Son's new build.

jben04 · Jan 17, 2014

So,heres the deal,my son was saving his hard earned cash to buy the XboxOne,and now he decided he wants to build a gaming computer ( well,wants me to do it for him lol)
At the moment hes using a Dell Dimension E521.

His budget is $400.00 , not including the GPU,as im gonna be a nice dad and buy it for him

Dont need to buy the Os or HDD or DVD drive
This is what i have so far,

CPU - Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor
MB - Asus H81M-K Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Ram - G.Skill Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333
Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower ( this could very well change)
PSU - Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular
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He wants to be able to play ,minecraft, Skyrim and Call of duty,, as well as use it for schoolwork,photoshop etc.
Already has a monitor and will not be playing in HD

Is there any other routes i could go by, or would it be more beneficial to go the AMD route and maybe use the AMD A8-Series Quad-Core A8-3870K.

Thanks for the help

CreativeUsername · Jan 17, 2014

You have an atx case, so you should get an atx board too. And as this is for gaming, you shouldn't use an entry level psu. Especially when its the cx series.

jben04 · Jan 17, 2014

so maybe a more Wattage Psu 600+ ?

jben04 · Jan 17, 2014

ok, swapped out the Psu and MB :

CPU - Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor
MB - Asus B85-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Ram - G.Skill Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333
Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower ( this could very well change)
PSU - Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX

Tzn · Jan 17, 2014

The build is good and economic when it comes to power consumption, glad to see someone who really cares about that. A HD 7790 for video card would be the sweetest starting point since is the best performance price gpu at the moment and it consumes only 85w or a more cheaper and still powerful Hd 7750 gddr5-55w.

ur6beersaway · Jan 17, 2014

For that budget he will be happier with the X-box. Why mid-tower case with a micro board? Go ATX = more room. Stick with intel & NVidia GeForce GPU, less issues & actually works.

jben04 · Jan 17, 2014

ur6beersaway :

Did actually swap out that micro for the Asus B85-PLUS ATX.
I tried telling him to stick with the 360 / X1,,but he wants to do this

Tzn · Jan 17, 2014

ha ha your son gets it right. Pc is the way to go this gen and there are hundreds of motives.

rstoledo · Jan 17, 2014

Hey there, if you want to stick with Intel, I would say to go beyond i3 and at least use an i5 such as, it is US$60,00 above the price unfortunally

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: Asus Z87M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: G.Skill Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($19.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $459.95
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-17 10:06 EST-0500)

If you go AMD, wait a bit for their new Kaveri APUs to get to the market, this is supposed to happen in the next month or two...

Update: The Kaveri APU release date should be Jan 14th, therefore on the market already, checking on the specs from them, would suggest the A10-7800, which is not unlocked for overclock. Although I was only able to find the 7850k and the 7700k on the web.

ur6beersaway · Jan 17, 2014

Tzn :

Agreed, PC is win win, for everything. For that budget you can't even get a HP at Wallmart. Building is a rewarding hobby, but should not be started with compromises & mistakes. The X-box would satisfy most needs @ that price.

jben04 · Jan 17, 2014

Thanks for all the help and recommendations,
This is what ive come up with so far :

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor
MB - Asus B85-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Ram - G.Skill Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333
Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower
PSU - Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX

Comes up to $466.
Now i just need to pick out the lil buggers GPU.

(Instead of the Z87M board, wouldnt it be better to get a ATX instead of a micro ATX ?)

rstoledo · Jan 17, 2014

jben04 :

To be really honest I went with the Z87 motherboard due to the chipset being the one used on the top performance motherboards and being newer than the others.

Also about the ATX or Micro-ATX, that depends more on what you want to be able to do with the CPU and the space you have for it.

Mounting it with an ATX MB, would become something like this, also changed the Ram to DDR3 1600, which was being shown as cheaper, and, I believe, a better memory for the run.

Hope I have helped, and if this becomes it, that your son enjoy's his new grown-up toy :bounce:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-K ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($101.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($72.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.49 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $462.44
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-17 14:07 EST-0500)

CreativeUsername · Jan 17, 2014

rstoledo :

Bad reason to go with a specific motherboard.
He has an ATX case, so he has space. And what on earth does the CPU have to do with the motherboard size?

You put a locked processor with an unlocked board, wtf?
Memory is fine.
Power Supply is horrible.
EDIT: You also went overbudget by quite a bit.

You said you would buy the GPU yourself, I'd recommend this for what he's going to use it for: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-112001420g

And here's the rest:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($109.99 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($94.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.49 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $382.45
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-17 15:10 EST-0500)

rstoledo · Jan 17, 2014

CreativeUsername :

First things first: it was an language costume, here down in Brazil people often refer to the system overall as the CPU instead, I know that this is dumb and may cause the "wtf?"sign on the forehead for almost anyone, but you hear it so much that it really gets in your mind, and I miss used the word there... So what I meant was: to go between Micro-ATX and ATX it really depends on where his son is going to set his system, since his needs would fit on a Mini-ITX case if he had to.

I cannot agree with the more size the better, I do have a brother of 14~15 years old, and if I was to build a rig to him it would be on a Mini-ITX case, and kept things in a way he wouldn't be changing much, why ? Because I know if I gave him the option, the system would stop working the way it is supposed to do, and tons of other problems would come down to me to solve.

Second, I wanted to go with the locked processor because he was not planning on overclock and I doubt he want to leverage his son's OC power and jeopardize the whole system

Third, I picked that MB because the price was really good for what it offered, and it matched what he asked for.

Forth, the PSU was his choice, and I did not felt like changing it yet again.

Fifth, at this point, I would rather use a Kaveri APU instead of the FX processor, though I do not have the knowledge to build a full FM2+ system, I do believe that Steamroller FX processor may come, until them, I would recommend the APU instead of the FX. (Note: I do have an FX8350 and I am really happy with it - just saying before AMD vs Intel discussion flood the topic)

Therefore:

For Intel:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($184.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-K ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($101.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($72.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.49 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $452.44
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-17 15:56 EST-0500)

PepitoTV · Jan 17, 2014

Here's an AMD option. This will be very upgradeable in the future and the 8-core CPU can come in handy.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($134.99 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: GeIL EVO Veloce Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($62.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.49 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $400.45
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-17 16:12 EST-0500)

jben04 · Jan 17, 2014

PepitoTV :

Im seriously considering going the AMD route for his build.
Im liking the sound of this,and its at his budget. Would it be wise grabbing a aftermarket cooler to go on that CPU,or would the stock one be good enough ?

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