Buying guide: How to build a gaming rig for around Rs 80,000

 In our last article about building **an entry level gaming rig under Rs 40,000** , we got a lot of feedback telling us that we had put up an underpowered rig. Well, we respect your feedback and would love to see more discussion with this story as well. We would still stand by our suggestions as we were looking at building an entry level gaming rig, so obviously there would be limitations.

  Like we mentioned in our **first PC buying guide this summer** , you first need to shortlist your use case scenario. One rig suggestion we received, for our entry level gaming rig, had an octa-core processor in it. Well we certainly think that an 8-core processor is overkill in what is clearly an entry-level rig, but maybe those who use it have some reason behind it. We would encourage you to think about your purchase decision carefully rather than going blindly by what the shop guy tells you.  

So let us double the budget this week. This is quite a high budget for most users as Rs 80,000 is a huge amount. If you are spending this amount on your rig, you are looking at a great gaming experience, great performance, smooth operation of most software applications – basically a fast machine which will last for at least 2-3 years without any issue.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Please note that there is no hard and fast rule that you need to get only the components we are listing. You can make permutations and combinations according to your budget’s flexibility. Also before you go complaining about the prices being wrong, keep in mind that this is an average of street and online prices across Mumbai only. If you’re in any other city then the prices will vary and could be higher or lower.

Bear in mind that Computex (the technology exhibition which is held annually in Taipei, Taiwan and which sees a lot of product announcements related to computer components) will start in the first week of June. Intel is expected to release a new line up of processors then - **Haswell refresh and Devil’s Canyon** . Intel Z97 chipset based boards are already out, we have reviewed the **ASUS Z97-Deluxe** and **Gigabyte Z97X Gaming G1** boards as well. These boards will not only be compatible with the Haswell chips, but will also support **Broadwell - Intel’s 5th gen Core processors** . So anyone looking to buy a PC some months down the line, should wait for Computex to get over. We will of course do another guide post Computex, when we get the Indian pricing of the newly released processors.

Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K - Rs 16,150

This is an Intel Haswell 4th gen, 4-core non-hyperthreaded processor clocked at 3.4GHz. It is built on the 22nm process and comes with Intel HD 4600 graphics. This being an unlocked processor allows you to overclock it. In terms of performance, it is behind only the Core i7 processors which are over Rs 20k.

Motherboard: MSI Z87 G43 - Rs 10,500

MSI Z87 G43 is a decently priced board featuring an LGA 1150 socket, two PCIe x16 slots, good build quality. Generally two boards having the same chipset will not really give a huge performance difference. What we like about this board is its simplicity and the SATA ports pointing outwards. You can also check out ASUS Z87 - K which comes for around Rs 11,200 as well as Gigabyte Z87 D3HP which is around Rs 10,900. Gigabyte board has two more USB 3.0 ports but it has all its SATA ports pointing upwards. If that is not an issue for you, Gigabyte board is also a good alternative.

RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 (2x 4GB) - Rs 5,780

Corsair Vengeance series is targeted at performance machines and the two 4GB sticks will be more than enough for your gaming needs. It comes with tall heat spreaders which keep the temperatures in check. Also you can overclock this RAM. If you are doing creative tasks such as photo or video editing, then the higher capacity RAM will come in handy.

HDD: Seagate 1TB SSHD (ST1000DX001) - Rs 5,800

Seagate’s hybrid drives which have 8GB of flash memory have been quite impressive helping in faster application loading times, faster boot times and so on. It offers the best of both worlds - cost per GB of a mechanical drive and boot/application loading speeds of an SSD. Till last generation the hybrid drives were only available for laptops, but with this generation Seagate has brought this technology to desktop drives as well. We had tested the **2TB variant** and were impressed.

If you feel that 1TB just won’t cut it for you, but you still don’t want to invest in an SSD, then the next best alternative is to go for a higher capacity mechanical drive and pair it with a cache SSD. We feel that the WD Green 2TB (Rs 5,840) paired with SanDisk 32GB Cache SSD (Rs 2,100) is a good alternative.

ASUS R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 delivers performance that is comparable to an Nvidia GTX 760 and in terms of overall gaming performance, the GTX 760 is about 8 percent faster than the R9270X, but is also more expensive. In full HD benchmarks, we noticed that the GTX 760 edged past the R9270X. But when you consider that the GTX 760 is priced at roughly 46 percent over the R9270X, the performance difference does not seem that significant from a pure value perspective.

PSU: Corsair CX500 - Rs 3,450

Corsair CX500 belongs to the builder series of Corsair PSUs. It is a non-modular 500W power supply with active Power Factor Correction (PFC). There are five SATA power connectors, two 6+2 pin connectors which is enough for your graphics card.

 Monitor: BenQ GL2450 - Rs 12,000

Now there are many monitor series out there, some targetted specifically at gamers. Of course more features on the the monitor, higher the price. Having worked with BenQ monitors in our test rig, we can vouch for their good performance. The BenQ GL2450, which is an LED backlit LCD monitor, comes at a decent price point for a 24-inch full HD monitor. Even though it has a TN panel, it is quite good for gaming, watching HD content as well as reading.

If you want a glossy finish screen with an IPS panel, then you can check out Dell’s S2440L which comes around Rs 13,700.

Cabinet: Corsair Carbide 200R - Rs 3,970

This is an affordable case from Corsair and can take in your ATX board, a long graphics card and has a toolless design. It comes in an all-black body with minimal design elements which lays more stress on function. There are two USB 3.0 ports on the top and it houses the front and rear 120mm fans as well. You can also add fans on the top and side panels.

Keyboard / Mouse: Logitech K200 (Rs 550) / Corsair Raptor LM2 (Rs 1,050)

Logitech is a reliable name when it comes to keyboards and the MK200 offers a no-frills keyboard. It also has dedicated multimedia buttons above the function keys. Instead of suggesting a regular mouse, we would like you to invest in a gaming mouse. With the Corsair Raptor LM2, you get a well designed mouse with six buttons on which you can map various game-related functions and you can also adjust DPI on-the-fly which is handy when you’re gaming. It also comes at a good price point.

Speakers: F&D A111 - Rs 2,175

F&D A111 is a 2.1 speaker system with a total output of 35W. It has really well designed satellite speakers which will not occupy much space on your desk either. Each satellite has an 11W output. The woofer section has controls for volume and bass adjustment.

 For those of you who are not planning on overclocking the processor, it makes sense to go for a non-K processor which will save you a few thousand bucks.    Another suggestion is the AMD rig below, which helps you save money on the processor + motherboard which you can invest in getting a faster processor. This is ideal for those who are only concerned with gaming.