Budget 1080p gaming build
The cheapest sensible way into PC gaming
1080p gaming, studying, office work
AMD
AM4
A mature, inexpensive platform with a huge parts pool
AMDMature
- Launched
- 2016
- Support through
- 2025
- Memory
- DDR4
- PCIe
- PCIe 4.0
- Cooler mount
- AM4
- Chipsets
- 4
AM4 was AMD's desktop foundation for six years and saw five CPU generations. Its remaining strength is price: boards, DDR4 memory and second-hand CPUs cost far less than their AM5 equivalents, and the gaming performance gap is often narrower than the generation numbers suggest.
The limitation is that it goes nowhere. Buying AM4 today means buying a closed system — the next CPU upgrade will also mean a new board and new memory.
Chipsets
| Chipset | Tier | Overclocking | Read more |
|---|---|---|---|
| X570 | Flagship | CPU and memory | The only AM4 chipset with PCIe 4.0 throughout. Some boards use an actively cooled chipset fan. |
| B550 | Mainstream | CPU and memory | The sweet spot on AM4: PCIe 4.0 for the GPU and primary NVMe, with no chipset fan. |
| B450 | Budget | CPU and memory | Cheap and common, but PCIe 3.0 only. Check the BIOS version before pairing it with a newer CPU. |
| A520 | Budget | None | No CPU overclocking. Only sensible in the cheapest office-grade builds. |