The creator behind the YouTube channel Code the Things recently built and tested the ‘Destitute’ tier of our main build chart, and made this awesome video about it!

The ‘Destitute’ Tier? For Gaming?

The ‘Destitute’ tier is the lowest level of our recommendations, and if you mouse over its name in the chart, you’ll notice that we rate it competent for light office work and little else. But Code the Things sets his sights higher: on gaming!

In fact, he’s very ambitious in testing the Athlon-based system, targeting 1080p (low settings) in a few recent AAA and online multiplayer games. Unsurprisingly for us, it doesn’t quite get smooth performance under those circumstances.

But with the state of the hardware market at the moment, we totally understand the urge to explore iGPU-based and budget building options for gaming. Thus, we should point out that we do think this system could suffice for an ultra-budget gaming rig—if one desires to play some older or lighter big-budget releases at 720p, single-player indie games, and 80s/90s emulated games.

And it sounds like Code the Things has identified one (potential) further use that a gamer could have for it: streaming games! No, he’s not talking about live streaming gameplay to a service like Twitch; he’s talking about server-side gaming, like what has been offered by Google Stadia and the like. So, if you want to catch that further round of tests, be sure to subscribe to his channel!

Conclusion

In closing, we love to see folks assembling and testing our builds, from the bottom of the chart to the top! And incidentally, the creator of this video also runs a Code the Things website where he posts all of his videos as well as other content. So if you love the video, you should check that out too.