putting together a budget pc for college and light gaming

A route that works well on a tight budget: buy a Ryzen with built-in graphics (the ones ending in G) and skip the graphics card for now. It handles uni work fine and the lighter games at low settings, then you add a used GPU later when money allows. Whatever you pick: - 16GB RAM as two sticks, not one, it makes a real difference on built-in graphics - an NVMe SSD, 1TB if you can stretch to it - don't cheap out on the power supply, a known brand around 550-650W covers a mid-range card later - a basic B-series motherboard is plenty What games are you hoping to run? That decides whether the G chip is enough or you need a card from day one.