An old Xeon CPU can be the cheapest start to your gaming PC

There are budget PCs, and then there are budget PCs. If you're on a mission to grab the cheapest gaming PC possible, you might want to look at old Xeon workstations. Intel's Xeon CPUs might not be relevant in the enterprise space anymore, but they're quite popular with hobbyists and home lab users. For gaming, they might seem an odd choice due to the outdated single-core performance, but they're surprisingly capable when compared to, say, 5-year-old consumer chips, such as the Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i5-12600K.