Friend wants to get into PC gaming

[factory100023]

So I recently switched from consoles to PC and my friend wants to do the same. (i have a i3-4170 and a gtx 950)

His budget is 500$ Canadian and he already has a Case and a CX430

What would be better? a slightly overclocked Athlon X4 860k or and i3-4170? He won't be playing any REALLY demanding games at high settings and he won't mind turning down to 720p on some games. He will also get a GTX 950

Update* He is willing to take my build for 500$, Should I give him my build and invest in a skylake i3 build??

 

[tgiDylan]

Either of these are fine, however I do highly recommend the Pentium G3258 and Asus H81M-Plus MOBO. I used these both of these together for a year with a 750ti. The Pentium is unlocked and can easily be overclocked to 4.5ghz (which i used for a year). Highly inexpensive and amazing for a budget gaming PC

 

[factory100023]

Either of these are fine, however I do highly recommend the Pentium G3258 and Asus H81M-Plus MOBO. I used these both of these together for a year with a 750ti. The Pentium is unlocked and can easily be overclocked to 4.5ghz (which i used for a year). Highly inexpensive and amazing for a budget gaming PC

What about compatibility? you can't play quad core only games with a dual core cpu...

 

[tgiDylan]

Either of these are fine, however I do highly recommend the Pentium G3258 and Asus H81M-Plus MOBO. I used these both of these together for a year with a 750ti. The Pentium is unlocked and can easily be overclocked to 4.5ghz (which i used for a year). Highly inexpensive and amazing for a budget gaming PC

What about compatibility? you can't play quad core only games with a dual core cpu...

The only game i can think of that is quad core is Far Cry 4 which the i3 wouldnt be able to run anyway. I never can across games that needed more than 2 but he is wanting this then the amd would be fine.

 

[factory100023]

Either of these are fine, however I do highly recommend the Pentium G3258 and Asus H81M-Plus MOBO. I used these both of these together for a year with a 750ti. The Pentium is unlocked and can easily be overclocked to 4.5ghz (which i used for a year). Highly inexpensive and amazing for a budget gaming PC

What about compatibility? you can't play quad core only games with a dual core cpu...

The only game i can think of that is quad core is Far Cry 4 which the i3 wouldnt be able to run anyway. I never can across games that needed more than 2 but he is wanting this then the amd would be fine.

the i3 can run far cry 4 since it has hyper threading. but a dual core without hyper threading can't run far cry 4... also more and more games will come out requiring 4 cores...

 

[doubletake]

^

I would never recommend the G3258 over any i3 for a budget gaming machine just because of that.

I have a backup machine with an i3 4170, 8GB of 1600MHz RAM, 256GB SSD and a 750Ti, and it's managed to spit out surprisingly playable framerates in lots of newer games. I think the most surprising thing for me was its ability to put out 50-70FPS in Dying Light at 1080P medium settings. Have yet to try it with some really CPU heavy games, but the low power consumption + low heat/noise output have made this a winning combination for me.

 

[tgiDylan]

Either of these are fine, however I do highly recommend the Pentium G3258 and Asus H81M-Plus MOBO. I used these both of these together for a year with a 750ti. The Pentium is unlocked and can easily be overclocked to 4.5ghz (which i used for a year). Highly inexpensive and amazing for a budget gaming PC

What about compatibility? you can't play quad core only games with a dual core cpu...

The only game i can think of that is quad core is Far Cry 4 which the i3 wouldnt be able to run anyway. I never can across games that needed more than 2 but he is wanting this then the amd would be fine.

the i3 can run far cry 4 since it has hyper threading. but a dual core without hyper threading can't run far cry 4... also more and more games will come out requiring 4 cores...

oh my bad... Didnt realise the i3 had hyperthreading. News to me as the only low end CPU i have ever really looked at was the Pentium K 😛