Help me choose 1 of the 3 budget gaming rigs presented.

[Lsstefan]

Hi guys.
I want to make a gaming setup, that may be upgraded in the future if needed.
I play 99% of the time WoW and watch movies. Read in the last few days about gaming and how they mainly use a single core. Anyway, I made 3 possible rigs. Final price is @550€.
If possible, I'd like to OC where possible. I'd rather have an overall performance, rather than one single direction. You never know when I'll start photoshop or stuff like that(though games are the main concern). Also, maybe in the future I will buy a new proc or a new video card or etc. Each rig does one thing good, but I'd like the overall 😀 here goes. I'll list cpu and mobo separate and the rest same for all setups. Not very good with picking the BEST mobo, just linking general mobos.

1: Pentium G3258
Asrock z97 Aniv
CM 212 Evo

2. i3 4170(4330 +20€) - no additional cooler as I can't OC it
Asus H81M

3. FX 8300(8320 +30€)
Gbyte GA 970
CM 212 Evo

R7 250x = GTX 740 (both 2 gig) (R7 240 -30€, GTX 750 +15€)
WD Blue 1TB 7200 rpm
HyperX Fury 4 gb 1600
Deepcool Tesseract BF case
???power supply??? Please input smth here for @50€ please, no idea what.

All 3 will cost me 550€ give or take.
Thank you for the input.
Regards.

Edit: if you have any other ideas for mobos or towers, I'd like an mATX and mini tower, in case I want to carry it.

 

[TofuLion]

for better gaming performance, the strong GPU in this build will deliver higher frames per second

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£85.25 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£69.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£39.99 @ Dabs)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£40.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gainward GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card (£251.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£28.43 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£34.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £550.17
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-02 07:13 BST+0100

and then for a more balanced build that you can do some work with as well, the 960 is still good and the i5 is much better for multitasking

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£154.92 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£69.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£39.99 @ Dabs)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£40.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£157.00 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£28.43 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£34.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £524.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-02 07:22 BST+0100

both builds will do awesome in WoW

 

[Andrew Murdoch]

If you were to stick with the Pentium g3258 initially, as its cost to performance ratio is seriously high, you could get a higher rated LGA1150 cpu further down the road.
A z97 chipset would let you overclock the Anniversary Pentium and get a 'K' edition i5/i7 when its affordable. Just something to think about.

 

[Lsstefan]

Tofu, the setup is way out of my planned budget. Thanks for the input on the power supply.
Andrew I was thinking the same also. But will the Aniv be good enough for an i5k?
What are your thoughts about the OC fx? I know there is almost no room for upgrade in the future with AMD, but then again, if I'm going to trail my behind another couple of years with i3s and not go big, might aswell change the whole mobo and cpu, right?

 

[TofuLion]

sorry, i had the currencies confused. what country are you in?

 

[Lsstefan]

Romania. You setup is very good, no doubt, but might overkill I think )

The i3 setup is cheaper because I didn't include the cpu cooler. What if I'd spend that difference on a z97 mobo with that i3 and in the future buy a better cpu?
Or will the OC Pentium be enough for my needs?
I honestly don't know high performance setups because I never had one, I'm used to medium ones, so even the Pentium might suffice my needs.

 

[Andrew Murdoch]

Tofu, the setup is way out of my planned budget. Thanks for the input on the power supply.
Andrew I was thinking the same also. But will the Aniv be good enough for an i5k?
What are your thoughts about the OC fx? I know there is almost no room for upgrade in the future with AMD, but then again, if I'm going to trail my behind another couple of years with i3s and not go big, might aswell change the whole mobo and cpu, right?

Romania. You setup is very good, no doubt, but might overkill I think )

The i3 setup is cheaper because I didn't include the cpu cooler. What if I'd spend that difference on a z97 mobo with that i3 and in the future buy a better cpu?
Or will the OC Pentium be enough for my needs?
I honestly don't know high performance setups because I never had one, I'm used to medium ones, so even the Pentium might suffice my needs.

If you can stretch another 15 euro you could get an Asrock z97M Pro4, which would handle an i5.

 

[Lsstefan]

How about this?
It's a downsized setup, for "portability".

Asus Z97M-PLUS
Intel Pentium G3258 3.20Ghz + Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Asus Radeon R7 250X 2GB DDR5 128Bit
WD Caviar Blue 1TB SATA3 64MB 7200RPM
HyperX Fury Black 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CL10
Sirtec High Power Element Bronze 600W
Deepcool Smarter

I chose the Pentium because when I want to upgrade, I'll already have the cooler for the new CPU. I believe it's sufficient for an i5 quad, right?
If it isn't, I'll get an i3 and be done with it.
The case accepts 300 mm GPU and the R7 has 210, so I'm good.
The power supply is at the bottom of the case and I believe the power pins are on the right side of the mobo, so I think I can pass the cable around it and not through it.

 

[TofuLion]

the power supply mounts on the top of that case. it also doesn't come with any fans pre-installed so you might consider getting at least one for exhaust, an intake would be nice as well. especially with such a small form factor, ventilation is already an issue.

the motherboard is decent quality, but it only has a 4 phase design which isn't exactly ideal for overclocking, but i wouldn't really say it's insufficient for mild to moderate overclocking. it also doesn't support nvidia SLI, which doesn't matter to you anyway, but is another thing to consider since that is one of the major benefits of Z97 over H97.

the R7 250X is quite weak, almost pathetic. you could get comparable performance from an AMD APU with it's on die graphics. it should still be enough to run a game like WoW very smoothly, however, especially powered by an overclocked haswell. all-in-all, that system is probably your best bet providing adequate performance for what you need, with a long line of upgrades available.

 

[Lsstefan]

the power supply mounts on the top of that case. it also doesn't come with any fans pre-installed so you might consider getting at least one for exhaust, an intake would be nice as well. especially with such a small form factor, ventilation is already an issue.

the motherboard is decent quality, but it only has a 4 phase design which isn't exactly ideal for overclocking, but i wouldn't really say it's insufficient for mild to moderate overclocking. it also doesn't support nvidia SLI, which doesn't matter to you anyway, but is another thing to consider since that is one of the major benefits of Z97 over H97.

the R7 250X is quite weak, almost pathetic. you could get comparable performance from an AMD APU with it's on die graphics. it should still be enough to run a game like WoW very smoothly, however, especially powered by an overclocked haswell. all-in-all, that system is probably your best bet providing adequate performance for what you need, with a long line of upgrades available.

Yea, i changed three cases after writing that, forgot to edit the rest too.
I could squeeze a better GPU, but then I'd have to buy a cheaper mobo or smth.
Would this be a recommended improvement?
Asus GeForce GTX 750 TI Strix OC 2GB
I'll consider an ATX mobo for the advantages you mentioned and a middle tower, not mini.

Thanks for the help guys.
Kind regards.

 

[TofuLion]

with a nice overclock on that pentium (say around 4.4 GHz) equipped with a 750 Ti, you should be able to run WoW on ultra @ 1080p with a very nice frame rate.

i wouldn't recommend going cheaper on the motherboard, it's one of the base components that you don't really want to worry about upgrading. with a decent z97 board you could support even a high end system like an i7 with gtx 970 SLI. not saying you ever would, but best to keep your upgrade path as large as possible if you do in fact plan on upgrading in the somewhat near future (next year or so). if not, then you'd be better off just getting something cheap and replaceable that you will have to replace in three years regardless.

 

[Lsstefan]

Thanks man.
I decided to go your way.
Thanks for all the help.