First Budget Gaming PC build for $500

Hardware Build a PC
1

Hi there fellow PC gamers,

I'm planning on building a $450 - €500 gaming PC, or €370 - €380 in my country. My first list contained the following parts:

Intel Pentium G2120 3.1 GHz Ivy Bridge processor

Asus P8B75-M LX Plus socket 1155 motherboard with 1x SATA-600

XFX Radeon HD 7770 Double Dissipation 1GB

Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3-1600 mhz (8GB a couple of months later)

Seagate Barracuda 500GB for my games

XFX PRO 550 watt 80+ certified

Cheap-ass Sharkoon MS120 case with two 120mm fans and USB 3.0

Total: €388, or $511

Then I started browsing this forum and noticed other people used Pentium processors for their build and got completely humiliated. People said it was only good for an ultra budget web browsing PC. I don't know if I should agree or not, but anyway. 
Then, I made a second list with all the same parts exept with an other processor and motherboard.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE 

MSI 760GA-P43 (FX), AM3+ socket

[rest of the components listed on previous list]

Total: €396, or €522 (which is a little too much)

I don't know which processor I want to use, the Ivy Bridge Pentium is fine by me, but others say it's not well suited for gaming. I think the Phenom is a bit outdated since it's from 2009 and the build with this processor is too expensive.
And like the title said, it needs to be a budget build for 500 dollars. So if you guys, the happy little family of pc gaming, could make a list of parts for 500 dollars that'd be great (no Office Space pun intended). The graphics card and power supply are the ones I really want in my system, you guys on the forum can give suggestions for using other components.

Games I want to play are the DayZ mod (soon the standalone version), Planetside 2, BF 3, Fallout series and future games like Bioshock Infinite and/or GTA V (not sure if a 400 dollar PC can handle that).

 

I'd love to hear your suggestions and tips!

Regards,

Aron from the Netherlands.



 

2

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/FonS

I think this will work better. You can crossfire the APU with the 7770. Will definitely be better than the PentiumG/7770 combo

3

I looked at that option as well, but I thought the 7770 couldn't run crossfire with the A10 5800K? Thought you could run it with a 6670 max.

4

Anyway, how about a Core i3 3220? It is Hyper-Threaded, not that you notice any of that in games, and almost twice as expensive as the Ivy Pentium. The AMD APU costs around 600 dollars around here, so that is no option.

5

Yeah I think you're right about that. Trying to find a benchmark that compares the CPUs using a dedicated card... only finding ones with the integrated graphics. Almost positive the A10 would run faster that the PentiumG, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it would actually make

6

I'd go with the i3 if you can afford it. Would be hard to squeeze in a $500 budget and I have no idea what the prices are in Holland

7

Maybe i'll get the Phenom II X4 955 with a 7770. Or an i3 with the 7770, depends on the amount of money I can spend end March.
 

8

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Fum0

You can run the A10-5800k in Hybrid Crossfire,this should be really decent.

9

Thanks Tony, but will the A10 5800K with 6670 in crossfire perform better than a Pentium G2120 with a  XFX HD7770? I noticed the APU doesn't really deliver good FPS in most games, unless you play on Low settings.