Seeking advice on building a Gaming PC

Skyse · Jul 11, 2013

I'm a game enthusiast. My previous desktop pc got its motherboard broken and I reuse its casing for my gaming PC.

I have a PS3 but I want to build a gaming PC that can play modern games at great graphic and speed and I think that my budget is enough to buy these.

Motherboard: ASUS M5A78L-MLX V2
CPU: AMD FX8350
GPU: ASUS Nvidia Geforce GT630 2GB DDR3
PSU: 650 watt
RAM: 4GB DDR3
HDD: 500GB or SSD
Have no idea what kind of heatsink to buy

If you guys could recommend me better things but fit for my budget. You guys are most welcomed.

My games so far: Assassins Creed Brotherhood, PES 2013, GRID(GRID 2 buying soon!), NFS SHIFT, Portal, Sonic Generations, Sonic...Transformed,...

DiscoStroboPop · Jul 11, 2013

How much is your total budget?

Do you need a monitor?

tiny voices · Jul 11, 2013

That GPU will only play games at lowest possible settings. You want to lower alot of your other components to make room for a better GPU. It is by far the most important component.

AMD Radeon · Jul 11, 2013

fx 8350 comes with standard heatsink that is adequate for your need

Sangeet Khatri · Jul 11, 2013

The graphics card sucks, tell us the budget and we might be able to recommend you something better. Just tell your budget that is the most important thing.

Rosco100 · Jul 11, 2013

Scale back your CPU to an AMD 8300. Scale up the GPU to a 550 or 550ti

Skyse · Jul 12, 2013

DiscoStroboPop :

My total budget is 700USD but limit to 1000USD if anything goes higher. I already have a monitor, speakers and all those things except a gaming pc itself.

Skyse · Jul 12, 2013

Sangeet Khatri :

Around 700USD

Skyse · Jul 12, 2013

AMD Radeon :

thanks for the reply, that saves a bit of my money

AMD Radeon · Jul 12, 2013

not to confuse you, let me explain that games need balanced performance between gpu, cpu, ram
in your first post, cpu is too overkill
while ram is only 4GB and gpu is literally very weak

the ideal is 8GB ram, powerful GPU, and adequate CPU

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($69.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($63.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($259.99 @ Amazon)
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($43.00 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $688.87
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 02:56 EDT-0400)

Sangeet Khatri · Jul 12, 2013

For that price, this build would serve you just fine, considering that you are willing to go with the FX 8350 which is really a beast at gaming and something that would become better for gaming in the future since more games would be optimized for more threads. The 8350 is an awesome CPU, so i would always recommend that one.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($119.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: A-Data XPG Gaming Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($74.97 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($190.70 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Gamma Classic (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $695.62
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 05:22 EDT-0400)

If you think that the answer helped, then don't forget to select it as the best answer. It would be highly appreciated by me.

Skyse · Jul 12, 2013

AMD Radeon :

I appreciate the help but I'm going to stick to AMD FX8350 and radeon hd 7870 (Sangeet Khatri). I forgot to tell you that I already have an optical drive. Sorry. Great build though, maybe I should recommend this to my friend(with cpu being FX6350).

Skyse · Jul 12, 2013

Sangeet Khatri :

For that price, this build would serve you just fine, considering that you are willing to go with the FX 8350 which is really a beast at gaming and something that would become better for gaming in the future since more games would be optimized for more threads. The 8350 is an awesome CPU, so i would always recommend that one.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($119.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: A-Data XPG Gaming Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($74.97 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($190.70 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Gamma Classic (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $695.62
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 05:22 EDT-0400)

If you think that the answer helped, then don't forget to select it as the best answer. It would be highly appreciated by me.

Thanks Sangeet! I really like the awesome build.

Skyse · Jul 12, 2013

Thanks to AMDRadeon and Sangeet Khatri, I've come up with my own build.

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($69.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: A-Data XPG Gaming Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($63.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($190.70 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Gamma Classic (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $634.59

Motherboard and Storage by AMDRadeon and Sangeet's the rest of them. I think this is good enough. Thanks guys for the feedbacks.

Sangeet Khatri · Jul 12, 2013

Skyse :

The 970A motherboards are not as overclocking friendly as the 990FX Motherboards. It would be better if you go for the Motherboard that i suggested as it has much better VRM which is very good for overclocking. And at that price, the motherboard is a steal. Please if you can go for that motherboard, then please do go for it. You can unlock more power from your CPU with the 990FX Motherboard. I am sure that you will love it more.

tiny voices · Jul 12, 2013

Sangeet Khatri :

Skyse :

The 970A motherboards are not as overclocking friendly as the 990FX Motherboards. It would be better if you go for the Motherboard that i suggested as it has much better VRM which is very good for overclocking. And at that price, the motherboard is a steal. Please if you can go for that motherboard, then please do go for it. You can unlock more power from your CPU with the 990FX Motherboard. I am sure that you will love it more.

Yes but AMDRadeon build has a gtx760. No amount of overclocking the CPU will make up for that. the un-overclocked system will be better for gaming because the GPU is much better. That is what I would do.

Sangeet Khatri · Jul 12, 2013

tiny voices :

It is not about bottlenecking. It is about more performance. Overclocking helps a lot with Single Core performance, which might come in handy in future.

I am not saying that overclock your build in the very first day. I am saying that whenever in future, let's say 3 years from now. And you start thinking that the CPU performance is not so good (by the standards then) then you can overclock it to get better performance, and be on par with the next gen processors.

So it is always better to get a overclocking capable motherboard even if you don't plan to overclock it now. But if you feel like, then you can always overclock it in the future. Would help with the future proofing your build for a bit more time.

tiny voices · Jul 12, 2013

Sangeet Khatri :

tiny voices :

It is not about bottlenecking. It is about more performance. Overclocking helps a lot with Single Core performance, which might come in handy in future.

I am not saying that overclock your build in the very first day. I am saying that whenever in future, let's say 3 years from now. And you start thinking that the CPU performance is not so good (by the standards then) then you can overclock it to get better performance, and be on par with the next gen processors.

So it is always better to get a overclocking capable motherboard even if you don't plan to overclock it now. But if you feel like, then you can always overclock it in the future. Would help with the future proofing your build for a bit more time.

What I'm saying is, going for future overclocking will take performance away form right now. The gtx760 is much better than the hd7870. If you want the best gaming performance I would ditch overclocking. Also, planning to overclocking a few years later and be on par with current gen CPU's is a dream. You can overclock a phenom 2 x4 965BE until you are blue in the face and it will NEVER match the single thread performance of a lonely i3 3220.

Long story short, I would go for the better GPU and less overclocking. You will get immediate better settings and game performance and the future is so unknown. Also, the GPU will not have to be upgraded as soon.

Sangeet Khatri · Jul 12, 2013

What I'm saying is, going for future overclocking will take performance away form right now. The gtx760 is much better than the hd7870. If you want the best gaming performance I would ditch overclocking. Also, planning to overclocking a few years later and be on par with current gen CPU's is a dream. You can overclock a phenom 2 x4 965BE until you are blue in the face and it will NEVER match the single thread performance of a lonely i3 3220.

Long story short, I would go for the better GPU and less overclocking. You will get immediate better settings and game performance and the future is so unknown. Also, the GPU will not have to be upgraded as soon.

Oh! Sorry, I didn't read that you were talking about going for 760. I mean definitely, go for the 760 if you can, it is very good GPU when compared to the 7870. For the AMD Equivalent of the same GPU, go for the 7950 which offers similar performance. So i would suggest going for the 7950. It is similar in performance to the 760 but it is cheaper. And might not break the bank.

But getting a 760 is recommended as you can always SLI the Nvidia cards which is better than crossfire. So if possible go for the 760 as "tiny voices" said. It is much better when compared to the 7870 and should definitely offer better performance.

Skyse · Jul 12, 2013

Hmm... I'm willing to spend more than my budget. I'm gonna go for the gtx760 (since I'm a nvidia fan) and motherboard 990FX (970A doesn't support SLI) since games in the future will get more and more power hungry with the release of the new generations of console (ps4, wii u and xboxone). So (referring to my build that I posted earlier) the build will cost around $750. It doesn't stray too far from my budget. So it's fine. Thanks guys

Sangeet Khatri · Jul 12, 2013

Skyse :

Hell Yeah! For 750 bucks goo for that. That is a hell of a beast. I think the build now just looks fine with a good GPU (760) thrown at it now.
Enjoy your new build

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