Low Budget, Entry-Level PC

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HiTechObsessed
Going this route will get you better gaming performance. The 6600k will get you about 25-30 fps at medium settings with that 768p monitor, whereas the 240 will get about 30fps at High settings with this 900p monitor.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($79.18 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI A55M-E33 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($39.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital AV-GP 320GB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($36.89 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 240 2GB Video...
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HiTechObsessed

HiTechObsessed

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Dec 3, 2013
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Going this route will get you better gaming performance. The 6600k will get you about 25-30 fps at medium settings with that 768p monitor, whereas the 240 will get about 30fps at High settings with this 900p monitor.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($79.18 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI A55M-E33 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($39.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital AV-GP 320GB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($36.89 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 240 2GB Video Card ($70.99 @ Amazon)
Case: HEC Enterprise MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Micro Center)
Monitor: Hannspree HL205ABB 60Hz 19.5" Monitor ($79.99 @ TigerDirect)
Total: $402.01
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-29 14:48 EDT-0400)
 
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Solution
HiTechObsessed

HiTechObsessed

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Dec 3, 2013
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I still don't understand how APUs can be popular for gaming lol I see people all the time saying the A10-7850k is great!

For the exact same price, you can get the 750k/760k (which is the same CPU as that in the 7850k) but add in a Radeon 7770, which dominates the APU in gaming. I don't understand recommending an APU to anyone wanting gaming as the main focus. APUs are fine for home entertainment systems, but once you want to do anything more than Farmville on Facebook, you get much better performance/value out of a dedicated GPU.
 
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U

Username101216

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Mar 21, 2014
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Would getting 2 sticks of ram instead of 1 help ? And I guess I could save 50$ more and get 7770 for better performance.
 
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HiTechObsessed

HiTechObsessed

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Getting 2 sticks of RAM will help with general computing, but I went with 1 stick as it will give you the upgrade option in the future to go to 8GB if you want. And the 7770 costs around $90-$100, but if you are willing to increase your budget about $25, that would get you noticeably better gaming performance :)
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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2 sticks of MATCHED memory will allow you to use dual channel more instead of single channel. There is a small gain in performance with dual channel. But I'm not certain you would notice it. Having twice the memory, of course, speaks for itself. Since games are still 32 bit coded, they can only access 4GB system memory. But if all you have is 4GB, Windows will be using some of that too. As will the graphics buffer.
 
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HiTechObsessed

HiTechObsessed

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Dec 3, 2013
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Dual-channel is noticeably quicker in general computing, and in programs that utilize system RAM.

The graphics will be buffered in VRAM on the GPU, since this build has a dedicated GPU. For lower to mid-range gaming, 4GB is generally plenty for games to run; only very recently have games started wanting more than 4GBs of system RAM at high-end gaming.
 
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