Hello! My name is Goodish and I am relatively new to "PC Building". For the past 3 years I've been using my Sony VAIO laptop to game online. Over time my laptop has been become less and less reliable. Last year my Hard-drive was fried, (Their were other smaller problems that came up when I got it repaired) But lately it seems that performance wise my laptop is sliding on a downwards slope. I've finally come to the conclusion that I would like to build my own gaming PC. Over the past week I have been spending time looking up the best products for my price range, the only problem I am coming across is the lack of experience I have. Two products look the same, have the same price, and the same specs but they are made by different companies. If anyone has a $600-$800 PC build I would love to see it! Some things to note,
I don't need a mouse pad or optical drive.
I play very few games that are graphics heavy. I don't play games such as BF4, GTA V, COD ect. on my PC. I don't plan to play these games on my PC because I own the Xbox One. ( I actually enjoy playing games on medium graphics because I find the Ultra high settings to be a bit flashy :P It's hard to see what I'm doing with all the lens flares n' such)
If anyone could recommend a case that could fit into the build that would be splendid! I don't care about looks, I care about performance. As long as the case can keep my PC cool I'm happy.
I do not plan on over-clocking this PC.
If it comes to it I am willing to spend up to $800, I would prefer to keep the build a lower price but I'm open to both options.
You won't do much better than that in that price range. If you're willing to go further towards the $800 max you could get a nicer GPU but really not necessary given what you've said you'd be doing.
The 860k won't be as fast as an i5, and may bottleneck a bit in some CPU heavy games, but with the saved money the GPU is a 390, which should be fine for just about anything up to 1440p. Also a bit of room for the cooler, and the case is just personal preference it's a joy to work in. Or you could easily fit in a 120gb SSD for the boot drive
Or you could get a less expensive case and up the CPU to an i5 with ease.
Personally, I'd change the case to the corsair 330R not much cheaper but much nicer. Swap out the 960 for a R9 380 depending on sale prices Budget in for a 120gb ssd, the Samsung 850 Evos are reasonably priced and perform well.
If you drop your monitor to a 21.5" one they're usually around 120, you could then up your power supply to one around 750W just to get some additional headroom.
Thank you all for the helpful suggestions! This is my (close to) final build, I believe it will work pretty well. I'm going to work on buying an SSD later on along with a better graphics card. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/xCRqnQ