BUDGET $350 Ryzen 3 Raven Ridge Gaming PC - Entry Level 1080p Gaming!

AMD's Raven Ridge lineup continues the APU tradition by offering excellent pricing, performance, and a great upgrade path for PC gamers.  Now it's my turn to help you out with this great $350 Ryzen 3 Raven Ridge PC build guide.  Let's get right into it! 

APU - AMD Ryzen 3 2200G - $99 | Amazon | Newegg

The Ryzen 3 2200G comes with 4 solid cores and has a clock speed of 3.5GHz out of the box.  It has an unlocked multiplier so overclocking is going to be easy when paired with the right AM4 motherboard.  It has a Vega 8 GPU onboard so the user can game easily at 1080p Low-Medium settings with a steady 30FPS or more in the latest titles.  You can upgrade to a discreet graphics card easily in the future because the built in CPU is quite powerful and can handle most GPUs up to the RX 570 and GTX 1060 level.

Motherboard - ASRock AB350M-HDV - $65 | Amazon | Newegg

This is an excellent mid range motherboard that has all of the essentials like 2 RAM slots, 4 SATA ports, an M.2 slot, and USB 3 headers.  The MicroATX form factor allows for a feature filled but budget friendly motherboard.   It's also important to note that the B350 chipset on this will allow for overclocking on all Ryzen CPUs including the Ryzen 3 2200G that we have in this PC.

RAM - G.Skill NT 8GB - $89 | Newegg

In an APU PC, RAM is important because the integrated graphics has no dedicated VRAM.  So, it is important to pick a RAM kit at a higher clockspeed when possible and with more channels.

With this in mind, I chose this RAM kit because it is a dual channel kit that comes clocked at 2400MHz.  Since this is a budget build, it isn't possible to go crazy with RAM, especially due to the noticeably high pricing.  But, a dual channel kit is definitely worth the extra few bucks and offers a lot more bandwidth for your graphics.  Also, 8GB is the perfect amount for gaming in all of the latest Triple A titles and will be good enough for a while. 

Storage - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB - $49 | Amazon | Newegg

This hard drive will be able to store all of your games, movies, and media files without an issue.  It's an average hard drive so speeds will be decent for gamers.  If you ever need more storage, adding in a second hard drive or an SSD is easy and an option.

Case - Rosewill FBM X1 - $20 | Newegg

Budget cases tend to be boring and cheap feeling, but this stands out.  It comes with 2x USB 3 ports, a side panel window, and a compact design.  It looks very appealing, especially since it has a brushed aluminum piece on the front panel.  Building inside this will be a little tight, especially since space behind the motherboard is limited.  Even then, this will give the impression of a case that is $10-$15 more than its current price.

PSU - Corsair VS400 - $38 | Newegg

This is a budget unit that can handle this APU and some overclocking with ease.  It also has an 80+ white certification so it will turn at least 80% of the power that it draws from the wall into energy for your PC rather than heat.  This PSU also leaves room for upgrades to a GPU like an RX 570 or GTX 1060 in the future which is nice if you want some options in the future.

Benchmarks

Here are some detailed benchmarks for a variety of games. All framerates are the average.  (Source video)

• Fornite | 1080p High | 23FPS
• Overwatch | 1080p High | 52FPS 
• Player's Unkown Battlegrounds | 1080p Medium | 23FPS
• GTA: V | 1080p Normal | 44FPS

If you guys have any questions make sure to let me know by replying below.  Thank you!

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