400$ Gaming PC

Revanator

Reputable
Sep 2, 2014
31
0
4,530
Hello all,

i've recently gotten a budget of 400 dollars from my mother to build a gaming PC. I have no problems with mail-in-rebates, but the OS needs to be included (windows.) I want to run games like DayZ on around 40 FPS on lowest settings, higher then that is amazing for me.

I'm a console peasant, so I don't know most of the jargon, but i'm sure the great TH community will help.
 
Solution
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-HDS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Pareema 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($28.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.99 @ Best Buy)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill FBM-01-450P MicroATX Mini Tower Case w/450W Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $379.69
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-20 18:20 EST-0500
 


I see.

I'm willing to sacrifice RAM or Hard Drive space. I won't be playing many triple A games.
 


Would've been great with OS. :|
 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($41.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Pareema 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($28.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital RE3 250GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($22.39 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill FBM-02 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($21.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($23.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $395.06
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-20 18:51 EST-0500
 
Solution


Thank you very much!

I knew TH would be able to help, :)
 

the game will run just fine on a g3258 OC and 260x, 4gb of ram is minimum but it will still run

 
I strongly recommend a higher quality PSU. I also recommend 8GB of RAM unless you don't plan on playing anything besides DayZ.

My humble suggestion:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($28.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 260 1GB Video Card ($79.99 @ Micro Center)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($23.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.75 @ OutletPC)

Total: $404.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-20 18:30 EST-0500

The build provides easy drop in upgrades down the road. the 1600 mhz DDR3 pairs well with an I5 (or my personal favorite, Xeon 1230+...cheap I7 ftw). The PSU is beefy enough to support any single GPU video card.

Cheers!
 
Whew. That was fun. I like a challenge. The 750 ti will give decent performance. If possible, I'd follow iLiftFood's suggestion, and somehow eliminate the cost of your OS.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/nrJJGX
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/nrJJGX/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor ($52.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($41.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Pareema 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($28.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital RE3 250GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($22.39 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($124.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $409.06
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-20 18:36 EST-0500
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($73.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A78M-HD+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($53.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.99 @ Best Buy)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill FBM-02 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($21.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($23.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $376.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-20 18:50 EST-0500

I personally think you should go with the AMD Athlon X4 860K as your processor. The G3258 does have better performance, but with only 2 cores. There are a few games that exist today that do "require" 4 cores to play them, and therefore you wouldn't be able to play those games on the Pentium. Now, I know that Dying Light is not a quad core optimized game, but I went into this build assuming that you would more than likely play more and more games.

The downside to this build, is there is no "upgrade path" for the processor. But, I personally wouldn't drop an i5 or i7 into a $40 motherboard when the time comes to upgrade, I'd just buy a whole new CPU and motherboard at the same time. To each their own, this is just one opinion.
 


Sorry about that, I edited it immediately. I hadn't thought of that when I first posted it.
 
Its cool 😛 I prefer the G3258 over the Athlon just because the G3258 is much easier to toy-around with when overclocking. The dual-core is an issue though.
I agree with Pivotto on the 8GB RAM, it has been recommended by a few people; because it is important.
 


R.I.P Bill Gates' wallet. Us masterminds have found a loophole.