Budget Build?

[Chomiq]

Hey me too, and I don't even like AMD cards because of the heat and drivers

NVIDIA today introduced their latest hotfix driver. Driver number 430.53 addresses reported issues of high CPU utilization (due to NVDisplay.Container.exe) on NVIDIA's previous 430.39 WHQL driver, which added support for their latest GTX 1650 graphics card as well as Windows' 1903 release.

A number of fixes have also been introduced by this driver version. Namely, flickering observed when 3DMark Time Spy is launched; BeamNG application crash on games launch; SLI freezes in Shadow of the Tomb Raider; and monitor flickering on the desktop when videos are being played on a secondary monitor. You can grab this latest hotfix driver release on the link below.

 

[Valantar]

Looks like Micro Center are still selling the R5 1600 for $80, and you’ll save a further $30 when bundled with a compatible motherboard.

I’d start there...

Second hand is only worthwhile when deals like this aren’t around.

That's an amazing deal. I'm very happy with my 1600X, and 1600 should be very comparable (and easily match it with some minor overclocking). If the deal includes any compatible motherboard I'd definitely go for an X470 or B450 ITX (no reason to go for 3xx-series, 4xx is more mature and usually better across the board).

 

[LFaWolf]

Apparently you haven't used an AMD GPU for the last five+ years (or earlier, really). Their drivers are excellent, certainly not any worse than Nvidia's in any way. Please stop spreading FUD.

Not true, I did attempt to install the Crimson driver but it failed install due to a strange HDMI error. Perhaps due to my motherboard also having an HDMI port. Don't know. Windows 10 later auto installed the driver and everything was fine.

But. I just bought the ASUS RX 580 mentioned above. We will see how that goes...

 

[Shou Miko]

Looks like Micro Center are still selling the R5 1600 for $80, and you’ll save a further $30 when bundled with a compatible motherboard.

I’d start there...

Second hand is only worthwhile when deals like this aren’t around.

Sounds like a good deal and I can see Microcenter also got open boxed things look through it online, I am sure even ITX boards cost around 120 and up for a decents board but with the price of $80 for a R5 1600 it's right there

 

[Valantar]

Not true, I did attempt to install the Crimson driver but it failed install due to a strange HDMI error. Perhaps due to my motherboard also having an HDMI port. Don't know. Windows 10 later auto installed the driver and everything was fine.

But. I just bought the ASUS RX 580 mentioned above. We will see how that goes...

So you had a single error and therefore declare all AMD drivers to be bad? I'm afraid your methodology is a bit flawed. Still, good to know you're willing to try again, and while random errors do happen, I doubt you'll see the same issue again I have nothing but good experiences with AMD's GPU drivers over the years, can't remember a single significant issue with neither my current Fury X or the HD 6950 before that either. Biggest difference for me with Omega/Crimson/Adrenaline etc. has been update frequency and features.

 

[LFaWolf]

So you had a single error and therefore declare all AMD drivers to be bad? I'm afraid your methodology is a bit flawed. Still, good to know you're willing to try again, and while random errors do happen, I doubt you'll see the same issue again I have nothing but good experiences with AMD's GPU drivers over the years, can't remember a single significant issue with neither my current Fury X or the HD 6950 before that either. Biggest difference for me with Omega/Crimson/Adrenaline etc. has been update frequency and features.

No, my response was to answer your question that I have not used any AMD cards or drivers in the last 5 years. I have had a lot of ATI and AMD cards, until my 7850 Crossfire kept locking up with drivers crash, and then 290 Crossfire with hard freeze and BSOD with drivers crash. Yes I know you will tell me that was during AMD dark time, but as an end user, I am not beta testing AMD drivers. Switch to nVidia 680 and never had a problem with drivers since. Thought about switching to Ryzen, then heard the memory compatibility debacle. AMD products just don't give me a lot of confidence.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

No, my response was to answer your question that I have not used any AMD cards or drivers in the last 5 years. I have had a lot of ATI and AMD cards, until my 7850 Crossfire kept locking up with drivers crash, and then 290 Crossfire with hard freeze and BSOD with drivers crash. Yes I know you will tell me that was during AMD dark time, but as an end user, I am not beta testing AMD drivers. Switch to nVidia 680 and never had a problem with drivers since. Thought about switching to Ryzen, then heard the memory compatibility debacle. AMD products just don't give me a lot of confidence.

No offence, whilst multi GPU has slowly been withdrawing support over the last couple of years, if you had constant BSOD on 2 different setups then it's likely down to some other issue with your setup/PSU/system stability. Yes multi GPU isn't as supported as it was back in the day but still there are many people who ran multi GPU with AMD cards for a long time that suffered from the usual issues, crossfire not working in some games, not scaling great in others, high power draw etc but not BSOD just for the fact they were using AMD cards, so you went from high power dual cards to a high power single card I suspect it probably had something to do with something else, PSU, system instability and was exasberated by the fact you had dual high power cards in Crossfire, nothing to do with AMD crossfire in the slightest.

I've had 4850/5770 and 7950 crossfire setups and didn't experience any BSOD due to the fact I was running crossfire.

 

[LFaWolf]

No offence, whilst multi GPU has slowly been withdrawing support over the last couple of years, if you had constant BSOD on 2 different setups then it's likely down to some other issue with your setup/PSU/system stability. Yes multi GPU isn't as supported as it was back in the day but still there are many people who ran multi GPU with AMD cards for a long time that suffered from the usual issues, crossfire not working in some games, not scaling great in others, high power draw etc but not BSOD just for the fact they were using AMD cards, so you went from high power dual cards to a high power single card I suspect it probably had something to do with something else, PSU, system instability and was exasberated by the fact you had dual high power cards in Crossfire, nothing to do with AMD crossfire in the slightest.

I've had 4850/5770 and 7950 crossfire setups and didn't experience any BSOD due to the fact I was running crossfire.

No offense taken. It was 2 different systems. 7850 was with EVGA Z68 with 2600k and 850 Corsair HX850 PSU. 290 was with ASUS P9x79 workstation with 3930k and Corsair 1200 (Gold one forgot the model). It was the drivers, not my setup, as I swapped the 290 with GTX 680 SLI and have not had a single problem.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

You say it was the drivers as fact, I disagree, I have had crossfire setups in the same time frame (7950) so likely using the same driver versions (give or take) as have many others and had no BSOD related to AMD drivers

 

[thebluebumblebee]

You're on a college campus. Good place to find someone trying to quickly sell a system. I'd look there first. Also, I've saved a ton of money over the years on used monitors. Just picked up an "as new" ASUS VE247H for $50.

To me, the biggest problem you'll have trying to assemble a system from used parts is time, and I'm not talking about the system build time. I'm talking about the time taken to meet with sellers, the time to keep an eye on the adds, etc., etc.

SO,.....I'm going to assume that you meant uATX, not miniITX. Several of these deals expire tomorrow!

Hard to beat this deal from MC: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 with Wraith Spire Cooler, Gigabyte B450 AORUS M for $135
Mushkin Enhanced Source 2.5" 1TB SATA III 3D TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDSR1TB for $100
If you're in the "collecting parts" mode, this is hard to pass up LINK: $42

This RAM should be okay LINK: $80 (it's not on the supported list, but that list is short for this motherboard, and I have the very similar Ballistix Sport LT 4GB Single DDR4 2666 on 2 AM4 motherboards without a problem)

You asked for quiet, so that means that going really cheap on the case is a no-no, so this case comes with 3 good fans that should be quiet: $56
Fractal Design Focus G Mini Black MicroATX Mid Tower
That's $413 before OS and GPU (and taxes)
As you can see, it's rather hard to build a nice system under $500. The other thing that comes to mind is that you're really close to being able to pick up a GTX 1070 ($220+) Let's look at a change that could be made.
As @biffzinker pointed out, there's a great deal on an 500 GB NVMe SSD (that means it's faster than the SSD that I pointed to above) for $58 (deal expires tomorrow) Savings of $42

You could also consider a "throw away" system: ABS Gaming Desktop NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB Ryzen 5 1600 (3.20 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 480 GB SSD $550

 

[advanced3]

That's an amazing deal. I'm very happy with my 1600X, and 1600 should be very comparable (and easily match it with some minor overclocking). If the deal includes any compatible motherboard I'd definitely go for an X470 or B450 ITX (no reason to go for 3xx-series, 4xx is more mature and usually better across the board).

It includes any compatible motherboard. I picked up a R5 1600 and a Tomahawk B450 for $160 after the deal.