Extreme Budget Challenge

Hardware Build a PC
1

Greetings!

So, this is my first post here, and of course I'm being selfish.  We're living in 2012 after all.  I need help on my first build.  I'm pretty experienced behind the software wheel of computers, and I realize the build itself is easy (I particularly like the Tek Syndicate video on how to get it done...well put together), but the putting together of parts in an ideal configuration is a bit beyond me at this point.

Firstly, this computer would be primarily for gaming.  I edit photos on my MBP, and that's really all I need for that.  I probably won't even put a copy of Lightroom/Photoshop on the PC.  I am trying to be as thrifty and cheap as possible.  A couple of games that I'm interested in out there right now are the new Sim City, Day Z and its standalone future, as well as Planetside 2 possibly, BF3, and lastly Terraria of all things (the wife and I love playing this).

My main concerns with this machine are:

1) Price. Absolutely no more than $500 (+/- $50 is GTG), and I still have to drop cash on a monitor. If it's impossible to do, you don't even have to bother replying.

2) Form Factor.  The smaller, the better.

3) Longevity.  I have no desire to sacrifice quality for price.  Again, if the budget is impossible, just be honest with me.

I don't need fancy, and I just want to be able to play the games comfortably, and 30-40 FPS is that goal really right?  Consider Day Z the benchmark, as that's the game I'm most interested in, honestly.

So, after about a minute of effort on my part typing this post, perhaps you can help me out!?  The cheaper the better.  I'm a married father.  Not too much money floating around hahaha...and on that note you're more than welcome to tell me to get my priorities straight, but I still like to frag on occasion, so don't hate.

 

2

Quick question, what brand of CPU do you prefer?

3

Seems like Intel is the way to go currently.  Not sure if I have enough evidence to actually prefer a brand, yet.  I've always owned equipment on Intel chipsets, and have been happy with it.

4

I was just wondering. When I configure builds that can't exceed $500, I tend to go with AMD's CPU's which are really good for the money. It donsen't matter with me when it comes to CPU brands. As long as it can get the job done, I'm all good. I'll try getting back to you in a couple of hours. I'm currently working on some stuff for school

5

Yeah man, no issue.  I honestly just want to play some DayZ with buddies and be able to work on PC based security solutions at home.  Just got done with Sec + and about to move into Net + and CEH, so I want to have a machine at home for hands-on, and it would be nice to have it gaming to boot.

Much obliged, for your help.

6

If youre building a PC at $500 then youre wasting money because it wont be very good and in a few months you will want to upgrade and so all the money you intailly spent on parts is wasted. Save up a bit more and then build a PC. 

Just Saying 

7

Do you also plan on overclocking?

8

Here ya go.

This will do you perfectly good. All high quality components, mATX Mini tower, will do great in most games. You'll want a good overclock out of this, don't worry, we'll  give you a step by step guide on how to OC this chip if your unsure how to. 

9

I'd be down with OC'ing, but have no clue on how to do it, honestly.

10

Liking the sound of this Intel build in particular also.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6182/fall-budget-system-buyers-guide/3

11

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/khOe

12

^^ the best bet intels better

13

Problem with going with a celeron is that you will very quickly bottleneck yourself when you upgrade your GPU (whenever that happens), thus you'd have to upgrade you GPU and CPU at the same time to see real performance boost, the Pentiums would be more future proofed against this, the i3 even more so.

An advantage of the Trinity APUs is that you could OC the CPU and the IGP on it now, then a few years down the road you could get a discrete graphics card, thus turning off the IGP in the APU, giving you greater overhead for a better CPU overclock, so you could simply boost your CPU OC when you get a new GPU instead of needing to replace it entirely. The A10-5800K give CPU performance close to the ivy bridge i3 chips, slightly under when not overclocked, and at or above when overclocked. 

14

Do you also want the monitor in on this build or no?

15

Here is what I've came up with so far.

  • Case: DIYPC DIY-6811BK
  • APU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8 Ghz with a radeon HD 7660D
  • MB: ASRock FM2-A55-DGS
  • RAM: Kingston HyperX T1 Series 8GB Dual Channal DDR3-1866 Kit
  • HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB
  • PSU: Cooler Master GX450 80 Plus Bronze
  • GPU: PowerColor Radeon HD 6670 to crossfire with the APU

So far about $410 after shipping. That should be able to meet your needs, there is about $90 left in the budget for a monitor to.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kl5n

16

I will have to disagree with that.

17

I wish I knew about that pc part picker, I just compiled a build for a newbie pc gamer in another thread all parts from new egg, target $1000-$1200 for an entire system periphials and all.

Maybe I'll go through it later.

18

Alright, sorry bros, was gone for a bit flying overseas.  I'm liking this supercheap AMD build from skullabyss.  I've been talking to a friend, and I'm going to be able to use his old Gigabyte case, I believe, and I might be able to use his PSU, provided it's in working condition.

Based on this, check this out, monitor included, and tell me your thoughts:

 

[url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kqe0]PCPartPicker part list[/url] / [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kqe0/by_merchant/]Price breakdown by merchant[/url] / [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kqe0/benchmarks/]Benchmarks[/url]

[b]CPU:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80637i33220]Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor[/url]  ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
[b]Motherboard:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gab75md3v]Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V Micro ATX  LGA1155 Motherboard[/url]  ($77.49 @ TigerDirect)
[b]Memory:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f310666cl9s4gbnt]G.Skill Value Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory[/url]  ($17.99 @ Newegg)
[b]Storage:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd2500aakx]Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive[/url]  ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
[b]Video Card:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr667d31gi]Gigabyte Radeon HD 6670 1GB Video Card[/url]  ($56.97 @ Newegg)
[b]Power Supply:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/antec-power-supply-ea380dgreen]Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply[/url]  ($41.99 @ SuperBiiz)
[b]Monitor:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-monitor-ve228h]Asus VE228H 21.5" Monitor[/url]  ($133.99 @ NCIX US)
[b]Total:[/b] $498.41
[i](Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)[/i]

19

Listen, we know the pentiums are great, its a known fact and if you dont trust me google it

The 7750 is a new gen card 

all around good system

 

20

I would stay with the AMD APU's, you'll get better fps in games. You can also add the 6670 in crossfire with the APU i selected for more performance yet