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Husband/Wife - Want start PC Gaming. $3,000 total budget.

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  • Systems
  • PC gaming
Last response: in Systems
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October 1, 2014 4:17:47 AM

As the Title states. We are a married couple with the intention of building or buying two systems that will play any modern or near future video games with no lag. We have a TOTAL budget of $3,000. So we must factor Monitors, Mice, Keyboards, Windows.

We do wish to go Intel chipset, as we currently have an AMD system and we're ready to try the 'other guy'. We wish to upgrade the system over years of enjoying it, so a future-proof power supply, motherboard, and chassis would be great...

Appreciate any feedback :) 
Thanks!

More about : husband wife start gaming 000 total budget

October 1, 2014 4:22:52 AM

Check your PMs.
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Best solution

October 1, 2014 4:29:55 AM

Here is one idea of what you can get.
Let me know if you want to invest more in a specific area, and if you`re into overclocking or not, since adjustments can be made based on this.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($225.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING 7 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($169.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($81.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($85.59 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($349.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Micro Center)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($129.94 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Acer H236HLbid 60Hz 23.0" Monitor ($158.62 @ TigerDirect)
Keyboard: Microsoft SIDEWINDER X4 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder 2013 Wired Optical Mouse ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1501.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-01 07:29 EDT-0400
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October 1, 2014 4:37:52 AM

That was a very quick response Pr3di. $1501x2 puts me right at $3,000 also. Impressive. Thank you so much!

Is this considered high end or medium?? Would we actually be able to scale some of it back and save some money for headsets, computer chairs, so maybe only like $1,000 per computer, and upgrade later on?? Or is this more of a minimum that we'd need to get started on modern games??

Also, why the two storages. 1 tiny "SSD" and 1 large HD??

Edit: 1 last question. My old PC does have an old Corsair TX 750W power supply I bought back in 2008, would I be able to salvage that for use in one of our new systems???

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October 1, 2014 4:45:55 AM

If you will not overclock, we can cut some corners around the CPU and motherboard.
This is a medium-high build if you are aiming mostly at gaming.
The SSD + HDD is the new "kid on the block". The SSD is for OS and a few games, since it`s a lot faster than the HDD, and it will improve your PC experience by a huge margin. This leaves the HDD as a storage-only drive, for files, music, videos and the like.

If you go for 1000$ with Windows, monitor, keyboard and mouse, the performance will take a huge hit.
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October 1, 2014 5:01:09 AM

I don't plan to overclock, but if you say we're scraping the bottom of the barrel with our budget I guess I can sell a kidney or something for other hardware, and leave your set up as is.

I edited my last post after you replied so I'm not sure if you saw my question; My old PC does have an old Corsair TX 750W power supply I bought back in 2008, would I be able to salvage that for use in one of our new systems so we only have to purchase 1 power supply??

Really appreciate the information. That's interesting about the two different drives, I'll definitely have to read more about that.
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October 1, 2014 5:05:51 AM

Yeah you can definitely reuse the Corsair TX 750W and save a bit of cash there. I put together an tweaked version of Pr3di's build, listed below. It adds a CPU cooler for overclocking, a cheaper motherboard that's still more than sufficient, cheaper memory, a bigger and better SSD, a quieter version of the GTX 970 (the EVGA card has a flawed cooler), a better power supply for the same price (will support upgrading to GTX 970 SLI), and cheaper Windows because you don't need the Pro version.

If you don't want to overclock you can drop the CPU cooler and go with a cheaper non-K Core i5, and a non-Z motherboard if you don't want to upgrade to SLI either.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($225.98 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.49 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($128.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($72.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($109.97 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($348.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (32/64-bit) ($94.99 @ B&H)
Monitor: Acer H236HLbid 60Hz 23.0" Monitor ($158.62 @ TigerDirect)
Keyboard: Microsoft SIDEWINDER X4 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder 2013 Wired Optical Mouse ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1466.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-01 08:02 EDT-0400
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October 1, 2014 5:08:37 AM

The TX PSU is a decent unit, and it should serve you well. I'm just thinking that it might cause problems due to the fact that it's already 6 y/o.
However, use it as it is, and at the first sign of trouble, replace it.
With the build I gave you, you can add later on a CPU cooler, and start overclocking it, once you will need some extra power. This will extend the usage time until you'll need to upgrade.
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October 20, 2014 5:58:05 AM

This price is down over $300 to $1,147.80 today for same parts, from $1,500 when posted. Do you guys think this is as cheap as it might get, or should I wait for Black Friday???
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October 20, 2014 6:14:05 AM

Jeff Isaac said:
This price is down over $300 to $1,147.80 today for same parts, from $1,500 when posted. Do you guys think this is as cheap as it might get, or should I wait for Black Friday???


It's only that low because the GTX 970 Strix in the system I put together is no longer available.
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