Hey how's it going? I'll start off by saying this is going to be my first build ever and that I am new to PC gaming. I'm giving myself a budget of around $450. I'll be using this setup for gaming, surfing the internet and watching videos/streams. I'm interested in playing games like CS:GO, Minecraft, Rocket league and games of the like. So far this is what I have picked: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/LgqjmG Any and all advice is appreciated.
You could always live without the case to save some money, otherwise this is going to have a much stronger GPU
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dM6JhM
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dM6JhM/by_merchant/
CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($71.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($60.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($32.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 2GB PCS+ Video Card ($183.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill FBM-05 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($38.47 @ OutletPC)
Total: $463.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-05 20:24 EST-0500
Recently, Asrock boards have unlocked the ability to overclock the i3 processors from intel. I think you could go that way for around the same price (you could even drop in one of the new unlocked Pentium processors) and have a brand new chipset and a much better upgrade path.
There's about a 50 dollar difference from the 860K to the i3 6100
no you dont
Ok yeah but for $50 you're on a waaaay better upgrade path. And if the $50 isn't doable, again the Pentium's would get you into the skylake platform for what $60.
Hey also, I'd consider grabbing an SSD to start. They performance difference is tremendous and you can add a spinning disk down the line. There are some new drives on the market that may lack in top speeds and warranty, but are super cheap and effective. Probably not on pcpartpicker yet, but I think Adata is worth a look.
a 120gb SSD vs a 1tb HDD is no question, the SSD is going to run out of space extremely quickly
and in addition no one should be buying a dual core for a gaming rig anymore, games like GTAV and Far Cry don't run very well on them.
the 860K + 380 is going to be better for gaming.
and in any case 6 months down the line you're going to be spending $200 or so to upgrade either your CPU with the 860k/Pentium or your GPU with the i3, in the mean time the 860K + 380 is going to give you a better gaming experience overall.
Here's a 256Gb SSD for $67 - http://www.pcper.com/news/Storage/AData-sets-new-benchmark-low-cost-SSDs-their-Premier-SP550-line
Don't worry about the dual core - you'll drop a few frames per second, but it's the chipset and upgrade path that matter... you'll be on the newest chipset and have an upgrade path for at least the next few years. The games that you're mentioning will run FINE on a dual core - and even the more demanding titles will only drop a few frames.
If he were to go intel the i3 is going to be the way to go
A lot of the people in this thread are picking the 860K.
Good pick, but I respectfully disagree.
You want the Pentium G3258.
In most single-threaded games (that's most of them) the Pentium G3258 knocks the 860K on its ass. Even in games that can take advantage of four cores, the stock-clocked G3258 still beats even the overclocked 860K ~90% of the time. With a good GPU and a stable OC (you can get to around 4 GHz usually, even on stock cooling), you're getting far better single-threaded performance in games.
The G3258 "won't work" on games like Far Cry 4, but people have made easy workarounds and the games are still 100% playable.
Especially since your games (Minecraft and CS:GO) are single-threaded I believe, the G3258 is going to smack the 860K in its face.
As for the upgrade path I second @JohnMatt.
i3 is a bit pricey, considering you're not gaining much except hyper-threading (could DEFINITELY be wrong but that's my observation).
GPU? If you can drop $185, I'd pick the GTX 960 over the 380. It's even with the 380 and I believe it has less power consumption and runs cooler (may be wrong). Nvidia is also known to have superior driver support and it is at least on par with the 380. All coming from a guy using an R7 250X card in my new build.
TL;DR: Go with the G3258, especially because it will beat the 860K on most of the stuff you're running. I'd go with the GTX 960 for GPU but it comes down to personal preference and price/performance.
Would get the i3 if you get intel, G3258 cannot hang anymore even if you overclock the snot out of it.
As a beginner, get an i3 CPU at the minimum.
the G3258 seems to become a pain because you have to be specific about your motherboard to be able to overclock it, either spending more on a higher end board, or getting specific H series boards that let you OC it
the i3 is a quad core effectively, same with the 860K, it's just better overall in general for daily use, and minimum frame rates in general can suffer if you're only running a dual core. Plus the extra cores are going to help if you get into game recording or any kind of rendering really
I like your build. Good luck on your first PC.
All the other opinions and advice seems valid though.
CPU - AMD 860K is fine but your upgrade path may be limited. I doubt AMD is going to make better CPU's for the AM3 socket. If you go for an Intel i3 you can always get an i5 or i7 later.
GPU - The 750ti is a good card for starting out, but you have to get 2 Titan X's in SLI or you are not worthy. It's a PC Master Race thang.
Drives - Try to get an SSD for Windows, an SSD big enough for your games is probably not in the budget. Plus I can not recommend Seagate drives. The only drives that have ever died on me have been Seagate and I'm not the only one that hates them. I like Western Digital, but the HGST drives are supposed to be good too.
So many opinions lol. Thanks for all the input guys. Still trying to figure out what's the best way to go to start off.
At the end of the day, any of the parts on the page are going to play the games you're mentioning at perfectly playable frames.
Just get some shit that makes you happy and go nuts!
Lesson / funny story from my first PC build back in like 2007... I got all the parts, watched a billion videos / websites etc. I get everything together and set up, but when I turn it on it turns off after just a few moments. Try again, same thing, turns off after just about a second.
Finally, my buddy who got me into this whole thing gets to my place and points out that I hadn't installed the motherboard risers, effectively shorting the board on the chassis lol.... she still worked, but the audio was always a bit finicky ;)
Have fun, and use the standoffs :)