My First Custom (Gaming?) PC

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Vinyl_Is_King

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I'm wondering what would be best for me, in terms of gaming and overall performance when it comes to video (I'm not really caring too much about 4K video however it can't hurt to have a system that's capable of it)..

I've been window shopping a lot as of late for new and old parts, mostly old for cheaper cost.

Right now the NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti is on sale for about $184 on Amazon Canada.

I've been looking at i5's, mid-level, 4th generation. But I've had no success in finding a dirt cheap one (under $200) so I presume I will definitely have to spend over $200 for even a used one.

As for RAM, probably 12-16GB of either DDR3 or DDR4 RAM.

The types of games I'll be playing...

(Some) Battlefield (as I have Bad Ciompany 2) and perhaps BF3 if I decide to sub to Origin but not likely since I have a Battlefield title. Tomb Raider/Rise Of (I'd love to play Tomb Raider at its best potential and also play Rise Of The Tomb Raider), Prototype 2, Outlast, The Forest, Sniper Elite V2, RuneScape (probably play it less than all games mentioned), and some others... For the last few I mentioned I'd like to be able to play them maxed out.

Anything I haven't added, please feel free to ask.
 
Solution
Herc08
That's quite an oldie, especially with that DDR2 RAM. Your best bet? Build your own when you can. Not only that, but I generally don't teust eBay. Not to mention, that feeling that something is truly yours, and not tied down to bloatware from HP, Dell, etc.
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Herc08

Herc08

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Well, what is your overall budget? Do you have keyboard, mouse, and monitor? If you are going to be into editing videos, i5 is the way to go. For Cananda, it's going to be tough to fine an i5 under $200. I found one for $234, and it's a i5-6400, which isn't bad. To max out THOSE games, I would recommend the RX 470 as it is more powerful than the 1050 Ti. I know you are on a budget, but if you wish to hit that quality, you may have to spend a bit more.
 
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Vinyl_Is_King

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My budget is very tricky and the way I plan to buy these parts is probably not the best way to go, but it is the only sensible way I can see doing it.

I can spend about 400-500 on a PC, but this is by buying each part (or if cheap enough a few at a time) individually at different times (example: 1 part each month.. or 2 a month).

I currently have a mouse and keyboard - wouldn't mind a different (not new) mouse because mine is seemingly not responsive (if you left click, it doesn't always click, but I've been in the practice for years to just click twice as twice usually does the trick if the first time falters) as for the keyboard I'm more than satisfied (Azio White-LED Mechanical Keyboard) and my monitor is a 24 INCH 1080p one (BenQ GL2460).
 
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Herc08

Herc08

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Man, I really tried my best. This will get the job done, but it is over budget. Obviously, you can change out the case and things. 16GB did not fit, so I barely was able to get 8GB of RAM in there. Hopefully this will work for now

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($139.99 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($59.75 @ Vuugo)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Mini Video Card ($183.81 @ DirectCanada)
Case: Deepcool TESSERACT BF ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ NCIX)
Total: $573.50
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-28 19:13 EST-0500
 
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Vinyl_Is_King

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Thanks for this, this is a nice list to go on.

As for being over budget, it's technically not and that's because I was/am planning to take a few parts out of my current PC and use them on this build (my SSD, and 500W PSU - if you're curious).

Albeit, I'd definitely pay more for an i5 as I want a quad core.
 
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Vinyl_Is_King

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Here is a build to take serious (and add onto).

Motherboard: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/B85ME/overview/ | $119 on Amazon Canada
Video Card: Radeon(?) RX 470 (Single Fan) | $262 on Amazon Canada
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Z | Price doesn't not matter is I already own it.
RAM: Ballistix Sport 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3 1600 | $146 on Amazon Canada
Power Supply: 500W 80Plus (*What does the 80Plus mean??) | Price is irrelevant as I own it.
Processor: Intel Core i5-4460S | $194 Presumably New on eBay (but looks used to me) [http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Intel-Core-i5-4460S-CPU-Processor-LGA1150-6M-Cache-up-to-3-40-GHz-4th-Gen-SR1QQ-/332055371563?hash=item4d500adf2b:g:sLgAAOSw8w1X2vvS]

 
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Herc08

Herc08

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Well that build is not bad. RAdeon is true for the RX 470, which is a bit more powerful than the 1050 Ti. I see that you decided to upgrade to 16Gb, that's really expensive. The 80+ is a certification for efficiency rating. The higher the level, the better efficient it is. For gaming purposes, Bronze is ok, but if you can get Gold, then you are golden (no pun intended).
 
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Vinyl_Is_King

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Ah I see. I'm not a huge fan of Radeon as it is an AMD product and AMD is basically a discount brand I have noticed (which isn't to say it's bad I mean if you spend enough I'm sure your PC would be epically powerful - as an example, my dad's PC is AMD-based and it performs as it should for being a multimedia machine).

As for RAM, I'd go as far as the motherboard allows (in this case 64GB) but I've read countless articles that state that with gaming in mind, you'll be lucky to use more than 8GB as games mostly stem their resources from the video card and processor. Nevertheless, I like to overkill things and if I had this build, I would probably run a virtual machine for linux or windows for fun or even an android emulator like Blue Stacks. However, I find it hard to believe one wouldn't use more than 8GB in the up coming years because canyourunit.com states that BF1 can use UP TO 16GB of RAM.
 
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Herc08

Herc08

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Well remember CURI is a guide, not something to truly depend on. In the future, it probably will use more than 16GB. But if you are going to run a virtual sandbox, then you are going to need that 16, or maybe even 24. But the RX brand is something to really look into with the new Polaris chips. I still prefer NVIDIA myself, but want to be un-biased as possible.
 
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Vinyl_Is_King

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Yes, I'm well acquainted with CURI and also know that it must judge your specs by statistics or something, as it has said one thing and yet my PC can have much better performance than CURI says it does.

As for upgrades, etc.. I'm really unsure of what to do. Either build my own PC from scratch or buy a PC off eBay right now which is being auctioned (http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Dell-Inspiron-3847-i5-4460-3-2GHz-8GB-1TB-Win-8-Desktop-540-READ/311766943035?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D39923%26meid%3D66c4bd8fd09349df99c3578ddcd7a3eb%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D272492528956) Then if I win, I can just buy the RX 470 and upgrade the RAM and CPU (eventually)... But I also very much like the idea of making my own machine but either way money is extremely tight (and as an added but not-so-important note, I don't wanna resort to console gaming).

My current PC does great with older games and even some newer (I have just started playing Outlast on it and my machine is a 32bit so Outlast isn't even supported directly yet my PC has a framerrate of around 25-50 [very sporadic]).


  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.00GHz (Processor)
    4.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 420MHz (RAM)
    ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5KPL-AM (Motherboard, about 8 years old, 9 when 2017 hits)
    NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 2GB (video card, surprises me every day with what it can do)
    500GB SSD (My cousin told me the epicness of an SSD and I ain't ever going back to HDD)
    *I don't remember which, but either my processor or RAM, I have overclocked
 
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Herc08

Herc08

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That's quite an oldie, especially with that DDR2 RAM. Your best bet? Build your own when you can. Not only that, but I generally don't teust eBay. Not to mention, that feeling that something is truly yours, and not tied down to bloatware from HP, Dell, etc.
 
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Solution
V

Vinyl_Is_King

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Apr 10, 2016
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Yes, yes it is but the lad works well for YouTube and most the of games I like to play. I trust eBay a little as I've bought about $120-150 worth of items from it - it's PayPal that you really gotta watch out for, it's a very insecure system.

I bought the processor off eBay, used for I think $50-60 and the RAM from Amazon for $40.. And the video card for about $100 (on sale) which I wish I had of put more money into it because although 720p is nice, I'd like to move up in the world hence attempting to build a machine.
 
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