Need help building my friend's first gaming PC with a budget of ~$700 (Canadian dollars).

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johnabruzzi

johnabruzzi

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Dec 3, 2014
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So I convinced my friend to get a PC after I heard he was considering upgrading to an Xbox One from his Xbox 360.

Here's the build I've made so far: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/WZTVCJ

Few things you should know:

- We live in Canada, so prices need to be in Canadian Dollars.
- My friend will be buying during the Christmas break (boxing day in Canada, etc), so the $700 budget includes sales.

Few questions/concerns:

- I've always preferred Nvidia over AMD. Are there reasons to consider the 270/280 over the GTX 760 I've chosen (or a completely different card)?
- Is the i3-4150 any good? Is there any room to upgrade to an i5?
- I chose the motherboard based on the number of ratings and price, so I'm not sure if it's the best I could do.
- For the power supply, is 620W too high, too low, or just right? Any suggestions?

Thanks!
 
Solution
jasonite
here is my response. If you are not overclocking, this is the build I'd recommend. If you are open to OC'ing, there are two significant changes I would make that will make a difference. Your cpu is great, I changed your mobo to a z97 which is more current and also currently has a great deal going. you are more than welcome to go with the ram you picked, i chose a stack that is slightly faster and just a couple of bucks more. For hard drives, never get a Seagate, they make the least reliable ones, take a look at this article. I got you one that is great, but if you want one that is faster go for the Black instead of the Blue, especially as you have some money left over now. The GPU you picked is great, especially if you prefer...
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Matthew Ma

Matthew Ma

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Aug 20, 2013
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if you want to save money u could consider the pentium anniversary edition (G3258‎) since it can outperform the 13 under a light overclock, along with a cheaper mobo. the money could be used for a ssd or a larger hdd or just cheaper build overall. imo u can get a 500W psu. a i5 would defiantly be worth if for multitasking. but considering ur friend is a console gamer u might not see teh immediate benifits
 
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jasonite

jasonite

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Apr 2, 2012
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here is my response. If you are not overclocking, this is the build I'd recommend. If you are open to OC'ing, there are two significant changes I would make that will make a difference. Your cpu is great, I changed your mobo to a z97 which is more current and also currently has a great deal going. you are more than welcome to go with the ram you picked, i chose a stack that is slightly faster and just a couple of bucks more. For hard drives, never get a Seagate, they make the least reliable ones, take a look at this article. I got you one that is great, but if you want one that is faster go for the Black instead of the Blue, especially as you have some money left over now. The GPU you picked is great, especially if you prefer nvidia. You might consider changing to the Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB DirectCU II Video Card, as it's a higher quality card for almost the same price. The only other change is your power supply. This one is terrific quality as well, and saves you money, and is the same wattage (which is plenty). Hope this helps, let me know what you think.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ NCIX)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.95 @ Vuugo)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($84.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.95 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB DirectCU II Video Card ($219.00 @ Canada Computers)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.98 @ DirectCanada)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($74.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Total: $678.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-04 20:39 EST-0500
 
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T

The newguy

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Dec 10, 2014
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This is my recommendation although it is us dollars i think this is a good build and should last you for at least 3 to 4 years in gaming and you should be able play almost any game right now at 1080p on ultra or high settings.

I'll answer the questions first
Definitely there's lot of room for an i5 but still I'll prefer the fx 8320 as it is best for budget pc but Intel is better if your budget exceeds $1000.
Secondly graphic cards should be picked up by seeing the architecture as architecture decides the speed of the graphic card you can check these specs on sites like Anandtech, game-debate, gpuboss, etc for comparison.
Getting a 600w psu is good is if you are sure that you are going to upgrade in future but if not then you are ok with the 500w psu.

Here's my build
Pcpartpicker site: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6XGhdC


CPU
AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor
$132.99

Motherboard
ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
$59.99

Memory
G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
$60.99

Storage
Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
$48.00

Video Card
MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card
$339.99

Case
Enermax ECA3253-BW ATX Mid Tower Case
$38.99

Power Supply
EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
$39.99

Total after the rebates, taxes and delivery charges: $692 us dollars

I know this is a little more than your budget but this build will be long lasting, today's games use 4 cores for a better performance. I think that games will be using more than 4 cores in future as ps4 and Xbox one is also having an Amd processor and that one too is a 8 core processor. You can even overclock this processor to get the performance of a 8350.

The graphic card is the best one available for the money. Don't worry about cpu you won't get any bottleneck while using the mentioned graphic card.

The ram is good make sure you buy a dual set ram so you get better performance than a single ram stick.

One last thing, if you can bump your budget a little bit than you can add an ssd to achieve faster booting.

Everything else is fine if you have any type problem or question then you can always ask it on the Tom's hardware you'll always find someone helpful appreciate if you liked my recommendation.

 
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