Budget build off, $500 cap, post your parts list, build over the next month

[Millie82]

Running a genuine budget build off on this board. Hard cap of 500 dollars total for the entire build, everyone posts their planned parts list, then actually builds and posts progress over the coming month before a final reveal at the end.

The 500 dollar cap includes literally everything. Case, power supply, storage, memory, the works, no exceptions for parts you might already have lying around unless you're genuinely willing to price them in as if bought new specifically for this build.

Post your planned parts list first so people can actually weigh in before you commit to buying anything. Sometimes a second pair of eyes catches an obvious bottleneck or a better value swap before money's actually spent on the wrong specific part.

Once you're building, post progress shots along the way. And at the end we'll do a proper final reveal thread with actual benchmark numbers so everyone can see how differently people approached the exact same tight budget.

This is as much about creative problem solving under a genuine real constraint as it is about raw specs. So don't stress about matching anyone else's build, the actual fun here is seeing how differently ten people solve the exact same $500 problem