Where I live (the UK) The Wii U is around £250. To this, I thought what the fuck; It's so damn expensive for a console.
So, here are a list of Wii U alternative builds. I have left out the case in all of these for one simple reason: case designs are highly subjective. An OS is also not included. There is also, as of yet, no intel or Nvidia options. I may add these later.
If you have any further suggestions for build or improvements, feel free to post them. This post is solely for those who wish to kill their Wii U, something I personally will not be doing. If the general response to this post is good, I may create a similar list for different countries and consoles.
Without further ado, here is the list:
£240: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34QD
SPECS: APU: A10 5800K RAM: 2x4GB DDR3 2133MHZ
NOTES: You can upgrade to the 6800K, though it is not really worth it for them money. You can also upgrade to the Athlon II x 4 740/750K/760K CPU later down the road or keep the APU and upgrade your GPU to something around an AMD Radeon HD 7870/ R9 270/270x (they're the same damn card). That being said, there is very little between the A10 5800K and an Athlon II x4 740/750K/760K. I would recommend only up the the 7870/270/270X as anything better be bottle necked by the CPU.
£250: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34QB (not recommended, unless upgrading soon)
SPECS: CPU: Athlon II x4 640 GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7770 Ghz edition RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHZ
NOTES: The slightly worse of the two £250 builds, yet, as a result, much more expandable. This particular build uses an AM3+ motherboard, meaning you can use up to the 8350. Just bear in mind, any with a TDP of above 125W will cause a house fire, so really you are limited to the FX 8320 and even that is pushing it. There is also a huge variety of GPUs you could upgrade to and as such, I shall not bother providing a list
£250 (2): http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34QQ (recommended over the other £250)
SPECS: CPU: Athlon II x4 760K GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7770 Ghz edition RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHZ
NOTES: Similar to the previous build, just a slightly better CPU. I would not recommend this build if you wish to upgrade soon after building, as there is NO upgrade path for the CPU and anything above a 270/270X/7870 will be bottle necked by the CPU.
£260: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34QI
SPECS: APU: A10 6800K RAM: 2x4GB DDR3 2133MHZ
NOTES: The second of two APU builds. Your only real upgrade path with this build is again, a 270/270X/7870. Anything further will cause a bottle neck.
£275: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34Qz
SPECS: CPU: Athlon II x4 640 GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7850: 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHZ
NOTES: Similar to the second build posted, only difference is a slightly better GPU. Again, you have a plethora of CPU and GPU upgrades but anything above a FX8320 may result in a house fire.
£280: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34QU
SPECS: CPU: Athlon II x4 760K GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7850 RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHZ
NOTES: A slightly better CPU than the above build, yet very few upgrade options. There is no better CPU for this platform as of the time I post this and any further in GPU will be bottle necked by your CPU.
£300: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34QA (recommended over the other £300 build for gaming only)
SPECS: CPU: FX 6300 GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7850 RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHZ
NOTES: There are a variety of GPU upgrades that could be done here. So many, i'm not going to bother listing them. This being said, the only real CPU upgrade you can do is to an FX 8320. Any CPU above this may cause a house fire and even the FX 8320 will be pushing the limits of this particular motherboard.
£300 (2): http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/william123098/saved/34QY (not recommended)
SPECS: CPU: Athlon II x4 740 GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7850 RAM: 2x4GB DDR3 1333MHZ
NOTES: I wouldn't really recommend this build over the other £300 build. There is, however, the option to upgrade to either the Athlon II x4 750K or 760K, though this is not much of an upgrade. You also cannot upgrade the GPU without the CPU bottle necking it. The only real advantage this has over the previous build is double the RAM, which will not really affect current games but has the potential to affect performance in future games. It will also be somewhat nicer for general, non gaming use as a result of the higher amount of RAM
FURTHER NOTES: All of these systems were designed based around the same base system. If you wanted, it wouldn't be too much more for some extra RAM or storage. One terabyte of storage will cost only around £20 more for double the capacity of the 500GB drive used in all the builds. You can also throw in an SSD if you wish. You may have noticed the majority of build have only 4GBs of ram. This is because the majority of games out ther ecurrently are 32 bit .exe files and as such can only address up to the 4GB of ram in these builds. 8GB of RAM will make for a nice upgrade and improve the speed of general computing though.
FURTHER SPECS: All of these systems are using the same PSU, HDD and similar motherboards.
HDD: Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB 5400RPM 2.5"
PSU : XFX P1-450S-X2B9
MOBOs: MSI FM2-A55M-E33 and Gigabyte GA-78LMT
Thank you for reading, please tell me which build is the best and why.