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Budget build to test PC gaming waters after a long absence

LiquidEvilGames

LiquidEvilGames

Junior Member
So i haven't really PC gamed outside of D3/SC2 and some indies on my HTPC rig for quite some time now. I was thinking about testing the waters to see how i feel about it these days (not to mention my HTPC rig is dying so at worst case this rig ends up replacing that one) however the budget is tight right now Due to investing in multiple other purchases. Here is what i need/budget/requirements below.

1. My overall Budget must NOT exceed 450$,I already have a Monitor,Keyboard,Mouse,Hard Drives,Speakers,Disc drive, case i can spare for a new build.

2. I'm not expecting miracles with this price range and honestly if i decide it's worth the investment i will relegate this rig to HTPC status and build another one down the line (Or upgrade this one if it's up gradable enough i was never one to need the latest and greatest anyways).

however what i do need is to be able to play games like Diablo 3,Battlefield 4,DayZ,Planetside 2,Possibly WoW at least at 720P Stable frame rates in all scenarios. I'm not that high maintenence i don't require 1080P/4K/60FPS though higher is better if possible within this budget.

3. I'm really lost where to go as far as a CPU nowadays my knowledge is VERY outdated...last rig i built was a C2D 2.0 GHZ with a 9800GTX+ Years back...so

Would i be better off going the cheaper AMD route with a 4-6 Core? Or going with a cheaper Pentium G series so i can leave myself open for an i5 upgrade later if i desire? Also i'm really truly lost on video cards now....no really last i was up on what was what 9000 Nvidia series was Godmode..

4. If possible i'd rather get all the parts from one manufacturer so i don't have to deal with 15 different stores like PCpartPicker makes you jump through...Nor do i wish to deal with Mailin rebates.

5. I will be buying within 2 weeks.

6. I live in the USA in case anyone is wondering.

Any other questions please ask away if i omitted any important information. Thanks very much in advance for all of your time!

Edited to reflect the fact I had a case in my closet

Cheers
 
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http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37178239&postcount=4

You want to play BF4? You need at least an i5. The above thread has a $450 build with an i5, but NO GPU.

You'll have to put off playing games for a while, until you can afford the additional $150-200 for a decent GPU.

I recommend a 2GB R9 270X as a minimum. 4GB R9 290 is much better, for around twice the cost.

Edit: My rig has a G3258 @ 3.8 (not really enough for BF4, as I understand it, it requires more cores / threads), and a 7950. My rig was $600, not including the price of Windows 7.

So, realistically, $450 is not enough for a gaming rig that is competent to play modern games.

If you ONLY want to play at 720P, then you might be able to get away with an APU build, and skip the GPU. But, looking longer-term, that's not a wise use of resources.
 
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Erm...i know my knowledge might be a bit out of date but...if that's the case why is it i see so many videos popping up lately Such as

And i'm not challenging you i'm legitimately asking are all these videos bogus or what?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k76H_YiSCLU

or similar showing people playing higher than 720+ at 30+ FPS stable when all i really need is 720+/30FPS Medium/high.

There are tons of these videos all with different parts and specs however which is why i came here instead for clarification what would be the best parts to pick since every video has different ones all around the same budget....but you mean to tell me the literally...hundreds of 400-450$ PC videos i see on youtube Playing games like i mentioned are all false? I appreciate the response Larry but given all i'm looking for is 720P/med/high I can't believe someone else here won't have a suggestion. But i'm not saying i couldn't be totally off base either as i wasn't joking my knowledge is outdated right now as a Pager in modern society 😛
 
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LiquidEvilGames said:
And i'm not challenging you i'm legitimately asking are all these videos bogus or what?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k76H_YiSCLU

or similar showing people playing higher than 720+ at 30+ FPS stable when all i really need is 720+/30FPS Medium/high.

There are tons of these videos all with different parts and specs however which is why i came here instead for clarification what would be the best parts to pick since every video has different ones all around the same budget....but you mean to tell me the literally...hundreds of 400-450$ PC videos i see on youtube Playing games like i mentioned are all false?
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. But the video you linked above, was that short cut of BF4 a single-player level? I couldn't tell, but it seemed like it. 64-player MP is MUCH more CPU-demanding than the SP campaigns, so I've read. (I don't have a PC powerful enough to play BF4 MP.)
 
That's a very fair point and keen observation,iv'e only experienced BF4 on console as my HTPC would likely catch fire trying to run the game at all It's still sporting a C2D,DDR2 and a 9000 series GPU. Still if it came to it i'd be willing to drop Battlefield 4 among the games i listed if need be,honestly i'm far more concerned about the others (especially SC2,DayZ as right now those are PC only though DayZ is planned for console in the future).


Thanks for the input.
 
LiquidEvilGames said:
Erm...i know my knowledge might be a bit out of date but...if that's the case why is it i see so many videos popping up lately Such as

And i'm not challenging you i'm legitimately asking are all these videos bogus or what?
Click to expand...
Not bogus I play it on a G1820 with drops to 26FPS at most,it's just that all benchmarks are from early versions and everybody referes to those,keep on mind though that in BF4 multiplayer there is a lot more stress on the hardware ,depending on the map and number of players, so you will have somewhat lower FPS there.

The G3258 ,and the fastest VGA you can afford,should be enough for your use.
 
I know that StarCraft II likes fast Intel CPU cores, at least two, doesn't really use more than that. G3258 or higher-clocked i3 CPU would be fine for that, don't nec. need an i5.

I have no idea about the system requirements for DayZ.

TBH, I'm getting in over my head / pay-grade here. Hopefully some other people that regularly play these games will chime in with their builds. I'm basically just re-regurgitating what I've read thus far recommended on these forums for those games.

Edit: Have you looked at the sticky threads in this forum? Specifically, the "low-end" and "mid-range" system build threads, that are updated regularly? They target a budget of $500 and $1000. TBH, it's usually not worth trying to fit a gaming build in less than that. Although, those usually include the OS, so if you can supply your own OS, you will have headroom in those builds.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2389797
 
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Larry brings up a good point, do you need an OS license? Also, can let us know the specific models of the parts that you plan to re-use?
 
I do in fact need an OS liscense, as far as parts I have..

Western Digital WD1003FZEX 1TB X2 These are both fairly new as I bought them not long ago to replace my current HTPC hard drives.

Monitor wise I have two options I use

One is a 1600x900 Dell E2014H monitor

The other is a 32 inch Panasonic Viera 720P TV in that same room so I can use either.

The keyboard, mouse, speakers etc obviously don't matter much

I also recently bought and forgot to mention I have a spare case local shop had aVSK-4000 antec mid size tower for 15$

For a disc drive since it's an HTPC I'm taking these parts from I have an LGUH12NS30 blu ray drive SATA

Please let me know if I can provide any other information to make this easier! Thanks again
 
if you can recycle case and hard disk, these builds http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2389797 are well within 450$ so I don't see too much of a problem.

I'd check the anandtech bench to compare the two proposed video cards (270 vs 750 ti) also as far as noise goes since you'll be using this as an HTPC too.
If you get the 550W PSU from the second build also on the first build you can upgrade the video card to a mainstream one down the road without replacing it.
I'm not into overclocking anymore so I'd get the first build but you should know that yourself.
 
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