$500 budget 1st time builder

[mevon]

Everyone,

I'm a 30 year old electrical engineer and I've been wanted to build my own PC for awhile. I'm better with troubleshooting electronics instead of designing them. My current PC is a Dell E521 AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+. I've been doing a lot of research and I can't decide on which platform to go with. I'm mainly going to use the pc for streaming/recording/editing (home movies) HD video, web browsing and some light/casual gaming (no online multiplayer games). I have a PS3 to do most of my gaming on. I wouldn't mind doing some light overclocking to increase performance. I want to get the most bang for my buck.

I already have:
19" LCD 1440x900 Dell monitor
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Cooler Master Centurion 5 case with window side panel (no PSU)
Keyboard/Mouse
Logitech USB stereo speakers

I have been trying to decide between AMD A8-3850/3870K, AMD FX-4100/6100, and Intel i5-3570K. My wife would like me to keep this build under $500. I can always add more items to the build later (Christmas list). I eventually want to get a tv tuner that I can use to record and watch on this PC. I want the main items to be reliable and last 4 -5 years. Could you give me some recommendations based on my needs. Maybe one of each platform and give me the benefits of each? I really appreciate your help with this.

I'm located in North Carolina. Would be ordering from Newegg and/or Amazon in probably 2-3 weeks unless you feel it would be better to wait for upcoming CPUs to be released. Thanks again.

mevon

 

[mfenn]

Can you give us some examples of what you consider to be "light/casual gaming"? Whether or not we need to include a GPU will have a pretty big impact on the overall structure of the build.

 

[mevon]

I don't currently play any PC games. I would like to be able to play games like dirt3 and batman arkham asylum. I also enjoy playing sports games.

 

[Ken g6]

So I assume you can wait for gaming on the PC until the Christmas list comes in? If so, take [thread=2192841]Mfenn's gaming build[/thread], remove the video card, case, and SSD, and you get a basic $500 build, but with a quite powerful CPU. Even the onboard graphics can do low-res gaming.

So, that's one approach. But how often are you really going to be encoding home movies? Does your software support Intel Quick Sync? Would its quality (medium, not high) be enough for your purposes? Would either using Quick Sync or waiting up to twice as long for video to encode without Quick Sync be worth saving over $100 for other bits now?

 

[mevon]

The HD encoding is a future endeavor, probably late next year once we get an HD video camera and start expanding our famliy.

 

[Ken g6]

OK, let me see if I understand you. What you meant to say is:

"I'm mainly going to use the pc for gaming (like dirt3 and batman arkham asylum, no online multiplayer games), but I don't want to admit that to the wife in case she reads this forum. I'll also be using this computer for web browsing. 12-18 months from now, I might use this computer for streaming/recording/editing (home movies) HD video, if I get an HD video camera."

OK, so here's my suggested build if that's correct:
CPU: i3 2120 $100 AP @TigerDirect
Mobo: ASRock B75M-GL $60
RAM: G-Skill 8GB $40
GPU: EVGA GTX 560 $150 AR
HDD: Crucial M4 128GB $90
DVD: Lite-On $18
PSU: Corsair CX500 $30 AR AP
Total: $488

Note: A couple of the promos end tomorrow or Wednesday!

Edit: Of course, you'll want a storage HDD later.

P.S. If you're considering AMD, read this review. Then realize that review comes from Tom's Hardware, which tends to be heavily biased toward AMD.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

? Get an ATI video card since crossfire is supported ?

 

[krnmastersgt]

Why does it matter that the board has Crossfire support? Does that mean when a board supports both CF and SLI I should get 1 of each?

Whether it's an nVidia or AMD card, the video card will perform just fine, and considering the budget of the card it would be far more wise to just upgrade to a much better card down the road as opposed to CFing 2 older/weaker cards.

Also +1 to Ken's build, that's great for the cost.

 

[mevon]

OK, let me see if I understand you. What you meant to say is:

"I'm mainly going to use the pc for gaming (like dirt3 and batman arkham asylum, no online multiplayer games), but I don't want to admit that to the wife in case she reads this forum. I'll also be using this computer for web browsing. 12-18 months from now, I might use this computer for streaming/recording/editing (home movies) HD video, if I get an HD video camera."

OK, so here's my suggested build if that's correct:
CPU: i3 2120 $100 AP @TigerDirect
Mobo: ASRock B75M-GL $60
RAM: G-Skill 8GB $40
GPU: EVGA GTX 560 $150 AR
HDD: Crucial M4 128GB $90
DVD: Lite-On $18
PSU: Corsair CX500 $30 AR AP
Total: $488

Note: A couple of the promos end tomorrow or Wednesday!

Edit: Of course, you'll want a storage HDD later.

P.S. If you're considering AMD, read this review. Then realize that review comes from Tom's Hardware, which tends to be heavily biased toward AMD.

That's fairly close, I'll mostly be using this to stream sports in HD over the cable so my wife can watch her shows on the livingroom tv and we can be in the same room. I have another tv in a spare bedroom, but she doesn't like it when I'm not in the same room with her in the evenings. And I would like to play some games at decent settings. It doesn't have to be the highest settings possible, just better than the Wii's graphics and close to the PS3's.

My wife will just be using this to browse the web, check her email, online banking, and watching tv shows and movies on HBO Go, Hulu.

I think that I will probably be able to get my wife to push the budget to at most $600. I won't be buying the parts until after August 9th.

Do you think the Coolermaster Centurion 5 case will work? I got the case off of a coworker for $15, it looked like it was a decent case.

 

[mevon]

Why does it matter that the board has Crossfire support? Does that mean when a board supports both CF and SLI I should get 1 of each?

Whether it's an nVidia or AMD card, the video card will perform just fine, and considering the budget of the card it would be far more wise to just upgrade to a much better card down the road as opposed to CFing 2 older/weaker cards.

Also +1 to Ken's build, that's great for the cost.

I don't plan on using more than 1 discrete video card, so CF and SLI are irrelevant at this point.

 

[Ken g6]

? Get an ATI video card since crossfire is supported ?

I picked nVidia for two reasons, aside from this card being a good value. First, more video editing software supports CUDA than supports OpenCL. And second, the Batman game Mevon mentioned uses PhysX.

The case is fine, and $15 for pretty much any case is a very good deal.

 

[mevon]

I think I can get my wife to agree on a budget of no more than $600. What improvements would you suggest?

I could wait to game on this until the christmas list comes in. I don't game a whole lot in the summer with yard work, golf and going to the beach.

 

[Ken g6]

I think I can get my wife to agree on a budget of no more than $600. What improvements would you suggest?

I could wait to game on this until the christmas list comes in. I don't game a whole lot in the summer with yard work, golf and going to the beach.

So I assume you can wait for gaming on the PC until the Christmas list comes in? If so, take [thread=2192841]Mfenn's gaming build[/thread], remove the video card, case, and SSD, and you get a basic $500 build, but with a quite powerful CPU. Even the onboard graphics can do low-res gaming.

If you have $600, and don't want to game until Xmas, just add the SSD back in. If that's too much, since you're not storing huge amounts of video data now, the HDD could wait until Xmas. You could even remove 1 stick of RAM if you need to. Other nVidia video cards should be available by then, too.

This is a build that you can add lots of stuff onto later:
- GPU
- a bigger monitor
- aftermarket heat sink for overclocking
- more RAM if you really need to. (You probably won't.)
- all sorts of peripherals and add-ons, like a TV tuner.