07/21/2020 $1,000 Black and Classy Build List

Going full RTX 2060 Super today. We are about $150 above budget but I believe it is worth it. If you absolutely have to be at $1,000 I would substitute in a 1660ti.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($166.90 @ Amazon*) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 Gaming X ATX AM4 Motherboard ($149.22 @ Amazon*) 

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB DDR4-3600 CL18 ($65.98 @ Amazon*) 

Storage: Patriot VPN100 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME SSD ($79.98 @ Amazon*) 

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM HDD($58.04 @ Amazon*) 

Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB VENTUS GP OC Video Card ($442.28 @ Amazon*)

Case: NZXT H510 ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Amazon*) 

Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 500 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($79.31 @ Amazon*) 

Case Fan: (2) be quiet! Silent Wings 3 140 mm Fans ($30.90 @ Amazon*) GRAB 2!!

Custom: LEDdess PWM Fan Splitter Cable 1to3 Ways ($5.50 @ Amazon*) 

Optional: EDUP WiFi and Bluetooth Adapter PCI-E ($29.99 @ Amazon*) 

Total: $1157.07**

Write up:

CPU: 

I went with the 3600 because it is a 6 core 12 thread beast of a chip for under $200

Motherboard: 

I went with the Gigabyte because of the price and features. Not to mention it’s actually in stock today.

Memory: 

A fox list wouldn’t be complete without at least 16GB of memory and the G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB rips along at 3600mhz ensuring the CPU isn’t RAM bottlenecked

Storage: 

As always for this price point, I am pairing a 512GB NVME with a 2TB HDD. Put your system and programs on the NVME and put your files and games on the HDD and yes, this NVME has DRAM

Video Card: 

I went with the 2060 Super because it is a great price to performance option. Yes, better performance can be found for the same price with an AMD card but with their instability issues I can not in good faith recommend a card that I would not put in a personal or client build.*** Not to mention the Turing NVENC Chip for you streamers. 

Case: 

Most of you know by now that I love the NZXT H510. I love putting 2 140mm fans in the front and having a nice positive pressure case that will help to keep the dust-out. Yes, there has been testing that shows that the stock cooling set up with negative pressure using only the 2 stock 120mm fans as exhausts runs cool and that adding 2 140mm fans from the front doesn’t add much in the way of cooling. But, I see it as worth the extra $20 as keeping dust out of the case keeps things cool longer and with less cleaning and more gaming.

Power Supply: 

When I saw the price for this semi-modular PSU I couldn’t not put it on the list.

Case Fans: 

I love be quiet! fans. Make sure to grab 2 for the front of your case and when you install them make sure the arrow in the fan points toward your motherboard. 

Conclusion: 

This is a solid Gaming PC that will run most titles on Medium to High settings.

*Post contains Amazon Associate links.

**Based on the prices and availability at the time of writing. Pricing and availability changes minute by minute.

***AMD has reportedly fixed their driver issues. We will not be including them in builds for a while to make sure the issue is truly fixed.