So, you've got a small budget but you want to build something able to game on? Below you will find my recommendation on a budget build along with explanations to why you should buy each of the parts.
CPU
AMD Ryzen 3 1200
GPU
ZOTAC GTX 1060 3GB Mini
RAM
1x8GB CORSAIR Vengeange LPX 2400Mhz
Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-AB350-Gaming 3
Storage
Seagate Firecuda 1TB 7200rpm SSHD
Power Supply
SEASONIC M12II Evo 520W 80+ Bronze
Case
CORSAIR Spec-02
First of all click here to see the Pcpartpicker price for the build (at the moment of building the price was €639.50)
Now with the parts presented, it is time to explain more about why I suggest them.
For the CPU I picked the Ryzen 3 1200 as the best Intel alternatives are still 2 core CPUs and for the coffee lake series there are only high-end motherboards available. the 1200 should provide some overclocking room and decent gaming performance even though it loses in single threaded performance by a small margin but since most games use 4+ cores nowadays it makes it a better pick than an Pentium or an i3 Kaby Lakes which are 2c(4t at best)*. Also as a bonus, AMD promised 4 years of am4 socket support so you can upgrade the CPU to a newer generation without having to change the board.
I picked the Zotac GTX 1060 3GB mini as the price for Zotac cards is usually lower but still offers a decent quality cooling and reliability. the GTX 1060 3GB should be enough to run modern games at ultra details at more respectable frames and should be quite good for a few years. An alternative would have been the AMD RX580 4gb but due to the summer mining hype the prices are still high and for trading blows with this card it is not worth the extra money.
Probably your question still is why I picked only 8GB of memory instead of 16GB. Well due to the steady increase in memory price, 16GB have ended up at around €200+/- and we're focusing on a budget build. You can always add another 8GB later as there are plenty of games that can still easily handle 8GB of memory. Ryzen usually benefits from higher frequency so if you find 3000Mhz(sweetspot) vengeance lpx sticks close to the price of the 2400mhz stick go for that as it will help you. There is one last thing I want to say about the memory and that is to stick to the vengeance LPX if possible as they usually offer the best compatibility with the am4 chips.
While usually a fan of ASUS motherboards, it is hard to pick anything else than the Gigabyte GA-AB350 motherboard in this price range. It's a quality board that can handle some good overclocking, a decent bios interface and overall where i checked a better price than ASUS/MSI equivalents. You can probably get an Asrock board at a similar price but they are not the most reliable brand in my opinion and experience. I could have gone for an A320 chipset but we would have lost the overclocking and this board should be good for switching to a Ryzen5 CPU and overclocking it as well.
Some of you might have been expecting to see an SSD for storage but trying to keep under €700 and also get some decent storage space made me pick the 1TB Firecuda hybrid. I've been using and recommending Seagate SSHDs for a while now as an alternative to HDDs. The reason is that you will still get a faster boot speed and faster load times to the most used applications while still having a lot of storage space to spare.
Where's the Corsair/Evga psu? Well plenty of reviews and forums later and a few situations from personal experience made me use Seasonic PSUs. They usually tend to perform better than their rating, the bronze ones have a 5year warranty and well this one while having some room for a future part upgrade, it's also fully modular. Need I say more?
And last but not least the Spec-02 case from Corsair. It has a solid build quality, it's a mid-tower with potential for high airflow. It only comes with 2 120mm fans but you can fit up to 2x 140mm fans in the front, one 120mm below, 2x120mm above and one 120mm behind. The case is quite spacious for its price and it allows you to fit a 120mm radiator as well. Of course if you can afford to spend 40euros more on a case I would recommend you to go for the 300r from corsair. They aren't the flashiest cases around but for their price they do offer more customization options on the inside.
As a bonus, for ~€40 you can get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED Turbo CPU Cooler that has out of the box AM4 compatibility(unlike the 212 EVO) and will cool your Ryzen CPU way better than the stock cooler,thing which would help you more if you want to overclock. I recommend it as it is a a fairly cheap cooler that really offers some great cooling for its value. I didn't include it as part of the main build as it is not mandatory, it's as I said, a bonus.
I hope this Build suggestion will help you pick your new computer under €700
*
c-cores
t-threads
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