BUILDING a GAMING PC ON A BUDGET. WHICH CPU?!

if your getting a dgpu it's pointless to get a APU, just get a lga 1150 b85 chipset motherboard and a Pentium G3220 to go with that gtx 750 ti.

If you're looking at APUs then I personally wouldn't advise anything lower than an A10.
In the same way I wouldn't personally advise anything below the 8000 series on the CPU side.

On a budget, you could still get the Intel i3 and gain pretty good performance out of it. It inherits Intels strong single core performance, allbeit only two of them. For now games aren't utilising many threads, so you should be good will a dual core chip. Whether or not that will change in the near distant future is anyone's guess, in all likely hood it will.

Since you're buying a discrete graphics card I would advise against APUs, I like them, and they can run in CrossFire with an AMD card, but in all honestly it's probably best to just go for a dedicated CPU and dedicated graphics card. They're mainly intended for home theatre pc's and light gaming.
That's unlikely to change for at least a few more generations of them, and, like I said, anything below the A10 is a bit pointless.

The 750ti is an 'ok' card, it's mostly famed for its lack of power draw relative to performance rather than its actual performance. You'd be better off buying a 270 or 270x from AMD. Or, saving a bit and finding a 7870 or 660ti from the last generation.

I wouldn't personally say not to spend much on your motherboard. Even though it's one of those things where any half-decent board is going to give you the same performance when not overclocking, you need to remember that Windows ties its license to it. This isn't an issue if you buy a retail copy since it comes with 3 chances, but OEM (slightly cheaper) has only one. It's up to you though, on the Intel side there are quite a few decent value-oriented boards, but on the AMD side those boards are really poop.

You will want to buy 8GB of ram. 4GB will be fine 'just' but not for much longer, and, you may get some framerate drops. Plus, that would mean finding a 2x2GB set, which usually can only be found in budget sticks.

You may get away with using one of the '6-core' AMD chips. Technically they use the same Piledriver modules so games that aren't threaded will give you similar performance to the '8-core' ones.
Just, do keep in mind that they're technically 3 cores. Piledriver uses modules which consist of 2 logical cores in each that share the same cache.

Your options then consist of one of the following:

Invest in an i3 build with your chosen GPU. Or a slightly higher one if you can afford it.

Buy an FX-8320 or FX-8350 system with either your chosen GPU or a slightly higher one.

Buy an FX-6350 build with a 270 or 270x.

Buy an A8 or A10 APU build with a 270 or 270x.


Other than that, there's still some deals to be had on previous generation hardware.
Oh and you could try looking at that new Pentium Anniversary edition, it's pretty crap but it's also an incredible overclocker - Making it great.
(And, very very affordable).
But you would need a half-decent board and cooler for that.

If you can get the i3 4130, but just get Pentium dual core if need be.

AMD fx 4300 is actually both a dual core and a quad core, a dual core in it's floating point power and quad core in it's integer power.

Games LOVE strong cores over a bunch of weak ones, and that is what the Pentium G and i3 4130 give games is two strong cores.

If you're looking at APUs then I personally wouldn't advise anything lower than an A10.
In the same way I wouldn't personally advise anything below the 8000 series on the CPU side.

On a budget, you could still get the Intel i3 and gain pretty good performance out of it. It inherits Intels strong single core performance, allbeit only two of them. For now games aren't utilising many threads, so you should be good will a dual core chip. Whether or not that will change in the near distant future is anyone's guess, in all likely hood it will.

Since you're buying a discrete graphics card I would advise against APUs, I like them, and they can run in CrossFire with an AMD card, but in all honestly it's probably best to just go for a dedicated CPU and dedicated graphics card. They're mainly intended for home theatre pc's and light gaming.
That's unlikely to change for at least a few more generations of them, and, like I said, anything below the A10 is a bit pointless.

The 750ti is an 'ok' card, it's mostly famed for its lack of power draw relative to performance rather than its actual performance. You'd be better off buying a 270 or 270x from AMD. Or, saving a bit and finding a 7870 or 660ti from the last generation.

I wouldn't personally say not to spend much on your motherboard. Even though it's one of those things where any half-decent board is going to give you the same performance when not overclocking, you need to remember that Windows ties its license to it. This isn't an issue if you buy a retail copy since it comes with 3 chances, but OEM (slightly cheaper) has only one. It's up to you though, on the Intel side there are quite a few decent value-oriented boards, but on the AMD side those boards are really poop.

You will want to buy 8GB of ram. 4GB will be fine 'just' but not for much longer, and, you may get some framerate drops. Plus, that would mean finding a 2x2GB set, which usually can only be found in budget sticks.

You may get away with using one of the '6-core' AMD chips. Technically they use the same Piledriver modules so games that aren't threaded will give you similar performance to the '8-core' ones.
Just, do keep in mind that they're technically 3 cores. Piledriver uses modules which consist of 2 logical cores in each that share the same cache.

Your options then consist of one of the following:

Invest in an i3 build with your chosen GPU. Or a slightly higher one if you can afford it.

Buy an FX-8320 or FX-8350 system with either your chosen GPU or a slightly higher one.

Buy an FX-6350 build with a 270 or 270x.

Buy an A8 or A10 APU build with a 270 or 270x.


Other than that, there's still some deals to be had on previous generation hardware.
Oh and you could try looking at that new Pentium Anniversary edition, it's pretty crap but it's also an incredible overclocker - Making it great.
(And, very very affordable).
But you would need a half-decent board and cooler for that.

Good setup in all but "Budget PSU".
Never skimp on the power supply. Get one that's rated at 80+ Bronze at the very least. Although only a test of efficiency, it also gives you some indication of how well-built the box is.

Fortunately, you won't need much in way of wattage for your build. You'd be fine with a 400w supply from a reputable manufacturer. Although, if you plan to upgrade significantly this will probably need to go too. It's your call, a decent, high wattage power supply could definitely future proof on that front.
I mean, what's better? Buying an ok supply now and upgrading later, costing an extra 20-40 or so. Or a decent one and never having to change.

Budget PSUs, in short, lack the protections a decent supply will have, including over voltage, under current etc...
This means that if you overload the thing, or something else does (thunderstorm?) it will go straight through and hit your components and burn it out in the process.

Along with this, they rarely state their actual wattage. A budget box may say it's 400w, but when you read the stick on the device it could say only 180w of that is on the 12v rail (the one everything uses). Without those protections, you go in blissfully unaware of its actual capability and it quite literally - blows up.

i understand everything you have said. however after browsing many reviews the GTX 750 ti is the best £120ish card on the market and stepping up to the amd 270 is a price jump i am not willing to do!

i will continue to search for a dedicated CPU .. not interested in overclocking i dont want to deal with the cooling problems or the short life spam that come with