I'm looking to build a new PC, as my C2Q PC is slowing down and should have been put to rest ages ago. Probably not going to be relevant to the build I'm planning, but my old rig is as follows:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 @ 2.5Ghz Motherboard: Asus P5KC LGA775 RAM: 4x1GB DDR2 Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 9600GT 512M PSU: Powerman 350W (I know its bad but it came with the case)
Anyways moving on to my objective of building a new rig.
CPU (~$80-$100): Intel Pentium G3258 3.2Ghz Dual-Core Processor (or maybe i3-4160 3.66Ghz) Motherboard (~$79): ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard RAM (~$60): G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory Video Card (~$130): Powercolor R9 270X PCS+ 1100MHZ 2GB 5.7GHZ GDDR5 2xDVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card PSU (~$55): EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Total comes to around $455 CAD (which is approx. what my budget is)
Looking to see how I can improve this, or possibly reduce cost of the build. Advice and suggestions are much appreciated~
//Edit: Thanks everyone, I appreciate the responses, and yes I will be gaming on it. I have a 500gb hdd in my current pc, and peripherals I have already. Case, I might stick with the ATX case I'm currently using and just gut it unless I find a good enough cheap case to my liking.
It is by no means what you should build and it's slightly over what you currently have. But it's a complete set without the OS and perphs. I reckon you can reuse the case and what not and build a better rig.
If you ask me, I think your build is perfectly fine, the mobo itself may be a little overkill, but it will work fine. And a 2x4 kit tends to be cheaper than a 1x8 kit, not to mention you get the advantages of Dual channel. It should be noted that the G3258 only supports DDR3-1333 RAM, so a 1600MHz kit will be clocked down to compensate for that. Not an actual issue, just something to notice before someone freaks out.
Have fun OCing! Oh and don't go for that i3, the G3258 can be OCed pretty hard, and a 30-40% increase in clock speed is pretty easy to get to.
OCing? But that's a H81 mobo? And the one in the OP is H97? Am I missing something? Anyway, I'm gonna be that guy again and say I'd rather go with the 860K over the pentium because with the pentium being a dual core it'll struggle in some games that can utilise more than 2 threads.
You don't want to go with a G3258 and not OC. Get a Z87 motherboard on sale. An Asus Pro with 4 way optimisation if you know nothing about OC. Those should be selling for 100 USD nowadays. And you can still upgrade to an i7 later in time should you need to. And it's a far better motherboard than a H97 (don't bother with Broadwell CPUs, I doubt even Intel has any faith on them). An Asus Z87 Pro even comes with Bluetooth and WiFi, which might come in handy!
Oh and I just noticed there's not an SSD on the build… In this day and age? You need an SSD, even if just a small one for the OS and apps.
As for your old PC… I wonder if the integrated graphics on the G3258 is not more capable than the GeForce 9600GT! There's really nothing from that old PC worthwhile keeping. I'd give it to my dad or to the goodwill.
I also don't think the i3-4360 is much an upgrade over the G3258… maybe if you really need multicore for a specific game or app, remember that's a double core turned quad core by hyper threading, so single core performance will suffer! And being superseded by the i3-4370, the latter one would be my choice. Finally, if you want to go with hyper threaded dualcore on the cheap, my pick would be the i3-4170 for around 100 USD.
An SSD wit this budget'd be silly to try pack in. You've got to cover core components first... I'm kinda dubious about the whole "getting a pentium so you can use the same motherboard later" thing, Skylake's here with socket 1151 already and by the time the CPU's being upgraded socket 1150 chips'll probably be harder to find and not necessarily cheaper either, so you'll probably end up getting a new motherboard that supports the latest generation anyway.
Upgrade in parts, don't do it all at once, you can purchase more powerful components with a staggered upgrade. I guess you mean gaming, so first get a GPU, get a 270X 4GB and a new PSU, that one you got wont cut it one bit. Then stagger the motherboard, avoud anything like storage unless you really need to, avoid any cooling unless you need to etc. So after you got the GPU/PSU get a motherboard/CPU and RAM, AMD is cheaper but aging fast, Intel is more expensive but works well, look at some second hand parts and/or open box items, I have found some absolute gems on eBay, i3s for next to nothing, I picked up 2 i3 machines with 8GB RAM for like £200. So either look to cannibalize or purchase parts second hand. RAM go for 4GB then upgrade to 8GB when you can afford, easy. The finally you can get SSDs/HDDs and look at aftermarket cooling.
That would be my way of doing it, I did a similar thing to this when I was building my machine, it took me two years to do (Due to other bills etc) but I got it eventually, if your working it will be easier. Apart from eBay I wouldn't suggest lowering the price anymore, your entering areas where performance can be shocking.
H81 is just a dumbed down version of the rest of the chipsets that is meant to be extremely budget orientated. The article says that you can't OC on it, but some boards do support it, I happen to have one that does (and does it fairly averagely). As with Skylake and upgrading, you have to remember that with Skylake out, the prices on Haswell will start to drop and used parts may become a more regular occurrence if people decide to upgrade. So using it as a "lets upgrade later" is not a bad choice now.
@texnato I agree with SpaceCat, in this type of build, and SSD is completely pointless unless he plans on reusing HDDs for mass storage. Which I doubt because they are probably IDE drives or just really bad drives. SATA drives from those days are horrendous to use.
@VXAce If used purely for gaming, than having an SSD won't improve performance that much. But if the PC is going to be used to any office or college/school work I can't recommend not getting an SSD.
@texnato And spend a large portion of the budget on something that won't improve much of anything besides bootup time and load time for applications? Money that could have been spent on 4 times or more space? Alright, if you say so.
If I did a staggered upgrade like you mentioned, would the R9 270X + A 550W PSU be okay? I can get the video card for $130 open box, and the psu for $40.
Yeah that would perfectly fine, the CPU you have would bottleneck it but don't worry, that shiny new chip will fix that. I did it like this. 1st month - CPU/Motherboard/RAM 2nd month - GPU/PSU/Mouse 3rd month - new HDD and new motherboard, original had a damaged socket and the store wouldn't accept responsibility (If I only knew about Linus then :P) After that I lost the job I had at the time, so I had to get parts when I could afford. Case - I got it for my bday SSD - I got eventually after saving doing side jobs Keyboard - Same as above Monitor - Got it for Christmas last year New GPU (R9 290) Got via finance.
And thats it really, next upgrade CPU again, trust me this business gets very addictive so watch it lol.
If you need advice about parts or staggered upgrade pm me :)