7 red flags to avoid when building your gaming PC

With the rising prices of graphics cards, many are tempted to skimp on the rest of the components when building a gaming PC. But while the GPU has the biggest impact on FPS, skimping on the motherboard, memory, storage, PSU, or even the case often results in unstable performance and disappointment.

Techspot writes about what not to include in a budget build.

Dual-core CPUs

Once revolutionary, today dual-core CPUs have virtually disappeared from the mass market and are hopelessly behind modern multi-threaded models.

Some games don't even start on the Intel Celeron G6900, and the AMD Athlon 3000G and Intel Pentium G7400 demonstrate sharp instability: 1% low is often half the average FPS, which is why underfreezes are noticeable.

The benchmark "from the bottom" looks like about USD 80 for the Intel Core i3-12100F/13100F or the six-core AMD Ryzen 5 5500 — the choice depends on your games and benchmarks. With DDR5, the Core i3 has an advantage, but such a platform is more expensive, so it is logical to look at the Core i5-12400F, and in AMD, the next step is the Ryzen 5 5600 with doubled cache and PCIe 4.0 support.

Single-channel RAM

In the age of DDR4/DDR5, RAM bandwidth matters. A single module on a dual-channel platform effectively "cuts" the bus width in half—especially critical for systems with integrated graphics that share memory with the CPU.

The minimum is 16 GB in a 2x8 GB (or 2x16 GB) configuration, even for DDR4. Individual "solo" sticks are usually not much cheaper than pairs of the same capacity, and buying one only makes sense to pair with an existing module.

Slow Storage

The transition of PS5/Xbox Series generation consoles to SSD made it clear that HDD is a bottleneck in modern games: extended downloads, "pop-in" textures, micro-freezes, and even desynchronization of sound in cutscenes.

Budget NVMes are already available, for example, the Crucial P3 Plus for about USD 60 without a DRAM buffer can sag on large copies, but in gaming scenarios, it is still significantly ahead of any HDD. For about USD 15 more, the Samsung 990 Evo Plus offers significantly higher speed, full implementation of PCIe 4.0 on short operations, and TLC NAND, remaining many times faster than a hard drive even under prolonged load.

"Balding" Motherboards

If a compact micro-ATX board has a lot of "empty" space, it often means limited options. Two RAM slots limit upgrades, the lack of VRM heatsinks threatens throttling and squeezes space for upgrades, and the lack of PCIe 4.0 or a second M.2 will force you to rely on slower SATA drives in the future.

Notable options: for AMD — Gigabyte B550M DS3H AC, for Intel — Gigabyte B760M DS3H DDR4, and for DDR5 — B760M DS3H AX.

Disposable Cases

When all the money goes into the hardware, it's easy to push the case into the background, but it's the quality of the materials that often spoils the impression. Thin metal vibrates from the fans and HDD, instead of tempered glass — acrylic, and dust filters — flimsy or not fixed at all, and expansion slots sometimes have to be "broken out" rather than unscrewed. Such a case is easy to bend and difficult to replace without unnecessary expenses.

For example: Cooler Master Q300L attracts with its price, but for +20 dollars the Q300L V2 model adds glass and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C, and for about 80 dollars the NZXT H3 Flow Mini provides better ventilation and small "pleasures" like screw caps.

PSUs with Too Many "Watts per Dollar"

A typical trap: the system will consume about 300 watts — so, won't a 480-watt PSU for USD 25 be enough? No, such a "noname" may not even have a connector for a video card.

In practice, the "average" output is only about 330 watts, of which about 130 watts are on the +12 V line (where the most powerful components are located), and without 80+ certification, there is no understanding of how much electricity the unit will "eat" to produce these modest figures.

The alarm signals when choosing a PSU are as follows:

• lack of 80+ certification;
• warranty less than 3 years;
• less than two 6+2-pin GPU connectors in a PSU rated at 500+ watts.

For about USD 40, the Thermaltake Smart 500W with 80+, two video card connectors, and a five-year warranty is already available — you shouldn't save money here.

The Wrong Graphics Card

If half of the budget goes to the GPU, it is important not to make a mistake with the model.

The "budget" market is often irrational: previously, the Radeon RX 6500 XT, with its only 4 PCIe lanes, noticeably slowed down on available platforms with PCIe 3.0 (and even now it is too slow for modern games).

A recent example is the Intel Arc B570: with a modern processor, it catches up with the more expensive Radeon RX 7600 and GeForce RTX 4060, but with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600, it starts to lag behind, and with an even weaker CPU, the gap will only grow.

It's better to get a more productive processor and an older Radeon RX 6600 than to "cut" the CPU for the sake of Arc.

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