Video card recommendations for an ultra-cheap gaming PC

AMD's iGPUs are actually decent... enough. If your budget is cheap, they're fine. You're looking for one with a G ending (in the old Ryzen3 line, I believe an iGPU is included in all the R5 and R7 non-x3d lines). Probably not as future proof, but decent to start out with.

Otherwise, new mid-range Intel Arc GPUs can hover around the $100-$150 mark, are improved every time a new driver comes out, and so far I haven't read about any reliability issues (no direct experience though). Whether or not they're better or worse then RX580, not sure, probably about the same.

Can't go wrong starting with Tom's Hardware's Big GPU Guide for performance metrics and following that up by checking prices. Your budget is just as important to a decision as the performance target.

The Athlon 200GE does have an iGPU, but it is too cut down for gaming at the desired level. It fits in AM4 motherboards, and with 2 cores and 4 threads it could probably drive a Radeon 580 somewhat decently.

If you already have a spare AM4 mainboard, it may be an option to go for one of the newer AMD CPUs with stronger iGPU. Something like the Ryzen 5600G was seen for under $150 occasionally. Its iGPU is nowhere near a Radeon 580, but it might well be near a Radeon 580 bottlenecked by an Athlon 200GE ...

Fortnite has very flexible graphics controls. So it can look very pretty on a good GPU, but my 8yo plays it on a Switch, and it doesn't look dreadful.

If you can get an RX570/RX580 or GTX1060 for a budget you can live with, I suspect you'll be at "good enough" levels of graphics. After which, if your AM4 board supports it, an upgrade in the CPU department to a Ryzen CPU, could be another big boost if your daughter wants to get into anything more complex. The older Ryzen parts can often be found used for very little money these days.

Like the others have said, you need to define your goals very carefully.

Minecraft (non-RTX) doesn't use any meaningful GPU power. It's all CPU and disk (so the 200GE is weak for that game, and unless you have some kind of SSD, that should be addressed as well.) If you want RTX minecraft, adjust the budget accordingly and get a 4060... but I suspect that's not desired.

Roblox needs moderate GPU

Fortnite needs moderate GPU for low settings.

if those are the only games you care about and if it works with your motherboard replacing your CPU with a 5600G is your best bet, but that's a lot of "if's" That's pretty close to budget and fast enough for those games at 1080p.

If you need anything else, you'll need to adjust accordingly as the iGPU will probably not be workable for any complex games even with lowest settings-- but it just depends on what she wants to do. That said, upgrade to the 5600G now and maybe in the future budget for a better GPU to match that relatively better CPU.

From what I can see, a 580 8GB will give a solid 60FPS at 1080p in Fortnite and can be found floating around at the $100 mark, so that's a good option. That's assuming that Athlon isn't going to be a serious bottleneck, which it may be. But that won't be the GPU's fault.

AmigaPhreak said:

So the goal is a setup that would drive Fortnite at 30 fps / 1080p with some decent amount of detail.

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You really don't want to run a competitive shooter at 30FPS. Shoot for 60FPS.

Tom's review of the Athlon 200GE paired it with a couple different GPU, a RX 550 and a GTX 1080. Gives you an idea of how it fares.

I'd shoot for an nVidia GPU if you're going to be doing DX11 gaming (Fortnite's DX11 mode is best for competitive gaming). While a GTX 1080 would be overkill, a GTX 1060 should be ok. Zotac's refurbs have a GTX 1060 6GB for $119, and the 3GB for $99.

Hardware Unboxed's review of the GTX 1650 included 1060 6GB and 3GB performance numbers. Both did decently at 1080p, though they were testing with a 9900k. I'd expect the 200GE to run things a bit slower, more like the Tom's review and its GTX 1080 benchmarks.

If you want to go the IGP route, the 5600G may be decent. There's a ~3hr video where someone tested a 5600G/16GB DDR4-3200 CL16 with a ton of games. Fortnite did ok. The problem I see with that idea is that the 5600G is back up to $142. When it's down around $119-$129, then it's closer to the ~$100 budget.

Which specific board do you have?
Nvm reading fail, sorry

AmigaPhreak said:

My only limitation there is how long I can upgrade on the AM4 path.

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AM4's final CPUs haven't been released yet. We should get an update from AMD about the 5700X3D during CES. There's also supposedly a 5500X3D in the works.

vcache takes AMD's DX11 drivers from passable to good. There's a night and day difference between a 5600X and a 5800X3D when using a 6700 XT in DX11 titles. 3D Mark's API overhead test shows the 5600X at 2 to 2.3M drawcalls/sec, while the 5800X3D scores 3.4M drawcalls/sec. nVidia cards hit 4.7M drawcalls/sec, so vcache really helps close the gap there.

A cheap B550 board (one with a VRM heatsink) is around $90. You can get a RX 580, new, from Best Buy for $139 (I've actually bought this card recently, and it's a solid little 8GB RX 580 with two fans from XFX). If you're thinking a CPU upgrade is in the works later, that's a decent route to take.

AmigaPhreak said:

To clarify, I have currently have the 200GE, memory, case, and power supply. I also have an SSD in this machine I was aiming on motherboard and GPU for the upgrade, as video performance seems to be the weakest area.

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So the real question is whether or not you leverage the 200GE, because if you don't then you've got some options. You could theoretically get a deal on an Intel system, keeping in mind that some use DDR5 as do all AM5/Zen 4 systems. Sticking with AM4 will keep motherboard prices down-- but plan on ~$100 or more for one that's pretty feature-complete. I just got this one for a kids' build:


And am happy with the feature set and UEFI/BIOS configuration options and the decision to go micro-ATX was a further slight cost savings measure. The A520 chipset is sort of limiting for expansion, but the exercise was to save money by re-using a 3700X/heatsink and existing NVMe 3.0 drive which that board will do including full support for DDR speeds higher than default (AMD EXPO). That one would work for a -G CPU as well, with video passthrough and the big upsell for me was the integrated WiFi. Of course you can always add an adapter to a spare PCIe slot or USB, but good ones are more expensive than the price delta between a board with and without wifi and I've had mixed luck with USB WiFi in the past. If you already have networking covered, carry on.

I was on the fence between that and the MSI B550m Pro VDH WiFi. That would be similarly capable but has the B550 chipset. The downside for a kiddo is no RGB on the board and I'm not sure if it has acceptable aRGB controller capabilities as it's sold as a 'business class' board.

AmigaPhreak said:

Current game interests are Minecraft and Roblox, but this may grow in the future, so I feel like upgrading to a 5600g gives me another big jump in CPU but without the comparative jump in GPU. Everything I have read suggests that integrated graphics simply can't compete with a discrete video card.

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In the absolute sense, no. Discrete GPUs exist that run circles around any integrated GPU. The question is whether an integrated GPU will do everything you ask of it, because at some point any excess performance is unnecessary.

If you can (for example) play Minecraft at your monitor's top resolution and refresh rate 100% of the time, you don't need more for that one game.

Really simple and old games won't tax any GPU and whether you get 300 FPS or 500 FPS gets to be pretty esoteric if you're aiming for practical use and only need to peg 1080p/60 100% of the time or whatever your target is. You don't need overkill.

That said, for this build I put my budget into the GPU and went with an RTX 4060. Yes, that's a $300 GPU, but in 2023 (Christmas present) there are not a lot of true bargains to be had and that GPU has some legs for future use. I don't want to have to ever replace it-- she should move out of the house by the time it's obsolete. It replaced an RX550 in the old computer, and the 550 wasn't quite cutting it. The RX580 is definitely a lot faster than a 550, but it's still not going to win any performance medals. That may mean it's right-sized for your kid and by the time they outgrow it you will want to upgrade also, but there's the risk that they'll get into games for which it's a little on the weak side and you might need to replace it sooner (still probably get a good 1-2 years out of it, but it's already long in the tooth.)

AmigaPhreak said:

I guess the only argument for a 5600g would be if the 200ge with a rx 580 is the same speed and even then, going with the 580 allows me an upgrade path on the CPU side.

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It may just be a question of staging upgrades. A 5600G (which ironically I also have and have thrown a few games it) will probably not match an RX580, but if it's good enough for the very basic kid-friendly games for now, that gives you time to buy a GPU later. It also keeps the GPU and CPU more closely matched as the old Athlon will hit a point where it is the bottleneck.

If you're going to get a decent discrete GPU now, then you have no particular reason to lock into the 5600G.

AmigaPhreak said:

Seems like it will always be easier to solve the "CPU bound" problem... My only limitation there is how long I can upgrade on the AM4 path.

Something I'll have to chew on for a while, I guess....

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As IceStorm notes, AM4 is just about end of life, but some massively faster CPUs exist. The 5800X3D is a gaming beast compared to earlier Zen parts and the upcoming 5700X3D may be a good bargain. Neither of those are likely to fit into a $100 budget, but ~$300 for an upgrade to a 5800X3D? That's a bargain compared to changing your entire platform.

There are cheap a320 boards for about $50 from aliexpress, or b550 boards are closer to $100. Haven't checked eBay for used prices though, but you could probably pick up a x600 quad core chip for cheap, especially if it's 1st or second gen Ryzen - 6 cores would be a decent step up from your athlon if you can afford it.

Video card prices are still crazy. A 970 for $50 or 1070 for $80-100 would be fine for 1080p low settings on those games.

Probably an unpopular opinion, but an Xbox One S will play any of the games fine and likely be the cheapest option. I don't think you even need Gold to play fortnite online now.

Zen 1 won't officially run Windows 11 if that matters. It'll go EOL for Windows desktop use as Win10 exits support next year. Zen + (2000 series) and later make the cut. You can always strip out the SecureBoot and TPU requirements with a modified installer, but it's worth reminding that it could be an issue.

Leaving aside all the preferences for one platform or the other which gets into lots of variables and contention, Minecraft's ultimate joy isn't in the bedrock edition, it's in the modded Java edition. That opens up a world of possibilities. Depending on the age of the kiddo, bedrock may be just fine and a parent's preference since it's more contained with respect to 'inappropriate' stuff, but it could also be very limiting if they're into more creative stuff, or playing online modded servers etc. Again depending on your needs, that could be a strong justification for a PC.

I guess the moral of the story is to understand the requirements? (I feel for AmigaPhreak, having jumped through the same hoops a month ago.)

Technically, the 1600AF can run win 11 (it was a rebadged Zen 2 chip) but yeah, good catch.

Also there are tons of games types for even the bedrock edition of Minecraft - Java has more, but the anecdote from my kids is that everyone is on bedrock. Edit: they weren't interested at all when I set up a Java server on a raspberry pi for them

I don't recommend buying a board from Aliexpress if it does not have a support site. There are issues getting BIOS updates for those boards when the company's website is at a .cn address. I was looking into a couple B550 ITX boards on Aliexpress, and that's the issue I started running into.

Video card prices aren't going to change. This is what is available with at least 3GB of VRAM, at or below $212. Name something better than the RX 580 at $139. Used, Zotac's 6GB GTX 1060 at $119 is the best alternative option I've seen. Sure, you can cut it down to the 3GB for $99, but I think that's a mistake at this time, even for a budget system. There aren't even 4GB 16CU RX 560 cards, and I'd take those if I saw one (as I'm sitting on four of them and they're halfway decent). Don't even THINK about Arc. There is no reason to give a young child migranes at an early age.

There's a lot of cruft in the motherboard space as well. This is everything $100 and below. The cheapest board with a VRM heatsink is a late model B450 board from Asus, at $79.98. For B550, there's an Asus B550 for $85.99. Now, a 200GE may not need it, a 5700X3D may not need it, but at least Asus cared enough to attempt to say those boards can handle more than 65W TDP parts.

This is someone running Minecraft on a 200GE. I'd start with just a motherboard and see how things go. No reason to assume a GPU's needed right away.

And if you don't mind re-manufactured goods, Peladin has a RX 580 8GB 2048SP (essentially a higher clocked RX 570) for $88, shipped from Newegg.

Why wasn't this discussion moved to the Audio/Visual Club where it belongs?

Because he's asking about the platform as a whole. He doesn't have a motherboard or GPU at this time, so the questions are more holistic than just, "What GPU do I buy?"

AmigaPhreak said:

Current game interests are Minecraft and Roblox, but this may grow in the future, so I feel like upgrading to a 5600g gives me another big jump in CPU but without the comparative jump in GPU. Everything I have read suggests that integrated graphics simply can't compete with a discrete video card.

Click to expand...

The 5600G has some major tradeoffs. First, the CPU cache is cut in half to make room for the GPU chiplet, so it's noticeably slower than its siblings. Second, the iGPU it has really isn't all that great. That's a Vega chipset (maybe Vega 2? I'm not sure), which is pretty weak compared to even a weak discrete card. Third, it devotes 8 internal PCIe lanes to running that card, so any GPU upgrade you add later will only be able to run in x8 mode, rather than the normal x16. This probably won't matter that much, but it strikes me as suboptimal. To get a weak GPU now, you're permanently giving up both CPU and future GPU power.

Instead, I'd point you at a straight 5600. Not the 5600X, just the regular no-letter 5600. It's $149 right now on Amazon. And then add a weak discrete card to that; the $129 refurb Zotac 1060 would likely work nicely.

Between those two things, that's the no-significant-compromises option. You get a strong CPU with no weird limitations, and a pretty decent 1080p card. I think your daughter would be very happy with that setup. The 1060 is roughly comparable to the previous-gen 970, and I was using one of those up until about a year ago. It was quite solid at 1080p, even with new games.

That card will probably run at 1440p reasonably well with older games, but anything taxing will either need the settings turned way down, or will need to run at 1080p. Hopefully, by the time that video card is a significant limiter, mainstream GPU pricing will have gotten more reasonable.

Yes, I realize this suggestion is higher than your budget, but IMO, it's the Done Right version. You're getting a very substantial fraction of the performance of a high-end PC, for like a third the price. (probably $400, with motherboard/CPU/video card/existing RAM.)

Either do what Malor suggests above or you could cheap out and get a Ryzen 3 3200g or 3200g. check youtube reviews - randomgaminginhd has covered them a lot over the years. The performance certainly won't be exciting, but it will be far better than even older less capable clunkers mentioned like the Athlon 200GE.

Something to keep in mind is that he does not have a motherboard. My guess is the goal is to keep the budget at/below $200. Motherboard+GPU and Motherboard+CPU appears to be the limit. Buying a new CPU, motherboard, and GPU is probably not in the cards at the moment. No matter what, a motherboard is required.

This is the bottom of the barrel that would deliver something better than the 200GE, at around a $200 price point ($225).

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 4100 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($69.00 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock A520M-HDV Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($68.99 @ Newegg)
Custom: Peladn RX 580 2048SP ($88.00)
Total: $225.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-01-05 12:58 EST-0500

This list assumes there's a cooler already, and that the motherboard will have a BIOS that supports the Ryzen 3 4100, as the 200GE is not on the motherboard's support list.

Increasing the budget to $233 will allow purchase of a board that supports both the Ryzen 3 4100 and the Athlon 200GE, the MSI B450M-A Pro Max II.

Cheapest I see for an Intel build is a 12100F/H610 with the same GPU for $266:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-12100F 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($98.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock H610M-HVS Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Custom: Peladn RX 580 2048SP ($88.00)
Total: $266.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-01-05 13:29 EST-0500

IceStorm said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 4100 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($69.00 @ Newegg)
...

This list assumes there's a cooler already, and that the motherboard will have a BIOS that supports the Ryzen 3 4100, as the 200GE is not on the motherboard's support list.

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Ryzen 3 4100 comes with a cooler in the box, so that's covered.

That CPU is just too old, and too limited, to be worth keeping. I'll reiterate my suggestion of a $150 5600-no-X CPU, a $100 motherboard, and a $120 refurb 1060. That's gonna be solid, should last a long time, and the GPU can be replaced if it becomes the bottleneck. It's well above your intended budget, but if you can stretch that far, that's about the cheapest no-compromises setup that I know about.

You could also do the refurb or used (I forgot which) RX580, but I don't know AMD video cards well, so I'm not sure how that would compare to a 1060. I know the 1060 will be good, because I used a similar card for a really long time.

Going along with Malor's suggestion (and remember that the 1060 6 GB is significantly better than the 3 GB), there will be lots of other Pascal cards available used and they were probably not used for mining (or if they were, that was the first crypto crisis back in 2017 lol). A used 1070, 1070ti etc. are all viable cards as would be a used 2060-series. It just depends what you can find used in your local market.

The rx580 is solid, generally highly reliable and compatible as a card towards the end of the Polaris generation. They are a little more power hungry than the 10xx nVidia cards, but that's the only significant drawback. It does give you 8 GB which is a little more future proof than a 1060, and much better than a 1060 3 GB. (between the 1060 3 GB and 580 I'd choose the 580 no question.) Neither a 1060 nor a 580 would do raytracing nor DLSS, but both of those generations of cards are supported by AMD FSR and for games that support FSR you could get a little bost.

TL;DR it all comes down to price.

Nevarre said:

Going along with Malor's suggestion (and remember that the 1060 6 GB is significantly better than the 3 GB), there will be lots of other Pascal cards available used and they were probably not used for mining (or if they were, that was the first crypto crisis back in 2017 lol). A used 1070, 1070ti etc. are all viable cards as would be a used 2060-series. It just depends what you can find used in your local market.

The rx580 is solid, generally highly reliable and compatible as a card towards the end of the Polaris generation. They are a little more power hungry than the 10xx nVidia cards, but that's the only significant drawback. It does give you 8 GB which is a little more future proof than a 1060, and much better than a 1060 3 GB. (between the 1060 3 GB and 580 I'd choose the 580 no question.) Neither a 1060 nor a 580 would do raytracing nor DLSS, but both of those generations of cards are supported by AMD FSR and for games that support FSR you could get a little bost.

TL;DR it all comes down to price.

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I had a friend with an RX 570 and an AMD Ryzen 5 3600. Almost every game we were testing was running smoothly.
And it's not such an expensive rig.
You can buy this CPU for $100 on eBay.
And the RX 570 is even cheaper sometimes. I hope it helps!

malor said:

That CPU is just too old, and too limited, to be worth keeping. I'll reiterate my suggestion of a $150 5600-no-X CPU, a $100 motherboard, and a $120 refurb 1060. That's gonna be solid, should last a long time, and the GPU can be replaced if it becomes the bottleneck. It's well above your intended budget, but if you can stretch that far, that's about the cheapest no-compromises setup that I know about.

You could also do the refurb or used (I forgot which) RX580, but I don't know AMD video cards well, so I'm not sure how that would compare to a 1060. I know the 1060 will be good, because I used a similar card for a really long time.

Click to expand...

I'll second that hardware combo suggestion. And don't forget you can often find CPU/MoBo combos (sometimes even with low-end GPUs) on the used market. That would be the recommendation I have to save for a (young) kid's setup.

But I still think the integrated graphics on a slightly more expensive Ryzen CPU might be good enough for his intended use case. I've got a Ryzen 7 5700U in my laptop and it runs surprisingly well with most games on low settings 1080p or 720p in high. The mentioned games are easy-to-run on even older Ryzen iGPUs. He can then buy a GPU in 1-2yrs when the kid would really make use of it and prices are even lower. A 1060 now would be good enough, but $100 used in 2025/26 should get you a much better value/FPS increase than now between these iGPU/entry-level GPUs.
Anyways, have fun gaming!

The RX580 costs about 75USD on AliExpress. These are former mining cards, and have 2048 cores, vs the 2304 cores in the normal retail version.

Being that they're mining cards, they have been running undervolted (so, in better shape than ones used for gaming, because they haven't been exposed to heat fluctuations, or high heat), and very likely tested and repasted before shipping.

IMHO that's the best buy currently out there.

Your PSU will need an 8pin powerconnector though.

Take a look at used GPUs on fb marketplace or Craigslist. There are tons of meaningful upgrades available for under $100.

I have two self proclaimed "gamer" kids, both in grade school. All the games they talk about and play with their friends run on potatoes. These are their gaming PCs:

i7-6700k, 32gb ram, and GTX 970 4gb
i5-3570k, 16gb ram, and GTX 1070 8gb

I paid $35 for the 970 a few weeks ago. That card will run Fortnite at 90fps. I've seen used 1070s go for as little as $75.

These are both overkill but it makes them happy. Their friends game on old laptops with integrated graphics.

I was using a 970 up until about 18 months ago, and it was hanging in there quite well at 1080p. Horizon Zero Dawn, for instance, was quite playable at high-50s FPS at roughly medium settings. The 3070 ran at 1440p, max settings, at ~110 fps, which was obviously way better, but not as much as I expected. The graphic improvement was not transformative, although the higher framerate was pleasant.

That's why I liked the suggestion of the refurb 1060 linked upthread, because it's a very similar card, but without the RAM problem the 970 has. (and with more RAM, in the 6GB version.) It should be quite nice at 1080p, and run older/simpler games at 1440p pretty well. For $130, that's a good deal.

If you can find a 1070 for less, like @owdi is suggesting, jump on it. I imagine that would be a pretty solid all-rounder at 1440p.

I've struggled to find much of a definite price point that the recommender has given. Makes it hard to pinpoint any recommendations. Here's the options I see.

1. New full build.
For a full new build that's comparable to consoles, I don't think you can beat PCPartpicker's cheapest AMD build. https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/pTgXsY/entry-level-amd-gaming-build

Sure the 5600G isn't a speedy chip, but it's CHEAP ($120) and can be replaced if a CPU + dGPU is decided to be needed in the future.

2. Buy a new second hand GPU. If you think the current CPU will work (which IMO, it's just too old), then aim for a 1070/1660S/2060S/3060/4060 or better. I feel like these options can be found second hand for well within your price range, but your CPU isn't up to task.

3. New computer core + 7770. This is probably better than the 5600G. Use the PPP guide above, but get a 5600, plop in the 7770 for now. Sure your GPU isn't much better than a 5600G, but the extra processing power should be huge to unlock the full potential of the 7770. Also allows for a future upgrade for you and to hand me down a card just FYI.
Also a quick comparison:


I'd say to search for an older GPU at the level of a 970, people should be OK with parting with those cards for less than $100, mostly due to age.

I personally consider a 970/1060 6GB as bare minimum tier for gaming at 60fps. The only issue I have with those two cards in particular is their age, they're already 5+ years old. I'd prefer even a 3050 over them due to that reason alone.



4. Buy an old, heavily discounted build off of FB marketplace or craigslist. Typically the cheapest option and most reliable, but your price range is also very low which makes it hard to know if you can meet some of the demands for higher end builds that are heavily discounted. If people paid 1k+ especially during pandemic prices they typically want at least $500-700. Still, that price range can be super efficient if you find the right deal.

Looks like humble and solid build.

I didn't even think of the 5500. My recommendation of the 5600 is suddenly looking pretty bad. $85 for that chip is an awesome price.

I'll stick, however, with the recommendation of a used 1060 6GB as your next step up. The 7770 is terrible.

This is perfect proof that there are (nearly!) no bad products, only bad prices.

At the US MSRP of $159, the 5500 doesn't look that great next to the 5600. But at about half that MSRP, it's got plenty of punch to justify its place in a budget contrained build. You could probably go as far as a 3060 class card with that CPU if you wanted to, but GPUs in the 1060 class will hit a nice sweet spot of "relatively inexpensive but still hugely more performant than the 7770".

AmigaPhreak said:

I might also make the jump to higher-res gaming someday as well and the video card would certainly be justified in that case.

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The 1060 is mostly a 1080p-class card, although it should drive 1440p reasonably well (high 50s fps) if you dial back visual settings. It's not going to handle high refresh rates well at any resolution.

If you want high-refresh 1440p, IMO a 3070-class card is about what you want, which would be way more expensive.

AmigaPhreak said:

I agree that the 7770 is terrible...but it's free.

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I had an even worse HD 7750 back in the day when I needed a single-slot GPU.