For my 5th build of 2020, I have the Budget RGB Experiment #3. This is the third build I've created where I take some old parts and use some RGB bling to make a decent entry level Fortnite machine. Here's the breakdown of how I got everything under $300.

CPU / Motherboard

The i7-920 and Asus motherboard came as a combo I found on Craigslist for $75. Normally I would swap out the i7 for a 6 core Xeon, but for this budget built I wanted to keep costs as low as possible so I kept the CPU. This combo actually overclocked to 3.6ghz easily without any hassle.

CPU Cooler

Unlike previous iterations of the Budget RGB Experiment, I actually used a decent cooler for this build. The reason is that at stock, the i7-920 would be fairly weak for 1080p gaming, and not overclocking it would leave too much performance on the table. Thus, I finally used the Hyper 212 Black I got on sale for $25 that I've been saving. I actually love the way this cooler looks and performs, and will probably stock up next time Cooler Master does a flash sale again.

Ram

Just needed some cheap DDR3-1333 ram and these came from a separate X58 system that I upgraded.

SSD

I stocked up on these Micro Center drives for only $24 each in early 2019. These Inland drives are now ~$36 on Amazon in 2020. Kinda crazy.

Video Card

I'll always love these triple fan Windforce cards from Gigabyte. I picked up this one from a redditor to fill out the case we have.

Case

I got a killer deal on this case during Black Friday sales. Last year they had the Matrexx 55 on sale, so seeing the Matrexx 70 on sale is even nicer.

Case Fans

These Uphere RGB fans from Amazon look absolutely amazing for the price. In my opinion the white color is definitely the best and I'll be buying the white ones instead of RGB in the future.

PSU

Probably the worst part of this build. The unit has TERRIBLE coil whine, and the wiring inside the PSU interferes with the fan spinning and makes audible noise. Absolutely avoid this PSU at all costs and get yourself an EVGA BR 600 instead.

Conclusion

This build was always going to be a quick flip for $400. As long Fortnite can run on these older 4 core CPUs and 2GB of VRAM, these kinds of budget machines will always be in demand. In early 2020, there are even more i7-920/X58 combo deals so finding similar deals to mine are easier than ever. I think this is the best looking build of the series so far. Thanks for reading and see you in the next one