Need a budget gaming PC - Here are my thoughts

[ParaXite]

Way out of budget bro...Isnt there a cheaper alternative? If I buy an expensive motherboard, I have to get a slower gpu which I dont want to do...Cant i save a little on the motherboard? Also, Im willing to let go overclocking if I can save money on the motherboard.

Btw are there any compatibility issues between an AMD processor and a nvidia gpu?

 

[harshilsharma63]

get the Asus M5A97 rvo (non r2.0). It costs ~6800.

> No issues between AMD and Nvidia AFAIK.

 

[Sainatarajan]

^The R2.0 also costs the same..........

 

[flyingcow]

CPU-AMD Phenom II X4 965
RAM-G.SKILL Ripjaws Series (1 x 4GB)
GPU-Saphirre Radeon HD 7850
Motherboard-ASUS M5A78L-M LX
HDD-Please suggest
Case-Please suggest
PSU-Corsair CX 500

Use coupons/deals on newegg etc.

 

[Nerevarine]

^ wHY Phenom now ? Phenom is ancient dude
He should go for Piledriver, if he is staying in US

 

[Sainatarajan]

^ wHY Phenom now ? Phenom is ancient dude
He should go for Piledriver, if he is staying in US

Exactly. I agree with u.

 

[ParaXite]

Exactly. I agree with u.

I really like the AMD FX 6300 and the GTX 650 Ti Boost combo. Hopefully it will let me play new games at 1080p medium-high settings. But the problem is that with the motherboard costing around 6-7k its difficult to fit all this in my budget.

 

[vaibhavs800]

Get this one, msi 970A-G46
Its the cheapest reliable mobo from a reputable manufacture with sata III and cf/sli support. Around 5k locally in india.

 

[bssunilreddy]

Spoiler

1. What is the purpose of the computer? What all applications and games are you going to run? (Stupid answers like 'gaming' or 'office work' will not work. Be exact. Which games? Which applications? Avoid the word 'et cetera.')
Ans: Gaming only. Will be playing games like Dota 2, CS:GO, Crysis 3, Battlefield 4 (upcoming) and newer demanding games. I do not do any kind of photo editing/video encoding etc and will be using the pc only for gaming.

2. What is your overall budget? If you can extend a bit for a more balanced configuration, then mention this too.
Ans: 22k +/- 1k (about $400)

3. Planning to overclock?
Ans: Yes, but if it will go overboard on my budget I won't do it.

4. Which Operating System are you planning to use?
Ans: Windows 7 that I already have.

5. How much hard drive space is needed?
Ans: 320 gb should be more than enough.

6. Do you want to buy a monitor? If yes, please mention which screen size and resolution do you want. If you already have a monitor and want to reuse it, again mention the size and resolution of monitor you have.
Ans: No

7. Which components you DON'T want to buy or which components you already have and plan on reusing?
Ans: I have an old compaq pressario pc with a slow core 2 duo. Im planning to use its power supply unit and optical drive. I also have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. All i need is a processor, RAM, Motherboard and GPU.

8. When are you planning to buy the system?
Ans: May-June

9. Have you ever built a desktop before or will this be done by an assembler?
Ans: I will be doing it but I can approach help if I need it.

10. Where do you live? Are you buying locally? Are you open to buying stuff from online shops if you don't get locally?
Ans: Hyderabad but planning to buy some of the components from the US. Yes, will be buying from Amazon, tigerdirect etc.

11. Anything else which you would like to say?
Ans:
I was thinking of:
AMD FX 4300 (Quad core 3.8-4.0 GHz) (The 3rd Gen i3 is a bit better but this one is unlocked and open to overclocking.)
EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Superclocked 2 GB 192 Bit (Cannot find the 1 GB version) (Best card I could find in the $180 range)
Kingston Hyper X Black high performance Ram (2x4 GB) (Its quite cheap in amazon)

This leaves me $40-50 for the motherboard and the hard drive. Can you suggest me a good motherboard and a hard drive?

Here goes your config:

AMD FX 6300 -139.99$, (7587)
Asus M5A97 R2.0 -94.99$, (5148)
Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz -64.99$, (3522)
Gigabyte Ge force GTX650 ti Boost Edition -169.99$, (9213)
WD Blue 320GB -59.99$, (3251)
Corsair GS500 -64.99$. (3522)
TOTAL -594.88$ (32,243)

 

[ParaXite]

Here goes your config:

AMD FX 6300 -139.99$, (7587)
Asus M5A97 R2.0 -94.99$, (5148)
Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz -64.99$, (3522)
Gigabyte Ge force GTX650 ti Boost Edition -169.99$, (9213)
WD Blue 320GB -59.99$, (3251)
Corsair GS500 -64.99$. (3522)
TOTAL -594.88$ (32,243)

Little over Budget, $500 is the absolute limit. How about this one:
ASUS M5A97 R2.0 - $94
AMD FX 6300 - $134
EVGA GTX650Ti Boost - $170
Corsair Vengeance 4GB (2x2GB) - $35
Corsair CX430 V2 - $39 (Newegg)
TOTAL - $488

(I have an optical drive and an ancient 160GB 5400 rpm hard disk that I can use.)

Questions:
1. Will I have to flash the BIOS on the mobo or does this work out of the box?
2. Is a 430W PSU sufficient as suggested by the other members?

 

[vaibhavs800]

Upgrade your hdd seriously man!! 5400rpm ones are extremely slow and take forever to boot!
Not sure about bios but 430w should be enough but I wont overclock fx on that.

 

[ParaXite]

Upgrade your hdd seriously man!! 5400rpm ones are extremely slow and take forever to boot!
Not sure about bios but 430w should be enough but I wont overclock fx on that.

I can upgrade it later when I have the money to spare. I can live with long game loading times. I just need better frame rates right now, never mind how much longer it takes to load a game. Also, if the FX 6300 won't bottleneck the GPU for a couple of years to come, Im ok with not overclocking.

P.S. The FX 6300 closely matches the i3 3220 in terms of gaming performace (all i care about). If I go for the i3 3220, can I get a cheaper motherboard alternative? Like in the range of $60?

 

[vaibhavs800]

If you get i3, you can go as cheap as you want on motherboard
If you will buy ssd in future, get a b 75 motherboard for 4k else get a h61 for 2.2-3k.
I3 is not overclockable so any intel 1155 motherboard will run it safely and if your main purpose is gaming, currently its equivalent to fx 8350 which runs at 4.2ghz at stock.
But do you play online?

And then you can also upgrade that ancient hdd of yours

 

[Sainatarajan]

If you get i3, you can go as cheap as you want on motherboard
If you will buy ssd in future, get a b 75 motherboard for 4k else get a h61 for 2.2-3k.
I3 is not overclockable so any intel 1155 motherboard will run it safely and if your main purpose is gaming, currently its equivalent to fx 8350 which runs at 4.2ghz at stock.
But do you play online?

And then you can also upgrade that ancient hdd of yours

The I3 is not equal to FX 8350 in gaming. When Games use more than 2 to 4 cores the I3 struggles whereas the FX 8350 runs it with ease.

 

[Cilus]

In Crysis 3, i3 3220 is not at all comparable to even the lower end FX and Trinity Quad Cores also. FX-4170 is lot ahead of it and the older FX-6200 based on Bulldozer design beats it by a great margin. So new games with Multi-Core support, Piledriver based FX-6300 (which is again better performer than FX-6200) will perform far better than i3 3220.
Frankly speaking, if anybody is buying a Processor right now, get a quad core or higher, no point of getting those HT enabled Multiplier locked Dual Core processors.

 

[ASHISH65]

I3 is not overclockable so any intel 1155 motherboard will run it safely and if your main purpose is gaming, currently its equivalent to fx 8350 which runs at 4.2ghz

i3 = fx 8350

Joke of the year

 

[Myth]

In Crysis 3, i3 3220 is not at all comparable to even the lower end FX and Trinity Quad Cores also. FX-4170 is lot ahead of it and the older FX-6200 based on Bulldozer design beats it by a great margin. So new games with Multi-Core support, Piledriver based FX-6300 (which is again better performer than FX-6200) will perform far better than i3 3220.
Frankly speaking, if anybody is buying a Processor right now, get a quad core or higher, no point of getting those HT enabled Multiplier locked Dual Core processors.

Precisely what I have been trying to push with each gaming config. Its pointless setting up a gaming rig with a dual core. The system is bound to suffer within a few months. The core requirements for games are going up. A quad core should be minimum right now.

If you get i3, you can go as cheap as you want on motherboard
If you will buy ssd in future, get a b 75 motherboard for 4k else get a h61 for 2.2-3k.
I3 is not overclockable so any intel 1155 motherboard will run it safely and if your main purpose is gaming, currently its equivalent to fx 8350 which runs at 4.2ghz at stock.
But do you play online?

And then you can also upgrade that ancient hdd of yours

B75 lacks the intel smart response tech required for performance enhancement with SSD. LGA 1155 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
H77 is a minimum.

i3 is way out of fx8350's league. Just a matter of time before people realize the obvious.

 

[vaibhavs800]

Yeah and can you please tell me how many games can take advantage of more than 2 cores?? Well I can count them on my fingers!!
Here is what you are looking for:
*media.bestofmicro.com/F/2/371198/original/Average.png

" For your dollar, the Core i5 has no competition above $160. At $130, the Core i3-3220 is tough to beat. It no longer humiliates the FX line-up in games thanks to AMD's most recent architectural update,but it's still cheaper, faster, and more power-friendly than most of the Vishera-based models.

Fortunately for AMD, its chips fare better in the non-gaming components of our benchmark suite,where its modular architecture is better able to benefit from today's threaded software. In a general-purpose workstation, that's certainly something to think about. But in apure gaming machine,there's just no ignoring the effectiveness of Intel's Sandy and Ivy Bridge designs."

Courtesy tomshardware.com
And this article was published last month lol!!

For crysis 3 are you gonna neglect all the games made till today. Fx only beats i3 in battlefield multiplayer and crysis 3. Everywhere else its i3. And remember just like fx is no true octa core, i3 is no dual core its dual core+ ht

Any site which can give average fps titleto fx compared to i3?

And @myth h77 is no minimum!!
With your am3+ boards are you getting srt? Its a simple cacheing technology, which many ssd manufacturers will give you with their own implementations. Dont just make negatives out of thin air :/

 

[Sainatarajan]

We are not telling abt the present games, we are telling abt the games that will come in future like GTA 5. Crysis 3 is the Best Example .

 

[vaibhavs800]

Crysis is always a lot ahead of the curve. Even hd 7970/ gtx 680 cant max it, so does this mean anything less than their cf/sli is waste? Nobody has seen the future, ppl started telling that games would go multithreaded in 2008 and now we are in 2012 and except crysis 3 no other game is ill suited for dual cores ( battlefield's only online component pushes i3 but its still playable) and gta 5 willrun on i3 easy peasy I bet. The truth is fx are very good at apps, but arent at games. No site publically advises fx for gaming, thats why i3 is recommended over fx 6300 at toms monthly cpu chart and not even one fx is recommended.
I did not start this flame war, and you cant contradict the PRESENT facts and no one has seen the future.
Op does not have a budget for fx 6300 so he asked is i3 alright, and yes its alright. All of you started bashing my comment for no reason. And if you think any fx is over i3 in a cumulative fps score over more than 10 games PROVE IT

Crysis is always a lot ahead of the curve. No site publically advises any fx for gaming. If you can get i5 get it else i3 kills everything else in GAMING.
I have prooved my point enough times can you proove yours. People are saying that games will go multithreaded since 2008 and now we are in 13. Leaving crysis 3 in no other game can a fx beat i3 at fhd resolution. Truth is fx hardly have 75% single threaded performance of ivy.
I can bet gta 5 will run just fine on I3 or what will happen to i5 laptops??
And talk about the future. You call fx 8350 Unlocked lol! Its already on 4.2ghzand what you want to overclock it upto 5?? Most people wont go/ cant go over 4.7 and thats an overclock of. 5 ghz and every i5 is overclockable to. 4ghz.
Fx is good at multithreaded apps and op could not get a decent mobo in his budget
So I advised him i3 and I still stand on my statement. Get a cumulative score of 10 games and proove that fx is ahead.
And that is why tom still does not approve any fx but i3 and i5 That is why every piledriver fx and i3 are on same level in heirarchy chart. And did I mention that they take so much power that you could run 2 i3s and still have some power left.
Dont bash me for no reason, I did not start flame war, but you are making jokeof yourself @ashish65 as I specifically said i3=> fx8350 in GAMING ( EXCEPT CRYSIS 3 AND BF3 MULTIPLAYER LOL)