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Attention System Builders: Updated 4/27/14

It's not exactly $400. The board is $59 ($54 AR), the RAM is $43, the graphics card has a $15 rebate, the case is $40, and the PSU is $40 ($20 AR). Total is $422 ($382 AR) plus shipping, if you have to pay for it.

It's very decent for a $400 PC though.
 
I've been trying to build an equivalent Intel system, but PCPartPicker keeps giving me expired deals. 🙁

Edit: What the heck, if NewYorksFinest can include fuzzy math, I can include PCPartPicker's fuzzy math. :twisted:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($118.93 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ECS B85H3-M3(1.0) Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($49.79 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($30.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R7 260X 1GB Video Card ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($37.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($19.99 @ Micro Center)
Total: $399.68
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-08 15:13 EDT-0400)

Anyway, you can swap in this R7 260X for the same $100 (AR).

Your case has also gone up in price, but Micro Center has your PSU cheaper, so it's all good.
 
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lehtv said:
It's not exactly $400. The board is $59 ($54 AR), the RAM is $43, the graphics card has a $15 rebate, the case is $40, and the PSU is $40 ($20 AR). Total is $422 ($382 AR) plus shipping, if you have to pay for it.

It's very decent for a $400 PC though.
Click to expand...

I know...I wanted to do the math in a second so I just rounded the prices.
 
NewYorksFinest said:
Meh, AMD has really improved and performance is very unnoticeable with this CPU and an i3-4130 IMO.
Click to expand...

AnandTech needs to update its Bench - neither processor is included! 🙁 But every other comparison I found preferred the i3-4130.

Of course, this depends on how much the 750k is overclocked. But given that your build doesn't include an aftermarket HSF, I'd say it won't be overclocked very far.
 
Ken g6 said:
AnandTech needs to update its Bench - neither processor is included! 🙁 But every other comparison I found preferred the i3-4130.

Of course, this depends on how much the 750k is overclocked. But given that your build doesn't include an aftermarket HSF, I'd say it won't be overclocked very far.
Click to expand...

Another thing is this is a BUDGET build. If I did go the Intel path, it would be ~$500, plus Intel has much pricier motherboards.
 
Ken g6 said:
AnandTech needs to update its Bench - neither processor is included! 🙁 But every other comparison I found preferred the i3-4130.

Of course, this depends on how much the 750k is overclocked. But given that your build doesn't include an aftermarket HSF, I'd say it won't be overclocked very far.
Click to expand...

Depends a little bit on use I guess.

For single core stuff the Intel looks to be 40% faster or so. For truly multicore work the AMD almost catches up. It's significantly less expensive though, so in terms of squeezing it into a $400 build he may have a point.

Given a sufficient budget, or if single core work is of primary importance, the Intel would be preferable.
 
DSF said:
Depends a little bit on use I guess.

For single core stuff the Intel looks to be 40% faster or so. For truly multicore work the AMD almost catches up. It's significantly less expensive though, so in terms of squeezing it into a $400 build he may have a point.

Given a sufficient budget, or if single core work is of primary importance, the Intel would be preferable.
Click to expand...

In builds around $200-$600, the "bulk" of your budget should be going to the GPU if being used for gaming. Anyways, the Athlon X4-750K is only about 5-10% slower IMO; overclocked matches performance the same as Core i3-4340 IMO.
 
Anyways, the Athlon X4-750K is only about 5-10% slower IMO
Click to expand...

The 750k is a great choice for a tight budget gaming CPU, but your assessment is almost certainly incorrect. They're equal clockspeeds and haswell is about 30-40% faster clock-for-clock than piledriver in single-threaded applications. And the i3 has an L3 cache.

overclocked matches performance the same as Core i3-4340 IMO.
Click to expand...
If you can get the athlon to between 4.4 and 4.7 or so, it may well catch up, but that's a pretty substantial OC, and hardly guaranteed.
 
Essence_of_War said:
The 750k is a great choice for a tight budget gaming CPU, but your assessment is almost certainly incorrect. They're equal clockspeeds and haswell is about 30-40% faster clock-for-clock than piledriver in single-threaded applications. And the i3 has an L3 cache.


If you can get the athlon to between 4.4 and 4.7 or so, it may well catch up, but that's a pretty substantial OC, and hardly guaranteed.
Click to expand...

I said "In my own opinion." It felt like 5-10% faster with my experiences.

The Athlon X4-750K starts at 3.4Ghz. I overclocked it to 4.1Ghz with aftermarket cooler. The 3.8Ghz Athlon 760K can be overclocked to 4.5Ghz. Again, I said "In my opinion."
 
I said "In my own opinion." It felt like 5-10% faster with my experiences.
...
Again, I said "In my opinion."
Click to expand...

You can get yourself into all kinds of trouble mixing and matching qualitative and quantitative descriptions of things. No one has a clue what 5-10% "feels like" to you if your 5-10% doesn't match with some quantifiable value of 5-10%. Why would you throw out a specific claim and then immediately walk it back with "IMO"? If you don't know, or you don't have any way of measuring, it's probably not a great idea to just make up a number.

It sounds like what you're actually saying is that you don't notice a difference, and that's a reasonable opinion, and depending on your workload or your game and settings of choice, I could accept and/or agree with that.
 
NewYorksFinest said:
I have received 5 private messages for me to do this... Note: When I do this again, the $400 build will be gone. The newer build will remain; this build will go until I do it again.

What This PC Can Be Used For: Moderate Gaming, Internet, PDF/Document Editing, Light Photo Editing, etc.

Other: This PC is very upgradeable. When you can afford it, you can add an SSD, or upgrade graphics card. Also, you can add an aftermarket cooler as this CPU is overclockable.

Specs:
AMD Athlon X4-750K: $80
MSI FM2-A75MA-E35: $60
4GB Crucial Ballistix Sport Memory: $40
1TB WD Blue: $60
Sapphire Radeon 7770 Ghz Edition: $100
NZXT Source 210: $30
Corsair 430W: $30

Total: ~$400.00

Note: This PC doesnt include peripherals, monitors, or Windows.

Edit: Feel free to post deals, sales, etc.
Click to expand...

Very interesting build... I am considering going in this direction.
 
Ken g6 said:
I've been trying to build an equivalent Intel system, but PCPartPicker keeps giving me expired deals. 🙁

Edit: What the heck, if NewYorksFinest can include fuzzy math, I can include PCPartPicker's fuzzy math. :twisted:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($118.93 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ECS B85H3-M3(1.0) Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($49.79 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($30.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R7 260X 1GB Video Card ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($37.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($19.99 @ Micro Center)
Total: $399.68
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-08 15:13 EDT-0400)

Anyway, you can swap in this R7 260X for the same $100 (AR).

Your case has also gone up in price, but Micro Center has your PSU cheaper, so it's all good.
Click to expand...

Meh, I onl like buying all my parts from 1 website. I dont like shopping on 75 different websites to buy parts.
 
Thread is back! Anyways, I are doing some changes. It takes less than 5 minutes to do these builds, and due to the amount, I might switch to Daily builds. I will do a different build every day. Also, for next weeks build (or tommorows build,) should i do a mini-ITX build or $1500 build? Thanks for your input!
 
NewYorksFinest said:
Thread is back! Anyways, I are doing some changes. It takes less than 5 minutes to do these builds, and due to the amount, I might switch to Daily builds. I will do a different build every day. Also, for next weeks build (or tommorows build,) should i do a mini-ITX build or $1500 build? Thanks for your input!
Click to expand...

It should take you more than 5 minutes if you're doing a thorough job of evaluating all options. I'd recommend sticking with the same topic ($400 build) for a while so that you keep some consistency and learn the space.
 
NewYorksFinest said:
I onl like buying all my parts from 1 website.
Click to expand...

mfenn said:
It should take you more than 5 minutes if you're doing a thorough job of evaluating all options.
Click to expand...

This is very good advice, OP. You miss a lot of excellent deals if you lock yourself into one retailer. If you keep your eyes peeled, you'll start to notice that sales often rotate through retailers. So while item A and item B may never be on sale at the same time from retailer X, item A might be on sale at X while B is on sale at Y! Diversifying retailers can provide the consumer with the best return on their dollar, something you should be pursuing if you're trying to help others optimize a $400 budget.
 
Okay, so here is my next plan. I am going to continue to stay with low budget build for a while. I am not going to do all $400s though, I will do a $350, $500, maybe a $600, etc. I will do 7 a week, with a different low budge build price each day. That is my new plan.
 
I would suggest to call it sub $500 builds and stick with it.

Otherwise, $600/700 can lead to a situation that some people add SSD and something else, then end up with a build close to $1000 without the benefit of a stronger Build like the ones in the mid-range thread.

NewYorksFinest said:
I are doing some changes. It takes less than 5 minutes to do these build!
Click to expand...

5 Minutes + the time that it took lehtv to check prices and do rebate info, + 20 minutes that it took me to edit it into a logic post streamed according to mfenn excellent top thread (149,144 hits is something to Brag about).

Also my apology to Blain that his post looks like out of context because I edited out the part that he (me too) resented.
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😎
[/FONT]
 
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Essence_of_War said:
This is very good advice, OP. You miss a lot of excellent deals if you lock yourself into one retailer. If you keep your eyes peeled, you'll start to notice that sales often rotate through retailers. So while item A and item B may never be on sale at the same time from retailer X, item A might be on sale at X while B is on sale at Y! Diversifying retailers can provide the consumer with the best return on their dollar, something you should be pursuing if you're trying to help others optimize a $400 budget.
Click to expand...

I still look on other sites to see prices. I just prefer Newegg because I am a newegg premiere member and get discounted 1 day shipping and rewards. Also, Microcenter combos are only available in store usually.
 
There are more retailers in town than MicroCenter and Newegg 😛

Edit: In case it wasn't clear, I think that even if you personally prefer Newegg, fitting into a $400 budget is hard enough without imposing the additional constraint of sourcing it all from one e-tailer. For $400, I think it really is worth stretching every dollar.
 
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There is No need to exaggerate NewEgg is a very good frame of references

It is up to the individuals to take into consideration Taxes and Shipping in/to their "neck in the woods" and take it from there there. If they can find something less expensive "hooray" for them they did something for themselves..


😎
 
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