What are the best budget CPUs for a $500 gaming build?

honestly man, i've been in your shoes so many times and that 500 dollar mark is the absolute hardest to hit without making a huge mistake somewhere. if you are looking at the 12100f vs the 5500, i would suggest going with the ryzen 5 5500 for a build this tight. while the i3 is a little monster for pure gaming speed, that 30 or 40 bucks you save on the motherboard side is basically the difference between getting a sketchy gpu and something decent like an rx 6600 if you find a good deal. just be careful with the am4 boards tho. if you grab a super cheap b450, you gotta make sure it has bios flashback or says ryzen 5000 ready on the box because you really dont want to be stuck with a dead pc on your brothers birthday cuz the bios is old. ive had that happen before and it totally sucks. for valorant specifically, you are gonna be hitting high frames either way, so the extra two cores on the 5500 might actually help more if he has discord or a bunch of chrome tabs open while playing. just watch out for the pcie 3.0 limitation on that chip, though it wont really matter for a budget gpu right now. i would personally stick to the 5500 and dump every single extra cent into the graphics card or a reliable power supply so the thing doesnt fry itself. staying under 500 is tough but definitely doable if you dont overspend on the motherboard.