Sub $500 Media center/ mid gaming build?

[tazer101]

Hey guys! Ive been playing around with the idea for a build to act as a media center/ gaming solution. So far the build i have is going a bit higher than the $500 dollar mark im trying to keep it around, so i wanted to see if anyone could give me some recommendations on where to cut costs. I may just need to increase the price ceiling of my build but for now ill stay stubborn.

-Case: BitFenix Prodigy M Arctic White Steel/ Plastic Micro ATX Mini Tower ($99)
-HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM ($65)
-CPU & Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P mATX and AMD FX-3600 black edition (microcenter bundle for $109)
-Graphics card: EVGA GeForce GT 640 2GB ($95)
-Power supply: Thermaltake TR2 W0070 430W ($50)
-Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 ($48)
-CPU fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO ($35)
-Extra: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 Hybrid TV Tuner ($62)

Im planning on it using hdmi to hook into the tv and using the tv tuner to have the ability to watch and record through the pc.

On the side of gaming, im not looking into anything too special. 30-40 fps at 1080p on medium to highish settings. Im not looking to blow minds, just to have smooth game play and have it look decent on a tv.

On a side note, using the IR sensor with the tv tuner, is there any way to use remote to navigate the windows 8 start menu? Thanks for any help! If all pans out this might just be my second build but for now its just an idea.

 

[Hello man]

Hey guys! Ive been playing around with the idea for a build to act as a media center/ gaming solution. So far the build i have is going a bit higher than the $500 dollar mark im trying to keep it around, so i wanted to see if anyone could give me some recommendations on where to cut costs. I may just need to increase the price ceiling of my build but for now ill stay stubborn.

-Case: BitFenix Prodigy M Arctic White Steel/ Plastic Micro ATX Mini Tower ($99)
-HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM ($65)
-CPU & Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P mATX and AMD FX-3600 black edition (microcenter bundle for $109)
-Graphics card: EVGA GeForce GT 640 2GB ($95)
-Power supply: Thermaltake TR2 W0070 430W ($50)
-Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 ($48)
-CPU fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO ($35)
-Extra: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 Hybrid TV Tuner ($62)

Im planning on it using hdmi to hook into the tv and using the tv tuner to have the ability to watch and record through the pc.

On the side of gaming, im not looking into anything too special. 30-40 fps at 1080p on medium to highish settings. Im not looking to blow minds, just to have smooth game play and have it look decent on a tv.

On a side note, using the IR sensor with the tv tuner, is there any way to use remote to navigate the windows 8 start menu? Thanks for any help! If all pans out this might just be my second build but for now its just an idea.

You might want to save up for a little while longer and go for more than 4GB of RAM, as most games need closer to 8GB. I use 16GB, and I repeatedly recommend people on the forum to not go the cheap 4GB route, as even most stock laptops these days have 8+.

 

[tazer101]

I was debating that same thing for a while. I have 8gb in my gaming build I did but I wasn't sure if it would be nessisary for this kind of PC. If you recomend at least 8gb then I'll toss it in! The price jump won't be to much for that.

 

[Hello man]

I was debating that same thing for a while. I have 8gb in my gaming build I did but I wasn't sure if it would be nessisary for this kind of PC. If you recomend at least 8gb then I'll toss it in! The price jump won't be to much for that.

I tried Win 7 Ultimate on a laptop with 4GB. That was interesting, as I had to manually install updates ten at a time because the installation would run out of RAM. Bad bad bad.