Gaming Pc Build Input

[commanderEcho]

This is my gaming pc build, constructed on a $500 to $600 budget. This build is a modification of Austin Evens's "Photon" build. I changed the psu from a 430W Corsair CX430 to a XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply. I plan on buying windows 8.1 from the windows store. I also have a cd drive from my current build.
Austin Evens's Build:http://austinnotduncan.com/builds/photon/
My build:http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mhFBHx
Any comments or advice are welcome.

 

[Phil923]

You have the right idea with changing the PSU and GPU, but you can squeeze even more performance out of the system if you switch the 760k out for an 860k as they are near same in performance and the 860k costs ~$20 less. I also switched out the case for a slightly less expensive one still with good features and was able to fit an R9 280 which is miles ahead of both of the GPUs in those builds and will give you 1080p gaming at very respectable settings.

Eventually you can get even more out of the GPU with a CPU cooler so that you can overclock it because at stock speeds the 860k does bottleneck the 280. A couple of good choices are the Hyper 212 Evo and the Cryorig H7.

anyways, here is my suggestion.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($70.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI A78M-E35 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($53.10 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.60 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 280 3GB Black Edition Double Dissipation Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.60 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($53.10 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $465.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-20 05:42 EDT-0400