Budget PC Upgrade for Data Science & Light Gaming ($500 budget, some parts owned)
I intend to use this build for programming (Java, Python), data analytics work (R, SQL), and light gaming (I've been wanting to play Baldur's Gate 3 and Paradox Interactive's Battletech). The build will be running Debian Linux.
Gaming game settings do not have to be max. Just playable. I'm not knowledgeable enough about gaming to answer questions like frame rate.
Budget is roughly $500.
I'm in the United States.
Draft Parts List:
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, ~ $150
MSI GeForce 1080 Armor GPU, $0 (already own; hand-me-down from a friend)
Corsair HW850, $0, (already own; hand-me-down from a a friend)
TEAMGROUP MP44L 1TB M.2 SSD, ~$75 (nervous about this one, I know there is a lot of scam storage devices online, I've never bought M.2 storage before)
Cooler Master Cosmos 1000, $0 (already own; hand-me-down from a friend)
Estimated current cost: $450 USD
I've got about a $500 budget. The GPU is non-negotiable, I'm not into gaming enough to justify spending the insane amount of cash that GPUs cost. My minimal research indicates that the GeForce 1080 will run Baldur's Gate 3 just fine.
I'm currently running an AMD Athlon A4-9400 with 8GB of RAM, and I'm starting to see performance issues with basic tasks. I'm basically looking for a cost-effective upgrade that will last me for 3-5 years. I'm a data scientist professional and grad student, so I need to be able to crunch large datasets with efficiency, but I'm not going to be training AI models on this machine or anything.