The Boson: A Killer Little Gaming PC for $300
Kind: captionsLanguage: en
Who says you have to spend a ton of money on a gaming PC? Meet the Boson and see what you can do for just $300.
I’ve done a lot of gaming PC builds and people are always asking for cheaper and cheaper options. Now while it's totally possible to build yourself a computer for very cheap, however the gaming part of gaming PC is kind of important.
With the Boson you’re looking at a $300 PC that’s not only very easy to build but can also handle nearly any game you throw at it. Jump into Bioshock Infinite and we’re looking at a totally playable 41 frames per second on medium at 720p. Move over to Grid2 and you can notch the settings up to medium at 1080p and still get just over 36 FPS.
With League of Legends you can keep the graphics maximed at 1080p and still see frame rates in the 40s with occasional dips into the 30s. Minecraft also works fine as long as you turn the render distance down a bit, popping Vsync on can help smooth things out as well. Finally run the Boson through the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark and you’ll see it stacks up fairly well against many of my much more expensive builds.
Now don’t expect to crush games at 4K with the Boson however most games are perfectly playable at 720p or even 1080p in some cases. Powering the build is AMD’s new Athlon 5350 APU. This features a quad core CPU clocked at just over two gigahertz, hardly something to blow you away but it’s enough for most games.
It also contains decent onboard graphics which while we aren’t using them for this build if gaming really isn’t your priority you could actually skip the dedicated graphics card and bring the entire price of the Boson down to less than $250.
Speaking of the graphics card, the Asus Radeon R7 240 is what turns the Boson into an actual gaming PC. With two gigabytes of DDR3 memory in a single slot, low powered package the 240 gives quite a bit more gaming performance to the build.
Paired with our APU the R7 240 strikes a nice balance between performance and price. Putting it all together we have a Gigabyte AM1M-S2H motherboard. Like most AM1 boards you won’t find a lot of extra features although you do have a pair of SATA3 ports along with two USB 3.0 ports built-in.
One nice thing about this build is that while the Athlon 5350 is the highest end APU for this platform at the moment it should support future upgrades of even faster APUs a little later on. For memory we’re using four gigabytes of Crucial Ballistix Sport memory. Clocked at 1600 megahertz this is the fastest stuff our build supports out of the box and should be enough for most any game the Boson can handle.
Like the APU though you can feel free to upgrade this to eight or even sixteen gigabytes of RAM later on. With one terabyte of capacity the Seagate Barracuda hard drive gives you plenty of storage for games, pictures, video and whatever else you want to keep on your PC.
One of my favorite parts of building your own computer is that you can customize basically everything and the hard drive is no exception. So if you like you can always add a second hard drive to the build or even an SSD if you like. For the case we’re using a Rosewill FBM-01. This is a MicroATX chassis with a front 120mm fan and an 80mm exhaust fan around back.
You’ve also got the usual things like USB and audio jacks up front along with a built-in 450 watt power supply. I usually don’t like to use power supplies built into cases however since the entire Boson only requires just over 60 watts of power it’s not going to be a problem at all.
Anyway guys thank you so much watching and I will catch you in the next one!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enWho says you have to spend a ton of moneyon a gaming PC? Meet the Boson and see whatyou can do for just $300.I’ve done a lot of gaming PC builds andpeople are always asking for cheaper and cheaperoptions. Now while it's totally possible tobuild yourself a computer for very cheap howeverthe gaming part of gaming PC is kind of important.With the Boson you’re looking at a $300PC that’s not only very easy to build butit can also handle nearly any game you throwat it. Jump into Bioshock Infinite and we’relooking at a totally playable 41 frames persecond on medium at 720p. Move over to Grid2 and you can notch the settings up to mediumat 1080p and still get just over 36 FPS. WithLeague of Legends you can keep the graphicsmaxed at 1080p and still see frame rates inthe 40s with occasional dips into the 30s.Minecraft also works fine as long as you turnthe render distance down a bit, popping Vsyncon can help smooth things out as well. Finallyrun the Boson through the 3DMark Fire Strikebenchmark and you’ll see it stacks up fairlywell against many of my much more expensivebuilds. Now don’t expect to crush gamesat 4K with the Boson however most games areperfectly playable at 720p or even 1080p insome cases. Powering the build is AMD’snew Athlon 5350 APU. This features a quadcore CPU clocked at just over two gigahertz,hardly something to blow you away but it’senough for most games. It also contains decentonboard graphics which while we aren’t usingthem for this build if gaming really isn’tyour priority you could actually skip thededicated graphics card and bring the entireprice of the Boson down to less than $250.Speaking of the graphics card, the Asus RadeonR7 240 is what turns the Boson into an actualgaming PC. With two gigabytes of DDR3 memoryin a single slot, low powered package the240 gives quite a bit more gaming performanceto the build. Paired with our APU the R7 240strikes a nice balance between performanceand price. Putting it all together we havea Gigabyte AM1M-S2H motherboard. Like mostAM1 boards you won’t find a lot of extrafeatures although you do have a pair of SATA3 ports along with two USB 3.0 ports built-in.One nice thing about this build is that whilethe Athlon 5350 is the highest end APU forthis platform at the moment it should supportfuture upgrades of even faster APUs a littlelater on. For memory we’re using four gigabytesof Crucial Ballistix Sport memory. Clockedat 1600 megahertz this is the fastest stuffour build supports out of the box and shouldbe enough for most any game the Boson canhandle. Like the APU though you can feel freeto upgrade this to eight or even sixteen gigabytesof RAM later on. With 1 terabyte of capacitythe Seagate Barracuda hard drive gives youplenty of storage for games, pictures, videoand whatever else you want to keep on yourPC. One of my favorite parts of building yourown computer is that you can customize basicallyeverything and the hard drive is no exception.So if you like you can always add a secondhard drive to the build or even an SSD ifyou like. For the case we’re using a RosewillFBM-01. This is a MicroATX chassis with afront 120mm fan and an 80mm exhaust fan aroundback. You’ve also got the usual things likeUSB and audio jacks up front along with abuilt-in 450 watt power supply. I usuallydon’t like to use power supplies built intocases however since the entire Boson onlyrequires just over 60 watts at load it shouldbe just fine. All together for $300 you’regetting a killer little gaming build. Of courseprices change all the time so I will havea link in the description which goes overall the different parts of the build. AlsoI did a full tutorial showing you step bystep how to put the entire Boson togetherfrom scratch so if you guys want to see thatthat link will also be in the descriptionof this video. Anyway guys I’ve got to givea huge shoutout to Audible for making thisvideo possible! Audible.com is a leading providerof audiobooks with more than 150,000 downloadabletitles across all types of literature, includingfiction, non-fiction and periodicals. Rightnow Audible is offering a free audiobook ifyou try them out and that includes the excellentA Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin. I’ma huge fan of the Game of Thrones books andTV show and A Feast for Crows is easily oneof my favorite books in the series. To downloadA Feast for Crows or another audiobook forfree just head over to audible.com/austin!Audible has always been a huge supporter ofthe channel so if you want to keep seeinggaming PC videos like this definitely be sureto go to audible.com/austin and give thema shot! Anyway guys thank you so much watchingand I will catch you in the next one!\n"
