Advise on a budgeted gaming PC

[JasonHarsh]

Hello, I was wondering, since I'm new to the whole building a computer thing, if I could have some advise on an $800-1000 gaming build, or if that's too low, a $1000-1200 build. The games I would like to be able to play are dishonored 2, dark souls 3, and other similarly graphics intensive games. I already have the OS, mouse, and keyboard, along with the monitor. I would also like it to be wifi and Bluetooth enabled. So far, I've only looked into AMD brand Mobos and Processors, but I am open to Intel as well. I'd like the GHz of the processor to at least 3.4 before overclock​ing, I don't much like the possibility of it overheating. I would also like at least 4GB of graphics card memory and 16GB of RAM should be enough. The last thing I'm looking for is a TB of storage, more is fine if it's priced well enough.

The build lists I made myself are here :
~$830 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Lz739W
~$930 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CP4N7h

But I wanted to know if I could be doing better in my Bang for the Buck, and if I can even play the games I want to play on these specs. Thanks for any help you offer.

 

[MnMWizard]

What monitor is it, and do you actually already have it or just plan to buy it?

 

[JasonHarsh]

I don't know exactly what it's called, but it can handle 1080p hd just fine, it isn't too big, but I use it with PS4 games because it's better than my TV. Why did you want to know?

 

[MnMWizard]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($218.55 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard ($107.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($122.99 @ Best Buy)
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($82.67 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8GB PULSE Video Card ($231.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Phanteks - ECLIPSE P400 ATX Mid Tower Case ($65.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($47.78 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($86.88 @ OutletPC)
Case Fan: Cooler Master - SickleFlow (Red) 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan ($4.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1039.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-07 16:50 EDT-0400

The reason why I asked is because with an AMD GPU you have the ability to take advantage of FreeSync, which eliminates screen tearing. I have a FreeSync ultrawide paired with an rx 480 and I love it, but of course even without FreeSync this card will perform excellent anyway.

 

[JasonHarsh]

Is this what you use? If so, how well can you game? And how much did that ultrawide freesync monitor cost you?

 

[MnMWizard]

Well as I said I have an rx 480, which is just a slightly slower version of a 580. As for the monitor I love my ultrawide, I have the 29UM68-p, and I would very much recommend it, I even modified the FreeSync range from 40-75 to 30-80hz. I would recommend the similar 29UM67-p:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025112&cm_re=29um67p-_-24-025-112-_-Product

2 things to note though:

1. The 67-p has a slightly higher chance to be a faulty unit than the 68-p, but it has true 8 bit color compared to the 68-p 6 bit+FRC (8 bit makes color gradients look smooth and not "layered".) I have the 68-p and my friend has the 67-p they are virtually identical (though I did not notice a color gradient on my friend's like I sometimes can on mine in some games), so pick either better color depth or lower chance you'd have to RMA it (and if you do get a faulty model you can just RMA it as many times as you want).

2. While ultrawide has certainly matured, it still has a few issues. Some games that either have lazy coding, are a shitty port, or both, sometimes don't support the 21:9 aspect ratio fully and either just stretch it or black-bar it. The game that comes to mind is Overwatch, which is notorious for having appalling ultrawide support, just cropping the image from a 16:9 view. I just want you to be aware of that, but I'd say that 9/10 games have great ultrawide support, and a few games that don't have unnoficial mods to fix it (The Witcher 3 has 21:9 support for everything except cut scenes, but there is a mod that fixes that and it works flawlessly. On a side note I would very much at least try TW3, I'm on my second play-through now.)

For FPS it depends on the game, but I can usually get around 60-80 FPS in games with a mix of medium/high/ultra settings (though usually ultra settings provide little visual benefit and I personally would rather have a higher FPS.)

 

[JasonHarsh]

Alrighty then, thanks for the info. Looks like I have some great build specs to look into, I'll definitely take a long​ look into the ultrawide freesync monitor, but it'll have to be one of the later things to get after my budget recovers from buying the rest of the parts. The last thing I wanted to know was if I really need an SSD, rather just spindle RAM.

 

[MnMWizard]

I don't know what you mean by spindle RAM. I would say get an SSD, it just about halves my boot times and programs like Chrome that I put on the drive load instantly. I have a 120gb SSD and a 1TB HDD, but I would say get a 250gb SSD as mine is starting to get cramped (I like to keep 1-2 games on it).

 

[JasonHarsh]

Well, I didn't mean to say spindle "RAM", I just meant storage. So what I meant was if I should have spindle memory like the Seagate, or SSD memory like the Samsung, (I believe it was from Samsung). And you answered that, even though I asked it weirdly. Thank you so much for all your help.

 

[MnMWizard]

You're welcome, hope you don't have any trouble with it!