07/24/2020 $500 APU Workstation/Home PC

For the $500 build today I will be focusing on workstations. This will not be a gaming build and will not have dedicated graphics.

CPU: 

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($149.88 @ Amazon*)

The 3400g is one of the best APUs currently on the market. It has 4 cores and 8 threads which will support almost any workload the average consumer will throw at it and then some.

 

Motherboard: 

ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($92.98 @ Amazon*) 

This ASRock motherboard is a budget option that checks the boxes we need. It has 2 memory slots supporting a max of 32GB at DDR4-3200 which is more than we need for this build.

Memory: 

G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory  ($55.99 @ Amazon*)

This memory is another budget pick. I wanted to make sure we had 16GB of ram so that nothing was bottlenecked when you’re working those 100 Chrome Tabs.

 

Storage: 

Patriot VPN100 256 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($49.99 @ Amazon*)

I was really happy to be able to fit this in here. I was tempted to throw in the cheapest HP NVME I could find but this wound up being an excellent option as not only is it NVME but it also has a 512MB Cache which is double what you would usually find in a 256GB SSD. The larger DRAM ensures the system runs as fast as possible.

 

Storage: 

Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($58.00 @ Amazon*) 

I went with the Seagate because right now the price to performance it can’t be beat. 2TB for under $60.

Case: 

Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($40.99 @ Amazon*) 

This case is a great value for the price. I have builtin many of these cases and while it is a bit tight everything does work well.

Power Supply:

Power Supply: EVGA BQ 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($67.70 @ Amazon*) 

Back to a name brand PSU for the list today. The 500w leaves plenty of overhead for future upgrades.

Total: $515.53**

*Post contains Amazon Associate links.

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