What is the best gaming pc build around my $500-700 budget

[OrbitalTrooper]

This will be my first pc build ever. I need some help from the pros since I suck at picking parts for my budget. You don't need to include mouse, keyboard and monitor. If you can, squeeze in windows 7 but if not, I can pick it up shortly after. I would be playing A LOT of strategy games and RPGs like Planetary Anhilation, Skyrim, Fallout, Sins of a solar empire ect...
PS: I live in Canada so if you don't mind, check and see if they ship all across North America.

 

[miit123]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-4130 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($118.00 @ Vuugo)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($56.50 @ Vuugo)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($70.48 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.97 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270X 2GB PCS+ Video Card ($189.99 @ NCIX)
Case: Zalman Z5 ATX Mid Tower Case ($44.99 @ Memory Express)
Power Supply: Thermaltake SMART 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($43.48 @ Newegg Canada)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.75 @ Vuugo)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.79 @ DirectCanada)
Total: $702.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

 

[miit123]

This will be best for you

 

[miit123]

Your every single game will run on it and every part will be shipped to canada. So no worries! Perfect for you in my opinion.

 

[Outlander_04]

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/Ls2JmG

FX 6300 cpu , 50% more potential than the quadcore for a couple of $ extra
ATX motherboard with overclocking potential and the advantages of a 970 series chipset
a dual channel RAM kit
Better case
cpu cooler to let you overclock

But the price is boosted $75 or so .
Buy the better hardware and once you have it assembled install ubuntu linux for a few weeks till you can afford a copy of windows
IMO buy 8.1 64 bit . The license lets you transfer it to another computer [ oem 7 is locked forever to the first motherboard ] , and with a few minutes of customization and a free start button program called classicshell it will act pretty much just like 7

 

[shiv51292]

My setup is as follows:

Fractal Design R2 XL ultra tower ( by no means necessary lol but love it) paid $99 on Newegg
ASUS M5A99FX Pro 2.0 mobo ( $115)
AMD FX-6350 CPU ($119)
Patriot Gamer RAM 1600 16GB ($140)
Cooler Master 212 EVO cpu cooler (35)
EVGA 650 bronze ( caught a refurbished one for like 50 bucks but can get many 650 watt PSU for around that)
Sapphire R7 265X ( this is the steal of mid budget GPU's in my opinion, got mine for 145, running dual monitor setup and every game ive played ive maxed out res settings and have yet to not get 45 to 60 consistantly)
Kingston V300 120GB SSD ( crucial for top performance, most underrated component of a fast system overall, 55 bucks!)
500gb HDD WD (45 bucks, storage for music, movies, etc)


Shipping and all way under your budget, would even leave room for a nice monitor. I do plan to get another SSD and run RAID, as well as another R7. The money difference as well as being able to run two video cards at 16x each was the draw for me to the AMD. Intel's are great setup's but I can easily OC my cpu to 4.5GHZ if I wanted and I just wanted to be able to be comfortable for the next 3 or so years without having to revamp entire setup. Hope this helps!

 

[shiv51292]

at 800$ all done and peace of mind for 3 yrs atleast

 

[OrbitalTrooper]

I like all the setups a so far. I'm just in the middle of debating which one will work best for me. Outlander_04 has the overclocking down so I can if I want but it's a little too high as I can only go $50 over my budget.

 

[Outlander_04]

I like all the setups a so far. I'm just in the middle of debating which one will work best for me. Outlander_04 has the overclocking down so I can if I want but it's a little too high as I can only go $50 over my budget.

Trim back a little on the case , and defer buying the cpu cooler .

That leaves you a good solid foundation of core hardware . The cpu cooler can be added later easily enough

 

[miit123]

Just squeezed some parts from the outlander_04 Build. This should be fine for you

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($123.11 @ DirectCanada)
CPU Cooler: Gelid Solutions CC-Siberian-01 51.9 CFM CPU Cooler ($9.99 @ Canada Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($69.75 @ Vuugo)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($89.99 @ NCIX)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.97 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270X 2GB PCS+ Video Card ($189.99 @ NCIX)
Case: Cougar Volant (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ NCIX)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ Memory Express)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.75 @ Vuugo)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.79 @ DirectCanada)
Total: $752.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

 

[miit123]

The cooler performs quite well on its budget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVmucHHqPBk

 

[Outlander_04]

The gelid cooler is rated for a maximum of 82 watts . The FX 6300 is a 95 watt processor
I doubt very much its worth spending $10 to replace the stock cooler .

Use win 8 . Better license and easy to customize

 

[OrbitalTrooper]

Thanks for all the help guys!
If was a hard choice.