Building the Best Budget Gaming PC for Under $1000

Welcome to Junkyard Battles. Today, Ken and I are going head-to-head here at our wonderful sponsor, Micro Center, to see who can build the best gaming PC for $1,000. I am starting with perfection. This, my friends, is a Dell Optiplex, and this is going to absolutely wipe the floor with whatever Ken is bringing. Like this. Okay. So, I have a proper pre-built, unlike you. I paid $300 for it. I think I did pretty well. The GPU is probably the most expensive part in this thing, and whoever sold this to me did not include it. And I know that a GPU will fit in here, unlike yours.

Okay, look, look, look. It's quality in a way that no one can match. I picked it because I had this in the office and I paid $140 for it a few years ago. I'm just going to quit. company property? So, our goal today is to start with these admittedly somewhat modest systems, and with the help of our wonderful sponsor, Micro Center, build them to be gaming beasts, or gaming kittens in my case. Wait, the So, my plan here is to really lean into the budget side of things. Because we each have the same $1,000 budget, but we get bonus points for the least amount of money spent, I'm hoping that my Optiplex will help me to actually

get, if not the outright win in performance, at least be competitive. But the main problem I'm going to have here, this has no space whatsoever for traditional GPU. But if you've ever seen any of my builds, you'll know that I'm not afraid to get a little bit uh creative. Keep in mind, uh my Optiplex is a little old. It's got a fourth gen Core i5 in it. I think I have chosen poorly. But that's fine. I make bad decisions all the time. So, for $280, I think the RX 7600 is still going to be way more GPU than my system should be able to handle. Now, normally, when you're doing a build like this, you would be concerned about cooling and power. But if your name is Austin Evans, you care about none of these practical

pieces of nonsense that are going to get way. I have my own methods. Not going to say that they're good methods. My next step is to power my GPU. And power supply-wise, this is only a 255-W power supply. I may need an auxiliary power supply. Maybe don't try this at home. I'm just going to throw that out there. So, this needs a should just need a single 8-pin, right? I'm sure it's only one 8-pin. It's one 8-pin. I knew that. I think spending a cool $41 on my dedicated GPU power supply ought to do the trick nicely. Now, the smart move would be to buy a case and transfer components out of this Optiplex. I have a better

idea. You can buy PCI risers. This will just allow you to move the graphics card away from your motherboard, which I just don't have clearance for right now. But, here's the thing. This is junkyard scrapyard dogs battle war. I want to embody the full spirit and most importantly making a great-looking YouTube thumbnail. They will definitely perform well. I don't know why my voice is cracking now. It's so weird. We should We should try. I will take a quick look at cases just to be safe. This is an open-box Y60. This has the PCI riser in it. This is only $74.

Probably because it's a demo model that doesn't have the back panel on it. I don't care. All right, let's see what Ken has in store cuz I'll tell you, it's not going to be as much fun as mine. All right, since we're doing gaming PC stuff, I obviously need a GPU since this PC did not come with one. Probably the best bang for buck for me is probably the RTX 5060. This one specifically from Gigabyte is $349, which would bring me to math, math, math. And with that extra chunk of change, I'm maybe thinking upgrade the case. There's also a really small CPU cooler in here, so perhaps I'll grab that as well. Austin's racing right now.

Look at him. This is an NZXT H3 Flow. Ideally, I can just hide it. Here we go. The Lian Li A3 with the wooden front. And it will also allow me to hide literally everything in the computer that doesn't look good. So, I don't have to worry about RGB. There's no black version of the wooden one, is there? Oh, there is. Our case is done. Let's go find some cooling. Hello. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm hard at work, you know. I'm I'm testing my lap time skills here. Don't go too hard on the gas right now. YOU'RE GOING TO THAT'S A SHAME. COOLING, COOLING, COOLING. Especially with air cooling, cuz I don't think I need an AIO for this. Even just something like a Hyper 212. They make a $20 Hyper 212? I

thought I'd be spending more money for stuff, but honestly, I might be doing good. Wait, how much money do I have left now? Can I better Can I get a better card? I'm going to buy a 5090. You know what? With a little extra money, I'm just going to get some more fans. But other than that, I'm good. So, we both have our builds. I'm feeling fantastic. Same. How much did you spend? $525. Ish. I have spent $808. So, we're both way under budget. Yes. I am very glad that you guys both came under budget because challenge one starts now. You are going to take the budget you have left and buy as many

peripherals as you can. Why would you do that to us? Wait. Okay, so the goal is quantity. You can't buy just like 20 mics. Okay, you answered my question. So, when Alex first hit me with the whole, "You got to spend all your money to get yourself a bunch of accessories." I was a little bit off put because I thought that Alex was just trying to steal my extra budget. But this actually I think is a big advantage for me. If I understand the rules right, I should still get an advantage in the final

judging, too. So, I had enough budget to buy myself an AOC QD-OLED monitor for less than 400 bucks at your friendly local Micro Center, of course. I'm hopeful that Matt looks at my nonsense and says, "Oh, hey, you actually put some effort in." He's not going to say that, is he? I pinched and folded. Look at that. So, I was able to pick up a 65% Ducky keyboard. So, this is an open box. It was originally 70 bucks and I got it for 55. And also just grabbed the good old standard Logitech G 203. Ooh, that's actually very nice. Like that. We got ourselves a little Ducky just to make sure we keep our keycaps nice and clean.

So, I'm a little bit worried that Ken is going to actually have some cool stuff. But, the thing is he had so much less money to work with. They can AFFORD THE L. LET'S SEE IF IT WORKS. OKAY. What the heck? Woah. Oh, okay. We're good. Okay, cool. Oh my god, that looks so nice. Yeah, boy, an Intel Core i5 4570. We do have ourselves a whopping 16 GB of DDR3 memory. Now that I know that my accessories and everything work, I've got to upgrade this guy. This system, if you open it up, this is designed like a Docks Dock, all right? And that PCI slot

only has a single like row. One of my options is to just yank out this original power supply. The other option is to use the PCI riser that I have in the height case. So, basically just cut a hole in it, Dremel it, and then mount the GPU to the outside of the case. This card is wider than the entire system by itself, right? So, that just won't fit anyway. Boom. I mean, step one, if I give this power, this is now a functional system. Theoretically. This is the point where I'm going to mention that I do not recommend you to do what I am doing. Traditionally, a power supply is meant to power your entire system.

However, this is only going to be powering my GPU. However, if you don't plug this into anything, the power supply never turns on. So, if you use one of these little dummy connectors, it just bridges the two pins to actually turn on the power supply and start giving power to the GPU. But, then the other thing is I need to think about the aesthetic. I think it would be funny if my entire Dell could fit inside the height. Oh, it's pretty close. Hang on. It almost fits enough Oh, boy, that's going to be a bend that's Now, you may ask yourself, why don't I just take the motherboard out of this system? And to that, I would say, I've committed to the junkyard dog lifestyle.

It is time for the Dremel adventure. The only thing I really need to do for like serious modifications right now is cut a hole in the side panel for my riser to come out. I think if I just cut this hole, which is as you can see expertly drawn, I see daylight. Like many people, longer I go, the less straight I get. Just Did you see the pile of That, my friends, is a hole fit for a king. Ew. But, do you see the vision? I see the vision. I don't know if it's a good vision, but it's a vision. I feel like I may be making some questionable decisions right now, but it's probably better than whatever Ken is trying to put together. All right, we

are back from Micro Center. This is our donor PC. I'm going to be taking all of my parts and putting them in this, the Lian Li A3. I haven't actually gone and fully tested this PC. We live life on the edge here at the Austin Evans channel. I'm a little concerned. Tell me this doesn't look classy with the wood finish on the front. Probably not real wood, but it does look the part. But, most importantly, because there's mesh, airflow should not be a problem. Oh. Let's open up our pre-built. The good news with this build is that a lot of stuff that I need is already here. So, SSD as well as our Ryzen 7. Also, we have, most importantly, 16 gigs of RAM. In today's economy, we'll take any RAM that we can

get. So, I know that it has, I believe, a 500 W power supply. Yeah, man. Come on. 80 plus bronze. It might not look like it, but the motherboard should actually be fairly free. It's okay, we don't need the GPU. I also bled for this. Yeah, I did see that. Yeah. Um and with that, our motherboard is out. Oh, yes, sir. But, the only thing is that you can kind of see how these pre-built power supplies are. There it is. Our 500 W power supply.

My god, that's terrible. So, now I think it's time to install my GPU. I don't think we'll have any issues fitting this into our motherboard. Would be helpful if I didn't do it upside down. Bam. Sick. I totally forgot. I have one upgrade that I have to do before I even go that far. I have an upgraded CPU cooler, the Hyper 212 from Cooler Master. That's a lot of heat sink compared to that. Look how tiny that is. Uh okay, there we go. Just buy a new computer. Just build one from scratch. Okay.

Not as bad as I thought. What if I use this rubbing alcohol to drown my sorrows out? And just like that, look at that. It might not look like a lot, especially with, you know, all these cables, but they are zip tied. But, look at that. Hides everything. It's way better than what we started with, This piece of garbage. Okay, but there's only one other thing left to do and that's to see if this PC will boot, which gives me the perfect opportunity to check out my peripherals. So, this is a 27-in 1080p gaming monitor. I paid, I think, $100. And most importantly, this does have a pretty high refresh rate. It's 120 Hz.

It's okay. It's supposed to do that. As far as my keyboard and mouse goes, I have this Keychron V1 Max. I was able to get this for $40 on clearance as is. Also, a really good deal. This Glorious Model D minus. Most importantly, it says $49.99 on here. I actually paid like 25. Ooh, you hear that? Ooh, this thing is wireless. Yeah, for $40? Let's turn on our computer. It was at this moment he knew. He Oh, yep. The monitor is on. So, the power strip is on. Okay. Well, I think I lost that bet on Kelshi. What about if it was the CPU?

Oh my god. That was scary. But I did find the problem. When I was fiddling around with the GPU, I kind of snagged the front panel connector and lifted it off the header. I just plugged it back in and it fired right up. I feel like I just need to have like a backwards cap on. I need to like cut my sleeves off and I'll be all about the junkyard dogs. Oof. Not sure I answered that question, actually. What were we talking about again? So, I'm here in the junkyard, which is what I've been told is my junkyard dogs putting together parts from scraps to see who's got a better PC for me to look at. Uh first impressions is this is the most beautiful case it's ever been crafted ever. There's none of this garbage RGB. Who wants to go first? I

volunteer. You volunteer? So, let's let's look at Anne first. Oh. oh, okay. This is what I started with. An actual system. You got rid of that beautiful system. This is bespoke. It's beautiful. What the heck is that? My PC. I've never seen this case before. It's a really unique case. No, no, no, no. Why is there a monitor box on the back? I just I'm so proud of the display that I have here. This looks like Trump's oval office, dude.

Okay. So, I Go ahead. Please. Austin texted me last night and said, "Hey, can I have some of your Legos?" What I have done not know what you were going to do. Yeah, you're starting to see some of the handiwork there. If you look up on top here, you see how that's mounted? You see how do you keep it attached? we have a vertical mount, which I'm assuming you have a riser. There is. Because this Dell Optiplex is very customer proprietary, I couldn't just joint the board out, right? Correct. You'll see that now that you still have access to the ports, but importantly, I have two power supplies, both of which fit in the case.

My ports line up. Your ports are very good. Where's my Where's the cable for the GPU? Hm? Where'd it go? It's right there. Okay. Follow it. I'm not just besmirching your computer. Come on. Don't pretend like the cable's hidden. Like I heard power tools going on and I immediately called our insurance company just to make sure we were like stocked up. Look. You know I love pressing buttons. So, you have a fan that doesn't do anything. I would just say that the fan is load-bearing.

The back corner of the PC is hanging off the fan slightly. I got to give him the ingenuity. It is pretty clever for as stupid as it is. There's What can we say about this? Nothing. Feel free to open it. Yeah. I mean, obviously having a big mesh side means that you can hide a lot of things. Yep. But you're running the entire system on one power supply. Where's your redundancy? Like So, my PC started as a $300 pre-built with it without a GPU. I also swapped out the CPU cooler that came with it.

What graphics card do you have? This is an RTX 5060. All right. First of all, what CPU do you have? Uh an oldie but a goodie, Core i5 4570 from the year 2013. I also like playing Minesweeper. So I have some questions. Go, please. about how yours functions. I love that yours has a DVD drive. In the era of physical media, you know, we're we're we're kind of taking a step you invest in force fields? It won't even go all the way. even. It's not designed for Look, physical media is dead. I got the memo, AND I know that power supplies won't turn on if they don't have a connection It's a great question. CPU. But mine does, cuz I'm a wizard.

How did you do this? You bridge [snorts] two pins, and it basically starts the power supply. It's as if you've hit the power button. Don't do this at home. You have a jumped fire hazard. It's not a fire hazard. It just turns on. filled with plastic. have a history of fires. And then you sealed it up with a flammable hard drive. is there's just a little bit of a setup process. We can never be too safe. I'm not entirely convinced Austin's PC isn't going to catch on fire by the end of this video. I don't understand anyone who would criticize my system for being unsafe. I sometimes don't even build in a case.

So, the fact I have two cases is twice as professional. So, for challenge one, they both came under their $1,000 budget. So, with whatever they had left over, they had to spend that on peripherals. 10. Yes. Walk me through the individual's peripherals. So, we have this Keychron keyboard. I'll be honest, I really like the salmon. The blue and the salmon It's cute, right? Very nice. The mouse is a Model D minus. Too many holes. There's no such thing.

There is Wait. Get stabbed and tell me that you don't have too many holes. Plus, we have the monitor. This is a $100 ASUS 1080p monitor IPS. It's a little blurry. Grab Grandpa and Cini over here. Like what? Hey. Down dog. Hello everybody. Austin. Oh, sorry. I'm just busy watching this video. Hey man, how's it going? That's not really sucking up when you're in it. Let me introduce you to four of my favorite letters. O L E D. That my friend is a 240 hertz OLED panel. Do you see how many colors on your face?

Millions of them. This is a high quality panel that I got for less than 400 bucks. $380. Yeah, this is a really good monitor for that price. It is. G203, a classic mouse. Nothing fancy, but you know, gets the job done. And as you can see, I have my Ducky wireless keyboard. That came with the keyboard. That just It's a little dooter. Oh, you also Are these feet OR GAS? NO! I DECAPITATED. I HAVE to take a step back for a second because the challenge is who spent the best with their leftover money. The OLED is really hard to ignore. So, an OLED Like it's point for me.

The eager one over here. Oh, sorry. Let the man talk. For challenge number two, we got a two-parter. We're going to benchmark first, and whoever wins that benchmark gets to choose what game they're going to play against each other. So, we're doing Horizon 6 on medium settings. All identical. You want to pick right now or No. Let me lose first and then Okay. All right. That's fine. Three, two, one, start. Oh. There's two clicks. Wait. What are you doing? I'm just checking to see. His is already gone and mine's not ready yet. And my GT-R is GT-R-ing.

Got a little slow off the gate there. That's fine. You're hovering around 70-ish percent of CPU utilization. Ken was at pegged at 99 the entire time. Wait. Some of my textures aren't drawing right. Do you see how like there's people like floating in the air? You achieved 45 FPS with entire buildings popping in. It works though. Ken achieved 78 FPS. Oh god, okay, fine. gets to pick which game we play. CS2. Okay, so Why do we even have to do this? Of course you're going to pick that. Okay, fine.

Yeah, because I'm better at it. They're going to be playing CS2. All right, winner takes all of this round. So whoever gets the highest score at the end of the game will be crowned the victor. You're missing. You're missing a lot. I got him. Okay, you shot someone in the back. I don't look A point unarmed. Look, it's a point to point, man. That's a war crime. Okay, well, I'm starting out at four and two, and I'm very happy with that. Where do we at here for you, Ken? Uh five and two.

Ooh, Ken's doing some hip shooting. You know what? There's a guy that he Yeah, I noticed More like a cannon. Oh, Austin killed me. There's Austin. THAT'S CRAZY, BRO. IT'S REALLY well done. So you need to get 25 points to win. Yes, yes, I know I'm behind right now. Oh god, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. YOU GOT ONE. KEN IS STARTING TO LOSE SOME OF THE lead here. Oh, Austin Whoa! I realized camping is actually the solution.

This is better than Austin's ever done in any game that he's ever played. I'm a gaming prodigy. I learned how to game before most of you even learn how to walk. I was gaming before Ken knew how to tie his shoes, which was last year, which is a little bit concerning. Okay, I'm still beating Ken in the KD, but It's overall score. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. OH, A DOUBLE KILL FOR TRIPLE KILL, TRIPLE KILL, TRIPLE KILL. This is crazy. THIS MATCH GOT INTENSE.

STOP killing Oh my god, dude. I'm just using my pistol right It's looking bleak for Austin. Yeah, I just lost like four times IN A ROW. AH, OKAY, GG, GG. I'M THIRD PLACE. PLACE, YEAH. I had 331 points, and I was 39 and 25. You were 43 and 40. You died 15 more times than I did. Yeah, because I kept getting spawn killed. Fair play. I will give you the props on this one. You definitely win. Yeah, not really surprised that I won, but I'll take it. So, I'm going to score you guys on 1 to based on your performance, your aesthetics,

Oh, everything in life. And I have high standards. I don't agree. Woah! So, now you get A SIX. WAIT. WAIT, REALLY? WITH YOURS, it I have to say it is beautiful, Mhm. but does it really embody a junkyard dog? I'm going to give you A SEVEN. NO! Did you just give us scores based off of fit? did all this work. We did all of this work just SO YOU CAN MEME US at the very last second. Oh, I hate this. And you got bonus points for coming under the original budget for your PC. 10. You did not quite meet the 200, so you only got one extra bonus point. Austin gets three. Three points for that! The final score is nine versus 10.

AUSTIN WINS, BABY. JUNKYARD DOGS. Congratulations to him. He kind of needs all the wins that he can get. But, like I don't know about that, dude. I feel like the validity of my victory is somewhat in question. But, you know what? I'm not above taking something that's not mine. The end. I want to thank my mother for raising me to be a junkyard dog from the start. And I want to thank our fine sponsor Micro Center for enabling the shenanigans. If you want to check out some of the fine deals we were able to get at our

wonderful sponsor Micro Center, you can check those out at the link in the description. Good game. Okay, well, sportsmanship is in fact dead, but if you would like just jumped around the room. Woof. Bark.