Help me build a computer
 

Ok so looking around I have decided it will be cheaper to build a computer rather than buy one..plus the bonus of buying the parts over a period of time is nicer than buying everything all at once

So details are this
It will be for gaming and Internet no real work will be done on it..I play Euro Truck Sim, Cities Skylines, Out of the Park Baseball 16..I will get more games like GTA and things along those lines whenever I have a better computer and not my laptop..don't want to go over $550..I like AMD my current laptop uses it and it works great..some people don't like it..I'm not picky between it or Intel when it comes down to deciding so I can go either way..will probably stream Netflix on it as well

So what would you guys build..I have never built one before..have no idea what it takes..so any advice would be great..if you need any other details please ask

How much detail do you want? I'd go with an A8 7600 Kaveri and 8GB ram plus all the other necessary stuff. I can put together a full build if you'd like.

Here's a build. You can cheapen up the motherboard if you want, I'm just really partial to ASUS. You'd can get an ASUS board for less if you drop down to microATX, just not sure what size you are looking for. You can go cheap on the case, power supply, whatever. Quality is quality though.

AMD A8-7600 Kaveri Quad-Core 3.1 GHz FM2+ 65W AMD Radeon 7 - $89.99
ASUS A88X-PRO FM2+/FM2 AMD A88X (Boltom D4) AMD Motherboard - $119.99
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 2133 (CAS 11, 11-11-11-30) - $42.99
Corsair CX430 430W ATX12V 80Plus Power Supply - $39.99
NZXT Source 210 S210-001 Black ATX Mid Tower - $39.99
Cooler Master R4-S2S-124K-GP Case Cooler 120mm Fan 4 pack - $11.99
Kingston SSDNow V300 240GB Internal SSD - $77.50
ASUS DVD-Writer SATA 24x - $19.99
Windows 10 Home 64-bit - $99.99

Total price: $542.42

https://media.giphy.com/media/3oEduZ...dF1C/giphy.gif

Lets start with what you DO have.

Do you have ANY parts for your PC, peripherals, monitors, keyboard, mouse, drives, etc.

Do you need an OS. If so, are you scared of using a grey market OS? They will cost about 15% of what a retail OS is.

Will you consider used parts?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($112.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($55.38 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($62.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card ($196.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $539.20
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-21 20:35 EST-0500

This does not include OS and peripherals, just a tower. So it depends on what you currently have and what you are setting your $550 budget to.

If you need EVERYTHING you are gonna have to go AMD with an APU.

Changes the ballgame drastically.

Budget "gaming console" I built for someone not that long ago was this:

LOGISYS CS6802BK MicroATX Slim Case w/ 350W PSU - $44.99
MSI A68HM-E33 FM2+ MicroATX Motherboard - $49.99
G.SKILL Ares 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 - $29.99
AMD A8-7600 Kaveri 3.1 GHz - $89.99
Kingston SSDNow V300 240GB SSD - $77.50
Logitech Wireless MK320 Combo Mouse/Keyboard - $29.99
Windows 10 Home 64-bit - $99.99

Total: $422.44

Wanted something comparable to a Steam box that he could hook up to his TV.

I have bought a mouse and a keyboard already..I will be getting a monitor in a couple weeks

Need an OS..I don't know if I should be scared of a grey market OS..I will use used parts if they are good

I'm really not too particular as long as it is good quality and will run my games cleanly

its been awhile but i think you should kinda reverse build it. internet will happen on any rig
. if you game online you will always have a bottleneck, you are going to play against players that have better speeds. me personal, im trying to find a build that is over 50fps

Ok I need someone to explain RAM to me a little bit..is it better to have like 16GB or will 8GB do the trick for what I'm wanting..a buddy of mine says get as much as possible but he is also the guy who goes out and buys the most expensive shit he can find because he thinks that it is cool and so much better..he is that guy

IMHO, not much sense in spending the extra money on something you won't need. For instance, you need 4GB to run a couple of items you mentioned, especially GTA6. GTA6 would run better with 8GB, but it wouldn't likely ever use much of the extra 4 GB.

Here's a great article on it: http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Featur...ally-need.aspx

In any event.... do what you want, but I wouldn't go over 16GB unless you are doing some very graphics intensive shit, editing, what Dane does, whatever. 8GB is pretty well the "norm" at this point in the game with most things needing 4GB as a baseline.

Put the money into an SSD instead of extra 8GB RAM and you'll have a much better performance boost than going with an HDD and 16GB RAM.


I game on an i5 system with 8gb ram and a radeon hd 7850 2gb vid card. its about an $850 system. I can pretty well can play anything on all of the highest level graphics with absolutely no issues whatsoever. Get 300 fps in counter-strike go.

fish is heller better than me at this. ill take a stab though. you computer has an engine, it is warp speed on its own. to make the rest of the body work, it has to throttle down. you cant feed jesus speed to a goat. so you buffer. rom and ram. ram remembers how fast bucks birthday was and wants it to happen forever. rom should be replaced with something better than binary speeds.

if i were you, mac, cause im looking to make a new one too, i want performance over product

Ok makes more sense to me..thanks guys

That is where I'm at Squalor..I want performance..don't really care what the product name is or who makes it..I want good performance

I like the way this one looks

I want SSD over HDD right

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($67.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($58.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($62.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) ($87.95 @ OutletPC)
Total: $558.77
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-21 21:52 EST-0500

This is after $75 of MIR, not sure how you feel about those. If you dont want to deal with them just reduce the GPU until the price fits the budget.

If forced to choose (which I was with my current rig), spend more money on the SSD and plan on upgrading the RAM when you need it. If you're stuck with a platter hard drive, then definitely go with 16GB of RAM.

Not being a Windows PC person, I'm not sure what SSD options are available but you should try to find the fastest bus connection you can too. I've got the PCIe SSD in my iMac and the SATA SSD for my Mac Pro and for a lot of stuff my iMac seems faster even though it was a fraction of the cost.

Overall, if you want to spend $500-600 on web browsing and games I'd say get a PS4 and a cheap tablet, but that's not as much fun as building a PC.

that is harsh Null. get a ps4 and a tablet? good god man, do you think every chicken noodle soup can is full of fabio?

Meh, what can I say. I like to sit on my couch instead of a keyboard and monitor when I'm chilling out instead of plopping down in front of a computer that looks almost identical to the one I just spent 8-10 hours in front of at work.

/filthy casual 300 light hunter blade-dancer

what can you say? understanding? its all good. can i have your casino cash?

For the price of RAM, just plan on going with 8.

If it was me, there are a couple of nice builds that have been put up, but buy a used GPU. They typically are still under warranty for the second owner (depending on age) and you can get a ton more for your money.

That can literally be done with this budget PC

SSD is a huge performance boost. I'd recommend, especially if you don't plan to store alot of shit (videos, mp3s, images). You can always add an HDD for storage later on. HGST makes a rock solid 2TB drive that's available on Newegg for $56.

Also, AMD based systems really like matched timings for some reason, so when you pick your RAM be mindful of that. There's not a huge performance gain by going with lower CAS latency, but to each their own. I recommended an 11-11-11 timing, but if you want to spend an extra $10-20, you could lower that latency down, probably to 9.

SSD & 8GB RAM is all you'll need no matter what you choose to see really nice performance. You can pair that with whatever you want. The new Skylake Intel processors have the new onboard HD 530 graphics that are actually pretty damn good and you'll pull like 27-30 fps on GTA. Obviously the APUs from AMD are going to be much better in the graphics realm though and is a big reason I'd go with them on a budget build.

If you get an extra $300 and want to go crazy, pair an Intel Core i5 with a Radeon R7 370 4GB or nVidia GeForce GTX 960 4GB and you can pretty well play any game on the planet right now on max settings.

Thanks for all the help guys..I am doing some more research and may bump up the budget some just to get a little extra performance

Really do appreciate the help and advice