The 1050 Ti came out like 8 years ago and was around $150 new the year before the 20-series released (I know because that’s when I got mine). You can get one used nowadays for less on eBay, though you probably shouldn’t if you’re building a new PC (unless the reason is you spent your full budget on everything else and just need a good enough stopgap).
I’d be very surprised if the integrated GPU performance of AMD’s last gen 5600G / 5700G isn’t enough to play most modern indie games acceptably, and for a budget desktop build, that’s the route I’d recommend looking at first. Its iGPU isn’t as good as the 1050 Ti, though - it’s about halfway between the laptop 1050 and the 1030.
I find that most games run acceptably on the Steam Deck and every indie game I’ve tried runs great on it. Its iGPU performance is supposed to be closer to the 1050, though (but its CPU performance compared to the 5600G is much lower). Admittedly, that’s at lower resolutions than I play on my desktop PC, but still, grabbing a Steam Deck + dock and playing at 720-1080p is a viable option for gamers today.
The 1050 Ti came out like 8 years ago and was around $150 new the year before the 20-series released (I know because that’s when I got mine). You can get one used nowadays for less on eBay, though you probably shouldn’t if you’re building a new PC (unless the reason is you spent your full budget on everything else and just need a good enough stopgap).
I’d be very surprised if the integrated GPU performance of AMD’s last gen 5600G / 5700G isn’t enough to play most modern indie games acceptably, and for a budget desktop build, that’s the route I’d recommend looking at first. Its iGPU isn’t as good as the 1050 Ti, though - it’s about halfway between the laptop 1050 and the 1030.
I find that most games run acceptably on the Steam Deck and every indie game I’ve tried runs great on it. Its iGPU performance is supposed to be closer to the 1050, though (but its CPU performance compared to the 5600G is much lower). Admittedly, that’s at lower resolutions than I play on my desktop PC, but still, grabbing a Steam Deck + dock and playing at 720-1080p is a viable option for gamers today.