$550 Budget Gaming Build

[Liquicool]

Approximate Purchase Date: Within the next few weeks.

Budget Range: $550

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, internet surfing, streaming HD videos, etc.

Are you buying a monitor: No.



Parts to Upgrade: Everything.

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Whichever is cheapest!

Location: City, State/Region, Country - Michigan

Parts Preferences: None.

Overclocking: Maybe at a later date.

SLI or Crossfire: No.

Your Monitor Resolution: 1280x1024

The games that I will be playing are: Wow, Sky rim, Mine craft, BF4, and some others. Of course, I don't expect ultra setting on all of these, but medium would be nice, if possible. Thanks for your help!

 

[filippi]

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[Tom Tancredi]

Is everyone getting the same refund check? Seriously, save for another $150 and you will do much better then a system in 12 months (when BF5 / whatever is released next) you will completely need to replace the system anyway (unplayable results) - and NO I am NOT talking ULTRA, Nor High, and barely Medium graphics.

First, no one plays in 1280x1024, that is a old 'max' CRT standard. Normal LCD displays are WIDEscreen, where it is a rectangle verses the older 'square' of a screen. Thus you get resolutions like 1920x1080 (aka 1080p the standard for PCs), 1440x900, 1366x768, 1280x720 (720p).

Second, if your just looking to 'play games on the cheap', you BEST solution is simply go console. For less then $200 get a PS3 or 360, then get a i3 Laptop (to do internet surfing, you can watch Videos including Netflix via the PS3 and 360) for $249 and you would be within your budget but never 'worry' about if your PS3/360 'can play' XYZ game. PS3/360s have been playing games perfectly for 10 years, never with a worry on anything us PC people worry about.

Lastly, as I mentioned a medium-high gaming rig is no less then $700, period, for anyone whom needs "EVERYTHING". Normally your best served to shoot for around the $1000 mark to get the best performance per price, without breaking the bank. The current 'standard' medium-high performance is a i5 Haswell or the top of the line FX-8xxx. You can get away a bit with the i3 Haswell today, but as the demand (BF4, AC3, etc.) for more CPU processing power increases, the i3 with it's limited cores will become a issue down the road. SURPRISINGLY Intel has pushed the new i7 Haswell (historically the most expensive CPUs that buying the CPU by itself was the SAME price as a full computer) to undercut the i5 pricing, with many deals out there that make it real simple to make a super gaming rig cheaply (Ultra performance and longer 'future' for the performance).

I would recommend either the Acer or Lenovo i7 system $590 deals I seen on Slickdeals.net (http://slickdeals.net/f/6725746-lenovo-k410-desktop-pc-core-i7-3770-3-4ghz-8gb-ddr3-2tb-hdd-wifi-n-dvdrw-usb-3-0-hdmi-nvidia-gt-620-win-8-590-free-shipping-newegg) and you already get this:
Intel Core i7-3770 3.4GHz (4th generation, Ivy Bridge, 4 Cores / 8 Threads), 8GB DDR3 Memory, 2TB SATA Hard Drive, 1GB nVidia Geforce GT 620 , DVD Burner, Media Card Reader, HDMI Out, USB 3.0, Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n, Gigabit Ethernet, Windows 8,
1-Year Warranty. Swap the PSU out (http://pcpartpicker.com/ 600W for $90) and add a GPU of your choice in ($149-499) and your scoring Ultra, 1080p, 64Man maps on BF4 around 60+FPS (all depending on the GPU you get of course).

Realistically a i5 (less cores) would be only a $100 or so less then that price, and still need to swap PSU to support a added GPU. AMD is gone realistically from the competition, as ONLY the TOP FX-8xxx they sell can compete against what Intel is offering. VERY SADLY, AMD has made NO move to challenge this at E3/CES, and the current news on Toms this week shows they instead are releasing the AM1 (http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-msi-am1i-motherboard,26217.html) and focusing on 64Bit ARM chips (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2429781,00.asp). IMHO AMD is signaling they no longer wish to support or will provide a alternative for the PC game hardware platform.

 

[NeonMane]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/376xC
I recommend APUs for budget gamers. They're a good platform to start off on.