Is this a good idea

[nerdslayer]

I am on a strict budget of £500 inc windows and came to the conclusion that I would get an fx 6300 and a GTX 750ti for upgrade later.

Upon finding out that my friend ordered 2 copies of windows instead of one I can have one saving £70. This ment I could afford to upgrade eather the cpu to an i5 4460 or the gpu to an r9 380 (would go amd gpu as the MOBO supports crossfire but not sli) and do the other later.

Having thought for a while I decided I would go with the cpu upgrade and get an i5 4460 with an r7 360 and eccept a large bottleneck for 12 months until I can afford an r9 380 and run them in crossfire with the i5 and have a decent pc. In another 2 years or so I could then get a high end i5 or a low end i7, upgrade ram to 16gb and have a complete beast.

Is this a good idea

 

[RCFProd]

I'm not sure what you mean really. You need a 500 GBP build without Windows?

 

[nerdslayer]

I'm not sure what you mean really. You need a 500 GBP build without Windows?

No was absolutely no more than £500 including windows but following me being able to get windows free then yes £500 without an os

 

[Jeff Baffalo]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

 

[nerdslayer]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

I did think of that build but I want an amd card so that i can crossfire when I upgrade cards later and the only amd cards are r7, too low, and the r9 380, too high.

Theirfor it made sence to get the r7 360 and except a bottleneck to get an r9 380 and run the 2 in crossfire for GTX 970 like performance without the costs and still getting the i5

 

[Jeff Baffalo]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

I did think of that build but I want an amd card so that i can crossfire when I upgrade cards later and the only amd cards are r7, too low, and the r9 380, too high.

Theirfor it made sence to get the r7 360 and except a bottleneck to get an r9 380 and run the 2 in crossfire for GTX 970 like performance without the costs and still getting the i5

First off, the gtx 950 has SLI support, SLI and Crossfire are the same thing except one is for AMD and the other for Nvidia. second of all, the mobo I picked in the build cannot support muiltiple gpu's 🙁.

 

[nerdslayer]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

I did think of that build but I want an amd card so that i can crossfire when I upgrade cards later and the only amd cards are r7, too low, and the r9 380, too high.

Theirfor it made sence to get the r7 360 and except a bottleneck to get an r9 380 and run the 2 in crossfire for GTX 970 like performance without the costs and still getting the i5

First off, the gtx 950 has SLI support, SLI and Crossfire are the same thing except one is for AMD and the other for Nvidia. second of all, the mobo I picked in the build cannot support muiltiple gpu's 🙁.

But the mobo I have already chosen an are happy with has crossfire support but not sli support theirfore making it reasonable to what amd cards

 

[RCFProd]

Crossfire is badly supported though, I wouldn't do that.

Besides you'd need a 600-650 watts psu to be safe.

A more important point is that crossfire is not worth it with low to medium end graphics cards. They will perform poorly.

 

[Jeff Baffalo]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

I did think of that build but I want an amd card so that i can crossfire when I upgrade cards later and the only amd cards are r7, too low, and the r9 380, too high.

Theirfor it made sence to get the r7 360 and except a bottleneck to get an r9 380 and run the 2 in crossfire for GTX 970 like performance without the costs and still getting the i5

First off, the gtx 950 has SLI support, SLI and Crossfire are the same thing except one is for AMD and the other for Nvidia. second of all, the mobo I picked in the build cannot support muiltiple gpu's 🙁.

But the mobo I have already chosen an are happy with has crossfire support but not sli support theirfore making it reasonable to what amd cards

Well I guess in that case AMD is a better choice.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£39.37 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 370 2GB WINDFORCE 2X Video Card (£114.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£25.29 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £429.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-03 00:24 BST+0100

 

[RCFProd]

AMD Crossfire with anything below R9 280X or even R9 290 = Useless

 

[nerdslayer]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

I did think of that build but I want an amd card so that i can crossfire when I upgrade cards later and the only amd cards are r7, too low, and the r9 380, too high.

Theirfor it made sence to get the r7 360 and except a bottleneck to get an r9 380 and run the 2 in crossfire for GTX 970 like performance without the costs and still getting the i5

First off, the gtx 950 has SLI support, SLI and Crossfire are the same thing except one is for AMD and the other for Nvidia. second of all, the mobo I picked in the build cannot support muiltiple gpu's 🙁.

But the mobo I have already chosen an are happy with has crossfire support but not sli support theirfore making it reasonable to what amd cards

Well I guess in that case AMD is a better choice.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£39.37 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 370 2GB WINDFORCE 2X Video Card (£114.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£25.29 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £429.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-03 00:24 BST+0100

Alternately then. I could try and find an sli enabled mobo and get the 750ti into a 960 in sli. That would also work in the same way

 

[RCFProd]

SLI mobos = not in your budget.

For the last time, crossfire/SLI with low to medium end graphics cards = waste of money.

It's better to buy one GTX 950, sell it when you think about upgrading and replace it with the GTX 970.

If you still wish to SLI in the future, Asus Z87 Expert:

Motherboard: Asus Z87-Expert ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£68.49 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £68.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-03 00:37 BST+0100

 

[sora]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

I did think of that build but I want an amd card so that i can crossfire when I upgrade cards later and the only amd cards are r7, too low, and the r9 380, too high.

Theirfor it made sence to get the r7 360 and except a bottleneck to get an r9 380 and run the 2 in crossfire for GTX 970 like performance without the costs and still getting the i5

First off, the gtx 950 has SLI support, SLI and Crossfire are the same thing except one is for AMD and the other for Nvidia. second of all, the mobo I picked in the build cannot support muiltiple gpu's 🙁.

But the mobo I have already chosen an are happy with has crossfire support but not sli support theirfore making it reasonable to what amd cards

Well I guess in that case AMD is a better choice.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£39.37 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 370 2GB WINDFORCE 2X Video Card (£114.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£25.29 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £429.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-03 00:24 BST+0100

Alternately then. I could try and find an sli enabled mobo and get the 750ti into a 960 in sli. That would also work in the same way

I personally think a 750Ti and a 960 is a waste of time in terms of SLI capabilities... Stay with one of the cards!

 

[Jeff Baffalo]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£30.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Xigmatek Aeos MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£22.08 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £428.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-02 23:56 BST+0100

+£70 worth of windows

I did think of that build but I want an amd card so that i can crossfire when I upgrade cards later and the only amd cards are r7, too low, and the r9 380, too high.

Theirfor it made sence to get the r7 360 and except a bottleneck to get an r9 380 and run the 2 in crossfire for GTX 970 like performance without the costs and still getting the i5

First off, the gtx 950 has SLI support, SLI and Crossfire are the same thing except one is for AMD and the other for Nvidia. second of all, the mobo I picked in the build cannot support muiltiple gpu's 🙁.

But the mobo I have already chosen an are happy with has crossfire support but not sli support theirfore making it reasonable to what amd cards

Well I guess in that case AMD is a better choice.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£141.54 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£39.37 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.37 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.92 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 370 2GB WINDFORCE 2X Video Card (£114.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£25.29 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £429.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-03 00:24 BST+0100

Alternately then. I could try and find an sli enabled mobo and get the 750ti into a 960 in sli. That would also work in the same way

I personally think a 750Ti and a 960 is a waste of time in terms of SLI capabilities... Stay with one of the cards!

Going with a single card is always the best choice, but I think that the op does not have a surplus of money, so he probably wants to build a cheap rig as the base, and then build open it.

 

[nerdslayer]

That's correct. I was just looking for maximum performance on a very tight and strict budget. All I was thinking was that if I got a low end card I could get a better CPU and then add a medium end card to it for upper level performance. It is a shame that it won't work in this way