Budget PC Build

I have a Xbox 360 and I was thinking of upgrading to a PS4, but I saw a couple of videos on YouTube about going from consoles to pc. When I saw that I was shocked at how many good things come from it.So I want to get my first budget gaming pc.

 

  • Budget. How much are you willing to spend? 400-530$
  • Where do you live (what country),  and what currency do you use? From USA , USD.
  • Is there a retailer you prefer? Not really.
  • Do you need or already have peripherals? (this can add to costs) Small compact. But able to get the job done.
  • What will you be using your future computer for? Gaming? Rendering? Mix of both? Or is this a home media PC? Gaming and Editing here and there.
  • Do you overclock or want to get into overclocking? Not really sure what that is.
  • Do you plan on going for custom watercooling now, or in the future? I don't think so.
  • OS. Do you need a new one? Nope, already bought windows 7.
  • What kind of settings do you like or what FPS do you want to play at? 30+
  • What resolution will you be playing at? //or would like to play at. Medium to High
  • What kind of games do you like to play? Arma series, Dayz , Skyrim and Call of duty.
  • What specific game will you be playing (if you only really play one) Dayz
  • What application do you use to render? (very important) Sony Vegas and After Effects.

 

A PC that I would like like but needs updated parts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=43pXorOZ3MQ

 

 

 

Ps : Don't include the monitor mouse or keyboard I have all of those :D , Also if you need any more information just tell me.

Arma and DayZ like stronger cores, but Intel's just too expensive for this budget.

Overclocking is pushing a specific component past it's default limits.  It can result in greater performance for virtually no monetary cost, but will cause things to run hotter and possibly degrade them.

Mini ITX is nice, but the motherboards are limited and more expensive.  Micro ATX would probably be a better option, as the money saved can go towards stronger components.

This is probably a bit more than you want to pay, but it should be a decent little rig.  Keep in mind that Tax is not factored in.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3h6Is

Otherwise you can skimp a little on the GPU:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3h6Ko

The R9 270 will perform a lot better than the 260X, though.  With the 260X, you may need to bump down stuff to medium-low if you want buttery smooth framerates.  The R9 270 will max out a lot of games, and play the rest on med-high.

I probably will save more just to try and get the R9 270 since you did say I would be able to run my games at medium - high settings. But does this PC blow the ps4 away or no ?

Also am I able to run Arma 3 and Dayz at high settings if I stick with the R9 270 ?

You should be able to run them at pretty damn high settings.

And yes, this computer should produce graphics better than the PS4.  Lots of PS4 games only run at 1600x900 as well.

Thanks for the quick reply. I was wondering say if something happened and I had to go with the 260 . Would I be able to upgrade it in the future very easily ? And are all the parts that you showed me are they compatible and ready to go ?

I'm still a noob at this so sorry if I'm irritating you with all these question.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3heo1

You can upgrade the graphics card, but not much else.  This build should last awhile, though.

Spot the brown noser

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGrvRItaCDY

There's also $400, $600 and $750 versions.

Thanks for the reply , I will now have to wait till I get the parts and I'll do the build thanks allot.

+1 on that first build with the R9-270. That's about as good as it gets at this price point. 

Tad bit dated and an R9 270 will override an APU by quite a margin.

Granted, it's $100 more, but I think you should be able to catch my drift.

So $550, I thought the upper end of the budget was $530 (not the budget the UPPER end of the budget range).

In certain cases, spending just a little more will yield significant improvements. In this case, spending $100 more over an APU build can yield 2 to 3 times better performance. IMO it's well worth it to save up a little more first and go that route. If the budget is VERY strict, then you may have no choice but to go with an APU build and add a GPU later on. The OP's upper budget limit of $530 puts them right on the edge of being able to build a system that will deliver ok performance or really good performance. In this case, stretching the budget just a little further will go a very long way.

Whilst agreeing with your assessment of spending a little more to yield vastly improved result.  To me a budget is a budget, you may say 'just'  upping to $550 then someone else says "for a few dollars more say from 550 to $600" then someone else... before you know it the build has grown to a $1000 one. The op goes away disillusioned that he has to spend $1000 everyone forgetting that the upper limit was originally set at $530

I totally get what you're saying and I agree. The line must be drawn at some point. Nobody yet has suggested the OP spend $600 here (not that I saw anyways). From what I've seen, the people on this forum are pretty respectful of budgets, for the most part. While I would recommend spending a little more (especially in this case) where the gains are more than reasonable (2-3 time more performance for $20 over budget), I would not recommend they go another step beyond that. As you said; a budget is a budget. 

 

For the OP; I made this build for another person on the forum with a budget of $400. Will give you lots of upgrade paths/options and you can simply add an R9-270 or what ever GPU you want later on. 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3i2bX

True I'm kinda of on a strict budget of 530$ or less. I really doubt I can stretch any farther just because I might need to get a new monitor. The build that "Some Tech Noob" gave met my  standards :

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3h6Ko

I did some research and I saw that people are running games on ultra like battlefield 3 and Call of duty etc. I was wondering can someone tell me is that true on this build ? I want to run games like dayz on it at least to medium to high settings. Even though I did hear this build won't give me allot of upgrade room if you have a better build that would give me a bit more upgrade room and  even a small case that's I can have decent cable management that will be awesome. But my budget cannot stretch any higher then it is.

 

Thanks

It would probably run most current gen games at medium to high.  Older games and source games should run at max settings just fine.  DayZ is a monster to run, so I'd estimate medium.  Also, if you can get an R7 265 into the budget, that would bring you a decent amount of framerate improvement.

Thanks for the quick reply. I will most likely try to upgrade to the 270 in the future. But just to clarify the only up gradable thing is the Video card right ? 

Also if you don't mind can you re-check to make sure that this is the smallest case I can get ?

You can add an SSD for really quick boots once you load the OS onto it, along with other programs.

You can upgrade the GPU.  This will give you the greatest performance increase.

You can add a heatsink and fan to do some minor overclocking.

Otherwise, it's not that much upgradeable without replacing major parts.

The N200 is around the size of most M-ATX cases.  It's still a lot smaller than a mid tower.