Budget Gaming Build

[chevmaro]

Hey guys I need an upgrade. Looking to spend about $400. Current rig posted below so you get an idea of what I am trying to upgrade. I plan on giving my kid my old computer so I need to build all NEW. I can take the better of the three video cards I have. Not sure if I should keep my old SSD or not?

Games I play:
Diablo 3
World of Warcraft
Elder Scrolls
Battlefield
Call of Duty
@1920x1080

Current Rig:
Antec 900
Antec Quattro 1000 PSU
Q6600 @ 2.7ghz (Lost some overclock and no longer stable above this)
4GB Dual Channel DDR2
80GB Intel 1st gen SSD
500GB hard drive
GeForce 470 GTX

New Rig:
Rosewill Blackhawk Case, already purchased
Rosewill Hive 650, already purchased
Hard Drive?
CPU?
Mobo?
Ram?
470 GTX, 560 non TI, two 7750's or buy new?

Thanks for help.

 

[Ken g6]

A decent new SSD looks doable - barely. A new video card would be nice, but it's really not in your budget. Note: The linked list of parts may change as deals come and go.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-H81M-H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.38 @ Newegg)
Memory: *Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($63.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: *Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($73.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: *Seagate Barracuda 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $407.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-17 15:46 EDT-0400

 

[Seba]

470 GTX, 560 non TI, two 7750's or buy new?

Sell all those 4 graphic cards and buy a new one.

 

[chevmaro]

A decent new SSD looks doable - barely. A new video card would be nice, but it's really not in your budget. Note: The linked list of parts may change as deals come and go.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-H81M-H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.38 @ Newegg)
Memory: *Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($63.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: *Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($73.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: *Seagate Barracuda 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $407.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-17 15:46 EDT-0400

Would 2x4GB be better for dual channel or is that not cool anymore?

Would sell my graphics cards but have to keep 1 for the kid. Maybe i'll sell 3 of them. Which is better the 470 GTX or 560 non ti?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Would 2x4GB be better for dual channel or is that not cool anymore?

There is a (slight) performance benefit from dual-channel, when using discrete graphics. Much moreso an improvement when using an IGP.

Would sell my graphics cards but have to keep 1 for the kid. Maybe i'll sell 3 of them. Which is better the 470 GTX or 560 non ti?

I think that the GTX470 is the best, but it sucks the most juice too.

 

[NTMBK]

Do you need to leave money in the budget for Windows, or are you going with Linux? (Or are you a dirty dirty pirate?)

I wouldn't bother Crossfiring the 7750s- you will get a lot of stutter from the two cards. Better off selling both of them- the 560 is faster than a 7750 (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/543?vs=535). Either use the 470 and give your kid the 560, or the other way around- depends how much you like your kid

We are on the verge of a new generation of graphics cards- NVidia is launching new Maxwell GPUs literally today, and AMD will be launching new ones at the start of next year. Don't go buying new cards right now- hang onto your 470 for the time being, upgrade the rest of your machine, and pick up a new card in about 6 months' time. You'll get a faster GPU for the same amount of money if you wait.

 

[davie jambo]

A decent new SSD looks doable - barely. A new video card would be nice, but it's really not in your budget. Note: The linked list of parts may change as deals come and go.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-H81M-H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.38 @ Newegg)
Memory: *Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($63.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: *Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($73.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: *Seagate Barracuda 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $407.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-17 15:46 EDT-0400

$173 on a CPU is not a "budget build"

He'd be as well as buying the Haswell Pentium

Also windows ???

 

[Seba]

The budget stated in the first post is $400. That build is $407. What's the problem?

 

[NTMBK]

The budget stated in the first post is $400. That build is $407. What's the problem?

That it's not including an operating system?

 

[davie jambo]

That it's not including an operating system?

Also blowing half the budget on a CPU

 

[Seba]

That it's not including an operating system?

Read the first post and you will see this:

New Rig:
Rosewill Blackhawk Case, already purchased
Rosewill Hive 650, already purchased
Hard Drive?
CPU?
Mobo?
Ram?
470 GTX, 560 non TI, two 7750's or buy new?

Hint: in this $400 budget he needs the parts with a question mark.

 

[Seba]

Also blowing half the budget on a CPU

For Battlefield 4 multi-player you need a quad core CPU. It is not "blowing half the budget on a CPU". It is making the most from the budget.

 

[NTMBK]

Read the first post and you will see this:



Hint: in this $400 budget he needs the parts with a question mark.

That first post makes no mention of operating system either way- so we don't know if he's bought one yet or not.

 

[davie jambo]

For Battlefield 4 multi-player you need a quad core CPU. It is not "blowing half the budget on a CPU". It is making the most from the budget.

Haswell Pentium are OK at BF4 are they not ? That is what I would go for on a budget PC

FX6300 or i3 would be my second and 3rd choices

 

[AtenRa]

Haswell Pentium are OK at BF4 are they not ?

For single player perhaps, not for MT.

 

[davie jambo]

For single player perhaps, not for MT.

FX6300 then

I reckon the Pentium would be fine with BF4 though , it's not that demanding really

 

[AtenRa]

For budget BF4 MT i would recommend an FX8320 OC to 4GHz Turbo off and any GCN with at least 2GB mem and Mantle support.

 

[davie jambo]

For budget BF4 MT i would recommend an FX8320 OC to 4GHz Turbo off and any GCN with at least 2GB mem and Mantle support.

Nonsense

 

[Seba]

Just play the game (BF4 multi-player) with a dual-core and you will see. Single-player it is no problem.

In BF4 multi-player, the number of players can be up to 64. A dual-core (even one with HT, like Core i3) can not cope with that situation.

 

[davie jambo]

There are videos on youtube of folk playing BF4 MP with that CPU , looks alright to me

 

[Enigmoid]

For budget BF4 MT i would recommend an FX8320 OC to 4GHz Turbo off and any GCN with at least 2GB mem and Mantle support.

That or the 6300 with an overclock.

Pretty hard to beat the 6300/8230 with overclock in terms of $.

However, Skyrim, ESO, Diablo 3, WOW are lightly threaded so an i3/i5 may perform better. I'm not sure about recent benches.

 

[chevmaro]

Thanks guys. Never considered the pentium as I thought the boards needed for OC were too expensive. I would consider it or the FX 6300 if you can show me some good boards for cheap that overclock well. That would also open the budget for new hard drives. I really want a 2TB with SSD or 2TB without SSD I guess would be ok.

My last build I regret not going with 8GB of ram so I am wondering if I should get 16GB for this one. I also regret not getting a bigger hard drive. Those are the two bottlenecks right now for me. Playing most games my memory is tapped. When I get a new computer I take down the kids computer and put its ram in my old one so all is good. We play Diablo 3 together.

I have an operating system. Win 7 Pro I bought and upgraded a while back.

 

[davie jambo]

Thanks guys. Never considered the pentium as I thought the boards needed for OC were too expensive. I would consider it or the FX 6300 if you can show me some good boards for cheap that overclock well. That would also open the budget for new hard drives. I really want a 2TB with SSD or 2TB without SSD I guess would be ok.

My last build I regret not going with 8GB of ram so I am wondering if I should get 16GB for this one. I also regret not getting a bigger hard drive. Those are the two bottlenecks right now for me. Playing most games my memory is tapped. When I get a new computer I take down the kids computer and put its ram in my old one so all is good. We play Diablo 3 together.

I have an operating system. Win 7 Pro I bought and upgraded a while back.

Gigabyte 970 boards are cheap and you can overclock them easily enough
Just get 8gb ram , 16 is overkill
Have a small-ish SSD for your system driver (128GB is fine) and keep a large 2tb western digital for your storage

 

[chevmaro]

FX6300
Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR3 1600
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB
Seagate Barracude ST2000 2TB

$394 at newegg. How does that look?

 

[davie jambo]

FX6300
Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR3 1600
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB
Seagate Barracude ST2000 2TB

$394 at newegg. How does that look?

Looks good to me

I'd imagine you would be able to overclock that 6300 to 4.2 at least but you'll need to get a CPU cooler as the stock AMD coolers are not good enough for overclocking. I use the cooler master evo 212 on my PC's , it's cheap and pretty good