The price of computer components has dropped considerably in the last few weeks, and this has finally made it possible to assemble a perfect gaming PC to play games in 1080p with maximum quality, and with total fluidity.without having to make a large investment, and without being forced to make important sacrifices to better adjust the price.
If you were waiting to buy a new gaming PC or to carry out a thorough renovation of your equipment the truth is that you are in luck, because this is a good time to do it. The price of graphics cards has dropped a lot, and models that are perfect for gaming in 1080p but previously exceeded 300 euros. can now be found for just over 200 euros.
We should also keep in mind that the price of processors continues on a clear downward trend, and that both RAM and SSD storage drives have fallen dramatically. It is what I told you at the beginning, that the price drop has been generalized, and this has made a big difference when configuring and assembling a gaming PC ideal for 1080p gaming.
Just a few months ago the configuration we are going to see in this guide. would have easily cost us about 800 eurosand now we can get it for only 614 euros. With it we will be able to play in 1080p in a totally optimal way to any current title, and in many cases we will also have a very good experience if we go up to 1440p resolution, although this is not the goal of the equipment.
Platform and previous considerations of this gaming PC for 1080p.
In order to assemble a PC that is able to move games perfectly in 1080p we need to meet a number of very clear requirements. On the one hand, this equipment must have a CPU with 6 cores and 12 threads, as this is the optimal level for any current game, and it has to have also a high CPI since, otherwise, there could be a considerable loss of yield.
It is also necessary to have at least 16 GB of RAMThis has become the new optimal minimum that we must meet to be able to play with all the guarantees both current games and those to come, and this memory must operate at a high frequency and have tight latencies. Obviously we can not forget to configure it at dual channel.
As far as the graphics card is concerned, it is clear that this will be the central pillar of the equipment. Since we are going to play in 1080p we don’t need to go to the high end, a mid-range model will suffice, but we must be careful as the latest games are becoming more and more demanding, and this means that models such as the Radeon RX 6500 XT and GeForce GTX 1650 Super are starting to have problems.
As for storage, any gaming PC worth its salt, whether for 1080p or 4K gaming, must be equipped with an SSD, as this will significantly reduce loading times and also avoid problems with slow texture loading, popping and other errors and performance losses related to streaming assets from the storage unit. Its minimum capacity to avoid problems should be 1 TB.
Keeping in mind that we want to tighten the budget as much as possible, but at the same time we are not going to give up on a balanced equipment that meets all those keys we have seen, we have opted for the AM4 platform and an AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics card.. The reason is very simple, they offer excellent price-performance value, and are still assured of a long service life.
Motherboard: GIGABYTE B550M Aorus Elite
I have chosen this motherboard because it is, at the time of writing this guide, one of the best we can find in its price range.It is one of the best we can find in its price range, because of its good build quality and because it has all the features we will need. It also leaves us more than enough margin to be able to expand the equipment in the medium and long term without having to worry about anything.
The GIGABYTE B550M Aorus Elite is equipped with a mid-range chipset quite complete, has four DDR4 RAM slots which can run at a maximum of 4,733 MHz, has a hardened PCIe slot, has two M.2 NVMe PCIe slots for SSD drives, has a 5 + 3 phase digital power supply system. and is manufactured under the premises of GIGABYTE Ultra Durable series.
It also features integrated sound and has passive dissipation in key areas. of the motherboard (VRM and chipset). Very complete and balanced for what it costs. We can buy it for 110.99 euros.
Processor: Ryzen 5 5600
I know many of you will be wondering why I didn’t pick the Ryzen 5 5500, and the answer is very simple, because the Ryzen 5 5600. has a much higher IPCbecause it is discounted at a very good price, and because supports the PCIe Gen4 standard. The latter is key to not bottleneck the graphics card we are going to choose, although we will talk about it later.
The Ryzen 5 5600 is a mid-range processor that offers excellent performance thanks to its high IPC, meets the recommended level of 6 cores and 12 threads. that we need to optimally run current games, runs at a frequency of up to 4.4 GHz and comes with a rather modest cooling system that will nevertheless suffice in games.
I want to make special emphasis on this topic. I can confirm that, with the reference heatsink included, the Ryzen 5 5600, its operating temperatures will be kept at totally safe values in gamessince it will never reach 100% load on a sustained basis in this type of task. On average, we will see it moving in the range of the 65 and 75 degreesdepending on the load represented by each particular set.
Buy a higher quality fan is an optionas it will reduce operating temperatures considerably, but it is not essential. With the Ryzen 5 5600 this gaming PC will not be burdened in games under 1080p resolution, and we will not have any bottleneck with the graphics card that will accompany it. We can buy it for 148 euros.
Graphics card: Radeon RX 6600 with 8 GB of graphics memory.
GeForce RTX 30 series are still priced too high, and this forces us to look directly at the Radeon RX 6000 series. In it, the Radeon RX 6600 offers such good value for the price it is currently priced at that it is generally unrivaled. Its rasterization performance is so good that it stands alone. just a little below a GeForce RTX 2060 Super at 1080p resolution.
Your 8 GB graphics memory are all a guarantee also that we will be able to play in 1080p without having to worry about the quality of the textures, nor the graphics settings of the game. It is not a particularly capable model in ray tracing, so we’d better forget about this technology, but the truth is that it makes up for it with its raw power and low price.
The Sapphire Radeon RX 6600 Pulse is the best choice, because it has a very compact size, is well cooled, costs only €205.90 and comes with the set The Last of Us Part I for free. With it we will be able to play any current title in 1080p and maximum quality while maintaining total fluidity, and when it starts to lose power we can activate the FSR2.
RAM memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB at 3,200 MHz CL16
It is still possible to play almost all the games currently on the market without any problems, but more and more titles are starting to take up between 10 and 14 GB of RAM in order to run completely smoothly, i.e. without jerks or micro-stops that are common when all or part of the memory has to be emptied to refill it with new data.
With this in mind, and bearing in mind that the price of RAM has come down a lot, it does not make sense to mount only 8 GB of RAM.. We have chosen the Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB kit in two 8 GB modules because it allows us to activate the dual channel and reach the minimum capacity we need in this gaming PC for 1080p, and without having to make a large investment, in fact it is very economical, since we can get it for 41.99 euros.
Another point to keep in mind is that the working frequencies, and latencies, that brings this RAM kit. fall within the level that we can consider as adequate for the Ryzen 5 5600 to perform adequately. Mounting a faster RAM could give us a little bit more performance in specific cases, but we would have to purchase memory with a very tight latency, and these are usually quite a bit more expensive. In the end, this investment does not pay off.
Storage drive: WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD
As we said at the beginning of the article, any self-respecting gaming PC needs an SSD to offer a good user experience, whether in 1080p or 4K. To keep the budget tight, but without having to make sacrifices in either performance or storage capacity, we’ve chosen the WD Blue SN570, a drive that has a capacity of 1TB.and supports the PCIe Gen4 x4 standard.
This model uses a small block of SLC NAND Flash memory as a cache. instead of DRAM memory, which is why it is so inexpensive, but this is no problem in a gaming-based PC that will rely mainly on on the read speed. In sequential read and write it has very good peak peaks, 3,500 MB/s and 3,000 MB/s, which allows us to exceed the Xbox S Series and S Series minimum values of 2,400 MB/s.
It is priced at 49.99 euros, a figure which makes it one of the best value-for-money solutions we can buy. right now, and a fantastic choice to give life to this gaming PC. On the other hand, with 1 TB we should have enough to be able to play without problems, even if we keep several games installed at the same time.
Power supply: Mars Gaming MPB550 550W 80 Plus Bronze
We have a computer whose power consumption is generally quite low, and the Radeon RX 6600 only needs an additional 8-pin power connector to operate. Its TBP is also quite low, hovering around 140 watts. On average, this machine will have a consumption of approximately 275 watts, and will always remain below 300 watts, even with very heavy workloads.
This means that we do not need a very powerful power supply, although we should not make the mistake of mounting a very low quality model that goes very tight. Seeing what we can find right now in the market, the Mars Gaming MPB550 550W 80 Plus Bronze is a good choice, as it more than meets all the requirements we need, and has a very economical price.
We can buy it for €36.36, and. it comes with an additional 8-pin power cable. With it we will also have some margin for future upgrades, although if this is of particular concern to you the ideal would be to opt for a higher quality 600 watt supply that brings two additional 8-pin power connectors.
Chassis: Mars Gaming MC-S1
This topic is something quite personal, so as I always tell you in this kind of guides you are free to choose the chassis that you like the most, as long as you keep in mind that changing it will affect the total cost of the kitand that you must be careful that all the components fit in the new chassis, although you will not have any problem.
In this configuration, we have mounted a microATX motherboard and a very compact graphics card that is only 19.3 cm long.so it will fit in almost any type of chassis, even the smallest, although we must be careful not to enclose it too much so that it can move air well.
With this in mind, the Mars Gaming MC-S1 is an interesting choice for mounting equipment in. a small but nice and inexpensive case. It comes with a rear fan that will prevent hot air from accumulating inside, and has space to mount two more fans on the front. We can buy it for 29.89 euros.
Endnotes.
In total, the cost of the equipment as configured in this guide is 614 euros. For that money we have managed to shape a very capable gaming PC for 1080p gaming that, in many cases, it will be more than adequate at that resolution.and will even allow us to play at 1440p if we adjust the graphic quality according to the requirements of each specific title.
As I have already mentioned above, it is also a pretty cool PC with low power consumption. Its only weak point is ray tracing, but the truth is that this is something we can forgive it considering everything it offers and the price it has.
Remember that, in games that are extremely demanding even in 1080p, like Cyberpunk 2077, for example, we can activate FSR2 in quality mode to gain a little more performance. And speaking of performance, here’s what you can expect from this rig in games.:
- Cyberpunk 2077 in 1080p and ultra quality with contact shadows enabled: 54 FPS averages.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 in 1080p with ultra quality (default): 51 FPS averages.
- Days Gone in 1080p and very high quality: 77 FPS averages.
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in 1080p and ultra quality: averages 69 FPS.
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider in 1080p and maximum quality: 106 FPS averages.
- Resident Evil 4 Remake in 1080p at high quality without exceeding VRAM: 76 FPS averages.
