Help buying a gaming PC

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Heatguts

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Jul 29, 2014
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I have been looking for a gaming PC. I do not want to build one from scratch ATM, but if there are significant pros, then I might have to give it a shot.

My build shouldn't be able to run things on high settings. I am currently playing games like minecraft, skyrim, and CS:GO from a 2 year old 300 dollar dell laptop, with a processor so slow (2.35 ghz) I don't even know why it's called an i3, and it's integrated graphics (intel HD 3000). So really, I don't care what the game looks like, I want to be able to run it at a steady 30 - 60 fps, preferably at 1080p, on low or mid settings. Another thing to consider: I don't have a monitor or a keyboard, and my wireless mouse has a broken middle button (which is unacceptable for gaming). I want my monitor to be 1080, so factor out 150 or so from my budget there.

The real kicker is probably my budget: > $700.

I am ok with doing upgrades (remember I want to get a prebuilt) that don't require disassembling the whole computer.

My recent searches have resulted in a in-budget pc that (suprise) didn't include an OS (so that's off the list.) and the cyberpower GUA880 in which I would have to replace the power supply and later the graphics card.

Suggestions?
 
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Laptop CPUs are always slow and downgraded for longer battery life. Laptop i5s even usually have 2 cores, which would classify them as desktop Pentiums or i3s.

Building a PC from scratch mostly allows you to balance the CPU and GPU better. Most people have more use for the CPU than the GPU, so prebuilts end up with ultra powerful expensive CPUs and really cheap, poor GPUs. In a gaming build, you want a balance of GPU and CPU.

You'll have a hard time finding a prebuilt for $700 with a strong enough video card.
If you built one from scratch, it'd be easy to build a PC to run Minecraft, Skyrim, and CSGO on ultra at 30-60 fps 1080p.

Minecraft uses 1 core, and Skyrim mostly uses 2. CSGO will run on a potato. So if you geta prebuilt, make...
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Admirable
Mar 21, 2014
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Laptop CPUs are always slow and downgraded for longer battery life. Laptop i5s even usually have 2 cores, which would classify them as desktop Pentiums or i3s.

Building a PC from scratch mostly allows you to balance the CPU and GPU better. Most people have more use for the CPU than the GPU, so prebuilts end up with ultra powerful expensive CPUs and really cheap, poor GPUs. In a gaming build, you want a balance of GPU and CPU.

You'll have a hard time finding a prebuilt for $700 with a strong enough video card.
If you built one from scratch, it'd be easy to build a PC to run Minecraft, Skyrim, and CSGO on ultra at 30-60 fps 1080p.

Minecraft uses 1 core, and Skyrim mostly uses 2. CSGO will run on a potato. So if you geta prebuilt, make sure it's an Intel CPU. A modern desktop i3 will beat an FX-8350 in Minecraft and Skyrim, and like I said CSGO will run at high framerates on practically any new CPU.

Since Minecraft, Skyrim, and CSGO don't use proprietary Nvidia effects, that also means AMD has the best video cards from a price/performance viewpoint in all three of those games.

I know you said you don't plan to build from scratch, but I'm going to suggest this anyway. It's an up to date mid-range PC that would exceed the performance requirements you set for the games you listed.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($114.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-DGS R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($46.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($68.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Asus VS228H-P 21.5" Monitor ($127.58 @ Newegg)
Keyboard: Cooler Master CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle Wired Gaming Keyboard w/Optical Mouse ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $702.46
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-30 00:25 EDT-0400
 
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Joseph DeGarmo

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Mar 12, 2014
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With a bit of luck, you may find a used desktop with a decent CPU and Windows 7 or 8 at a pawn shop or something like that and buy a budget GPU / PSU for it. I found an HP desktop with an i5-3330 CPU and Windows 8 for $200 one day. I never purchased it, but I figured that you could take something like that, reinstall Windows from a recovery partition, and slap on a GTX 760 / XFX 550w PSU to make it a gaming rig.
 
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Heatguts

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Jul 29, 2014
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I do play more than that. It's just not really worth mentioning games that already run at an acceptable framerate like L4D2. GMod doesn't like to run when I use custom stuff in it and Just Cause 2 DOES use Nvidia effects (I think).

Although that list does a lot better than I could have done. I used that site on some prebuilts and it always came out to about the same price as the computer itself.

@Joseph I personally avoid pawn shops and the like (I have never been on ebay). Especially with all the things that could go wrong, that hp desktop could have been hacked or fried in some way and $200 is just the price of the power supply.
 
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