Help me with this budget gaming PC

[ButterRum]

Sorry, I meant the A8*. (In that case I suppose I do have to get the A75 for the A8).

 

[Sleepingforest]

Man, you're saving $50 or so (10% of what you said you were willing to spend), but you're taking over a 50% cut in performance. Are you sure you want to game at 1366x786 at low and 40 frames per second?

 

[ButterRum]

Man, you're saving $50 or so (10% of what you said you were willing to spend), but you're taking over a 50% cut in performance. Are you sure you want to game at 1366x786 at low and 40 frames per second?

The A10 performs 50% better?

I went from FX-6200 to A6 to A8 to A10, now we're thinking Intel.... lol This is getting tedious. :awe:

 

[mfenn]

Man, you're saving $50 or so (10% of what you said you were willing to spend), but you're taking over a 50% cut in performance. Are you sure you want to game at 1366x786 at low and 40 frames per second?

This is an excellent question. Going from a 7770 to the IGP of a Trinity CPU is a big step down in performance. The Trinity IGP is good, for an IGP. It's not built for gaming on anything other than low settings at low resolutions.

 

[Sleepingforest]

The A10 performs 50% better?

I went from FX-6200 to A6 to A8 to A10, now we're thinking Intel.... lol This is getting tedious. :awe:

Going from the FX-6300 to the A6/8/10 is a huge step down. Intel is roughly the level of the FX-6300 (better for gaming because of it's superior single-threaded performance). It is a bit of a circle--we're trying to convince you that the extra money is worth it.

 

[ButterRum]

Well I really only plan on getting this for Marvel Heroes: https://marvelheroes.com and maybe some other light gaming and doing coursework that requires Windows. I do have a 360 and play my high-end games on that, but I wouldn't mind if I could play them on a PC too.

Right now I'm running on a Core 2 Duo 2.26 Macbook with 500GB 7200RPM HDD and 4GB RAM, so anything I'm looking at now should be more powerful than the old MB I have -- especially in gaming. I mainly use this for web development and I love the OS for the work, so I'm not gonna sell my Mac either.

These stats say the FX 6200 and A8 5600K are pretty similar: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-6200-Black-Edition-vs-AMD-A8-5600K

I like how the A8 has a built-in GPU, leaving me room to upgrade for later. The FX doesn't and I'd have to tack on an extra $100

Edit: Out of curiosity, if the motherboard has built-in graphics and the processor doesn't, I can use both? What about processors and motherboards that both have built-in graphics?

Edit again: Here's an Intel version I came up with: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GxfS

...Not bad and cheaper than the FX-6200 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Gx5j

 

[ButterRum]

Ok, here is my updated rig. Let me know what you guys think: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Gy2e
- Main changes: i5 3470 3.2 GHZ and GeForce GTX 650 1GB.

Total comes out to $508 because I can get the processor and GPU at my Microcenter for $150 and $77 respectively.

So glad you mentioned the i5's! I thought those were way out of my budget. Also, this rig gives me more room to upgrade in the future.

Seems like you can buy i5-3470 desktops at the $500 price range, but I'm hoping this is still a good deal.... It'll probably be the GPU and extra RAM that puts it over buying a desktop.

Quick question -- I get Windows 7/8 for free from my university, but they're out of the mail order discs, except for the 32-bit. Can I just burn the iso onto a DVD and pop it into the new computer I will build? Don't know if that works only for computers with existing OS's or not.

 

[mfenn]

If you're going to Microcenter (and you should), the only two CPUs worth considering are the i5 3750K and the i3 3225 because they both come with a $50 motherboard discount.

Here's what I would do for $500:

i5 3570K + Biostar H77MU3 combo $200 AR
Kingston DDR3 1600 8GB $43
MSI 7770 $95 AR - GTX 650 for $77 is fine too
Hitachi 7200RPM 500GB $50 AP
Lite-ON DVD Burner $18
Corsair CX430 $35 AR
NZXT Source 220 $50
Total: $491 AR AP

As for Windows, yes you can burn the 64-bit ISO to a DVD and install from there. It works just the same as a stamped disc would.