Friend wants to build a new gaming system on a budget

[dank69]

A good friend of mine has decided it is time to upgrade. It is long past due but money is tight, so he has been putting it off. As a consequence, he doesn't have anything that can be salvaged other than an ATX case. I have a lightly used 4890 I can give him for free to help keep down the cost, but I'm looking to you guys to advise if that is even worth it. It seemed to be working fine for me a year or two ago; I only upgraded to a 5870 because I saw a hot deal. It was running everything I threw at it acceptably at 2560x1600.

Template:

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing. Gaming/Photoshop

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread. Trying to keep it to $700

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from. US

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc. No preferences, purely bang for buck

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are. Only available parts to be reused are a case and a Sapphire 4890 and he already has a monitor.

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7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds. Overclocking is an option if necessary, but would rather avoid it for now

8. What resolution will you be using? 1920x1200

9. WHEN do you plan to build it? ASAP
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X. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software? Maybe Windows, I have to check though :hmm: Don't factor this into the cost for now

Thanks in advance for any advice. 😀

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I would get mfeen's budget build which is stickied and just take out the GPU and case and you'll be good to go (IMHO)

 

[dmoney1980]

CPU intel i3 $120 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116775

Motherboard ASrock h77 $70 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157303

RAM 8GB Samsung DDR3 $35 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147096

PSU Corsair 450w builder series $35 after rebate - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139026

ODD Samsung DVD burner $16 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151256

HDD Samsung 1TB spinpoint $85 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

Total so far $372

You could stick with this and reuse the case and GPU. Your sticky states that he'll be playing at 1900x1200, so I take it he already has a monitor?

If that is the case, you could upgrade to an i5 CPU for about $70 more (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116782). If he lives near a Micro Center he could grab a i5 3570k for $170 and get $40 off any motherboard.

I would also consider picking up a cheap 64gb SSD drive for his OS and Photoshop installation.

$700 is a good budget to work with. The parts I listed above are a good place to start, you could tweak the CPU, add an SSD, or perhaps leave as is and add a 7850 GPU if he decides to do serious gaming

 

[Torn Mind]

CPU intel i3 $120 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116775

Motherboard ASrock h77 $70 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157303

RAM 8GB Samsung DDR3 $35 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147096

PSU Corsair 450w builder series $35 after rebate - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139026

ODD Samsung DVD burner $16 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151256

HDD Samsung 1TB spinpoint $85 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

Total so far $372

You could stick with this and reuse the case and GPU. Your sticky states that he'll be playing at 1900x1200, so I take it he already has a monitor?

If that is the case, you could upgrade to an i5 CPU for about $70 more (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116782). If he lives near a Micro Center he could grab a i5 3570k for $170 and get $40 off any motherboard.

I would also consider picking up a cheap 64gb SSD drive for his OS and Photoshop installation.

$700 is a good budget to work with. The parts I listed above are a good place to start, you could tweak the CPU, add an SSD, or perhaps leave as is and add a 7850 GPU if he decides to do serious gaming

I think this i5-3470 is a better deal than the 3350P if he's willing to buy from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5-.../dp/B0087EVHVW

 

[dank69]

... Your sticky states that he'll be playing at 1900x1200, so I take it he already has a monitor?

...

Oops, yes, he has a monitor already. I updated the OP.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. :thumbsup:

Oh, also, I see no AMD recommendations. I thought they used to be the bang for the buck guys. Is this not the case anymore?

 

[Torn Mind]

Oops, yes, he has a monitor already. I updated the OP.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. :thumbsup:

Oh, also, I see no AMD recommendations. I thought they used to be the bang for the buck guys. Is this not the case anymore?

AMD laid an egg with Bulldozer. Piledriver is an improvement, but satisfactory performance vs. Intel pretty much requires overclocking their chips. The FX-8350 can overclock easy, but max overclock roughly equals an i5 at stock settings. Their Trinity APUs is interesting in some situations, but not yours.

The FX-6300 beats out the i3 Ivy Bridges when overclocked. but again, it won't match up with an i5. I'm not sure it is suitable for your needs.

 

[mfenn]

There is no reason to consider using a 4890 since you have $700 to play with. A powerful GPU is the #1 most important thing in a gaming machine, so you'd be unnecessarily crippling the machine with such an old card.

i5 3470 $189
ASRock B75M-DGS $55
Samsung DDR3 1600 8GB $35
Sapphire 7870 2GB $225 AR
Seagate 1TB $70
Lite-ON DVD Burner $18
PC P&C Silencer Mk III 600W $68 AR AP
Corsair 200R $30 AR - You could reuse the old case, but I hesitate to recommend that given that it's an unknown quantity
Total: $690 AR AP

 

[Ken g6]

If you don't get a new case, you might be able to squeeze a Xeon E3-1230 V2 into the budget. It would be better for Photoshop, and maybe BF3, but not most other games.

A Corsair Builder 600W PSU for $52 AR with shipping could also help your budget, though it's not modular.

That corner you're on doesn't happen to be near a Micro Center, does it?

 

[dank69]

AMD laid an egg with Bulldozer. Piledriver is an improvement, but satisfactory performance vs. Intel pretty much requires overclocking their chips. The FX-8350 can overclock easy, but max overclock roughly equals an i5 at stock settings. Their Trinity APUs is interesting in some situations, but not yours.

The FX-6300 beats out the i3 Ivy Bridges when overclocked. but again, it won't match up with an i5. I'm not sure it is suitable for your needs.

Thanks for the great explanation. 🙂

If you don't get a new case, you might be able to squeeze a Xeon E3-1230 V2 into the budget. It would be better for Photoshop, and maybe BF3, but not most other games.

A Corsair Builder 600W PSU for $52 AR with shipping could also help your budget, though it's not modular.

That corner you're on doesn't happen to be near a Micro Center, does it?

No, he is nowhere near a Micro Center. 🙁

You say the Xeon is good for BF3 but not other games? Can you elaborate on that a bit? I know he always liked BF and BF3 is one of the reasons he wants to upgrade. How much of a hit are we talking with other games?

 

[mfenn]

You say the Xeon is good for BF3 but not other games? Can you elaborate on that a bit? I know he always liked BF and BF3 is one of the reasons he wants to upgrade. How much of a hit are we talking with other games?

A CPU with Hyperthreading like the Xeon might be better for BF3, but it's a not sure thing and that the gains won't be huge. It is a good bet for Photoshop tasks though.

The reason for this is that BF3 is one of the few games that scales well with the number of logical cores, even up to the 8 that are presented with a Hyperthreaded quad-core. Hyperthreading doesn't matter for other games because most games barely take advantage of the 4 logical cores present in a non-Hyperthreaded quad-core.