afford to spend too much on storage. Thankfully, SSDs have never been cheaper and there are even some 1TB PCIe 4.0 drives going for $50. One of those is Crucial's P3 Plus, which is a value-oriented SSD that doesn't provide a ton of raw horsepower but gives plenty of room for games and performs well enough in real-world tasks.

The P3 Plus can take advantage of the PCIe 4.0 support on the CPU and motherboard and hit reads and writes of 5,000MB/s and 4,200MB/s in sequential workloads (which is basically moving big files). That's quite a bit slower than higher-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs, but you're unlikely to encounter that kind of stuff on a gaming PC anyway. What really matters are random reads and writes, and the P3 Plus does those pretty well (though so would any SSD made within the past five years or so).

$45 for a 1TB SSD is cheap, but you could get that much storage for even less. At the time of writing, there are several SSDs from trustworthy brands that cost less than $40, though most of these are 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, or in the best case, PCIe 3.0 drives. If you really need to save $10 or $15, you could purchase one of these cheaper drives, but in our opinion, it's worth paying the $50 for the P3 Plus since it has significantly better performance.

Buying a cheap PSU can be difficult because, while there are plenty to choose from, most of them are from brands that don't have a good track record. We're not saying these power supplies might explode or something, but usually, they're particularly loud or might not come with good warranties; some companies don't even pay for 80 Plus certification. Thermaltakes's Smart 500W 80+ is a 500W power supply that's cheap and doesn't have any of those problems.

500W might seem on the lower end of the spectrum, but it’s more than enough for the rig we’re building. A GPU is the most power-hungry component in a gaming PC, but the RTX 4060 is extremely efficient, thanks to the 5nm architecture. It can run under full load using power from only a single 8-pin power connector from your PSU, of which there are two. The processor never consumes a lot of power, and the i5-12400 takes in a maximum of 120W under full load.

If you plan to upgrade your GPU down the road, then investing in a 600W PSU might be a better option. But for the current rig, the Smart 500W will provide enough juice for your components with some left to spare. It has an 80+ bronze certification and all the necessary protective mechanisms to keep your components safe under fluctuating electrical conditions. Obviously, on a low-end PSU, you can't get stuff like modular cables or a switch that changes how fast the fan spins, but in terms of its functionality, it’s great value for money.

The final piece in our puzzle is the case in which you’ll put your PC components inside. For a budget build, a case might not seem like the most important thing as it isn’t a functional component of a PC and doesn’t translate to better fps in games, and that’s true to some extent. However, a good case can elevate the look of your PC from a boring piece of office equipment to a gaming beast that screams in RGB, and that’s extremely important in our opinion. That’s why we searched extensively for a case that looked sleek and classy but took it easy on the wallet.

Our pick is the Deepcool Matrexx 40, which has tremendous cooling potential thanks to the mesh on top and the front. It can support up to six 120mm fans or four 140mm fans, and if you plan to use an AIO, this case is compatible with up to 280mm radiators. At a measly price point of $50, you get a tempered glass side panel so you can see your PC components in all their glory. If you plan to install SATA HDD or SSDs in the future, this case has got you covered with space for 2 of each of these storage drives. It also comes with a single rear 120mm fan.

The Matrexx 40 is all about style and aesthetics. It has one of the prettiest front-mesh designs that we’ve seen in a budget mATX case, and it’s my personal favorite at this price point. Once you install a pair of RGB fans at the front, the mesh subdues the light to give it a bold and mysterious look. Deepcool always delivers when it comes to PC cases and their products give you the best bang for your buck, and the Matrexx 40 is no different.

Budget Intel PC build guide: Price breakdown

Here's how everything comes together and how much you'll likely pay for this particular set of components. Obviously, these are just the prices at the time of writing, and it's almost certain that the price of these components will go up and down over time. Of all the components here, the ones you might expect to have the most price fluctuation are the CPU, GPU, PSU, and case, but we're only talking about a few dollars here or there.

The single most viable component to save money on is the CPU cooler, the Freezer A35, but only temporarily though. At $737, we're a little over budget, but by opting not to buy the A35, that brings the price back down to $705, which is right in line. Still, we have the A35 on the list here just in case you don't want to listen to Intel's fairly loud stock cooler.

We went with the best value-for-money build that you can buy for around $700. That’s why some of the components used in this build might not have the potential for an upgrade down the road, which is especially true for the CPU and motherboard. But the LGA1700 is about to become obsolete with the release of Intel’s Meteor Lake chips slated for later this year, so keeping headroom for an upgrade isn’t very sensible on this platform. Despite that, the only major feature you lack in this build is the ability to overclock your CPU if you plan to buy one later on, but we’d suggest you wait for the Meteor Lake chips and directly hop on to it when you do upgrade. Until that day comes, this budget build has got you covered.

This is just a guide for building a desktop and doesn't cover peripherals and other stuff, but we do have guides for the best mice, keyboards, gaming monitors, and more. If you're interested in getting more advice about building a PC, go and check out the XDA Computing forums and make a post there.