£500 Budget Gaming Rig

[HappyHambo]

I have made a list of parts on pcpartpicker to make my 1st PC out of. I'm no expert or even novice at building and planning a PC build so I was wondering if I could get some help. Here is a link to the list - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gfZrXL - Basically what I'm wondering is how do these part work together and is there any tweaks that could be made to improve performance. I was also wondering if instead of a intel i3, a FX-8350 with a Asus M5A97 R2.0 motherboard would work better performance wise? I don't know much about PC building so I'm sorry if there's any "newbie" mistakes.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated! Thanks

 

[HappyHambo]

This build is slightly better at games

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£87.86 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£70.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£51.72 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.89 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£139.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£49.14 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £468.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-29 15:49 BST+0100

And a better mobo

Is r9 280 better than GTX 960?

 

[Archaic59]

I think your build looks great! The i3 and GTX 960 is a great combo. You picked a good PSU too. I don't see anything that needs changing at all. Well done!

 

[HappyHambo]

I think your build looks great! The i3 and GTX 960 is a great combo. You picked a good PSU too. I don't see anything that needs changing at all. Well done!

Yes, it has a bigger bit bus and more Vram, look at comparisons on youtube or other forum, but if you are looking for lower power bills, the GTX 960 is the better choice, if you just want performance, go with the 280

I'll see at the time. I was thinking about getting a 2nd hand one from Ebay to save some pretty penny's, if i can find a GTX 960 cheaper than a 280 i'll get it unless i can find a 280x