I've ordered all the parts for my extreme budget build, running Xubuntu and playing Source games for now. I must say that having never done this, I'm already extremely proud of myself for taking the dive into PC gaming.
Specs? Here they are, personally I think they're unbeatable for a total cost of $386.
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($71.98 @ Newegg) Motherboard: ASRock H81M-DGS R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($47.98 @ Newegg) Memory: G.Skill NS Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($33.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.99 @ Newegg) Video Card: XFX Radeon R7 250X 1GB Video Card ($100.98 @ Newegg) Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg) Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ Newegg) Total: $376.90 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-04 19:56 EST-0500
I did NOT add the price of my USB Wireless adapter, but it tacked on $10.
Input on my build would be appreciated.
Also any information on the topic of how to put together a PC would be extremely appreciated (especially connecting case headers such as power button, lights, etc.).
Thanks to the Tek Syndicate community for your great amounts of help. I can't thank you guys enough.
Appreciate any additional input. More on the build in about a week when I get the parts.
Well, for almost 400, you couldn't go much better than that man. Good job :) If you'll overclock the GPU and that Pentium (and I've seen some impressive results with games running on Pentium, Digital foundry have done a lot of gaming tests with those), that machine could really surprise you in some areas. R7 250X is somewhat overclockable, from what I read, it could go up to 1125MHz on the core, or even higher, that's a 15 percent increase supposedly. Too bad it only has 1 gig of VRAM but for a budget PC, it looks capable enough :)
You have a point, but I had a STRICT budget of $388, no more. I also felt that the G3258 was better, as I only play Source games at the moment (which are single-threaded) and seeing as even in multi-threaded applications the overclocked 860k can't match a stock G3258 in most games. I decided to go for the team with stronger per-core performance, because double the cores doesn't matter if two cores are working harder than four. Just my opinion, and I fully respect yours.
As for the GPU, I cut corners on everything while maintaining quality parts and performance, and I could only spend $100 on a GPU. I found the 250X to be the best deal in that price range, as it still plays CS:GO (most demanding game I own) on high at 60-80 FPS if I recall correctly.
Yet again, I respect your opinion and you are right, but I had to do my best for not being able to spend over $388.
Well, this fucking sucks, but it's shipping & logistics I guess.
All of my parts will be here by Friday; everything I need for it to be usable. Except for 1 thing. The damn graphics card, which will arrive by Tuesday as of the latest estimate. It's a disconvenience at worst, but the PC will operate even if I chose to put it together Friday.
I'm still going to wait for all of the parts to arrive to build this thing. But god damn it Newegg, really? lol
Everything is in but the GPU, which is currently in Illinois at the moment. By my current estimate it will arrive Monday. Everything seems in order and I am extremely excited for the following week.
3258 is a fine cpu and on most linux games will be awesome. My fav games on mint are csgo and open arena. If you have any isues with the radeon frivers there are a lot of people here that can help. In single threaded games the 3258 is serious medicine and will outperform many cpu's. Better late then dropped kicked etc. Oh the horror stories I have seen in the trucking industry! Just kidding I have stuff shipped to the house with no worries:)
Not bad at all. I agree that an 860k would be a better choice but theres still alot of life left for dual core machines (for better or worse). Another suggestion would have been to go with an apu build at that price point but getting into pc's is always the best choice.
According to TechSpot The G3258 edges out the 860k. The only two games that you will be running that will have issues is Fallout 4 since you need to have a hefty overclock to be able to run the game and Far cry 4, you will just need the Injector Mod to run it. Other than that I'm stunned by the G3258 performance even though your CPU will be pegged at 100% at least you will be getting a bit more frames than the 860k.
The Forerunner is built and functioning. I have installed the open-source AMD drivers and Steam. Pictures of the pc will happen, but not until I can upload them to a third-party site, which I don't feel like doing right now.
I will be delivering performance benchmarks as I download the games.
Team Fortress 2
This game had no issues, playing at 80-120 FPS all the time at maxed out settings as long as I kept anti-aliasing off. It occasionally locked up for a few seconds when respawning, though. It actually froze up after a few minutes due to having other processes running, though I believe that will be a one time thing.
As you can see my case was a cable management nightmare; I had to stick my cables in the DVD drive bay area to get them out of the way. Regardless, the PC functions fine.
Another benchmark since I finally got the game to load into a match.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
My god, this game was a pain in the ass to get running. It wouldn't even load a map without crashing at highest settings (AA turned off), so I had to settle for medium settings (except textures, which were on high). I got the game to play, but I still can't play for more than 2 minutes without a crash, which is an obvious game issue.
When the game did play, I was hitting anywhere between 60-120 FPS, dropping to around 40 in intense battles.
