[Solved] Sub US$700 (pref 600) budget gaming build

Approximate Purchase Date: within 3 weeks


Budget Range: (e.g.: 600-800) 600-700 with shipping/not including mail in rebates (ie, what I have to spend out of pocket now). ~$600 sans monitor, ~$700 with

System Usage from Most to Least Important: medium gaming (STO, Fable 3 - if it ever comes out, Civ 5), possible photoshop use, general internet (including flash games), email, office productivity suite


Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, maybe monitor


Preferred Website(s) for Parts: new egg, microcenter (cause it's down the street)


Country of Origin: United States


Parts Preferences: none


Overclocking:Maybe


SLI or Crossfire: Maybe


Monitor Resolution: undecided


Additional Comments: must have windows and prefer a 1tb hd; I spec'd out LuigiVN, adding windows 7 pro 64-bit for system builders (in a combo) and upping the HD space, and as far as I can tell it'll be ~$770 from newegg. If I could get some help on figuring out what swap out to reduce it by $100 I'd appreciate it.

Can't seem to insert an image unless it has it's own URL, I'll see if I can figure it out to show the $770 price.

Look into somethink like this:

CPU: AMD phenom ii x4 955 BE

GPU: ATI HD 6850 or GTX 460 (HD 6870 if you can afford it)

MOBO: ASRock 870 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard ( with new features and crossfire at x8,x8 wich is good)

PSU: Corsair HX 650W or higher. You can go cheaper with OCZ modular PSUs

CASE: Antec 902, antec 300, antec 900 or cooler master HAF 922 (depending which one can you afford.

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM

HDD: Samsung f3 1TB 7200RPM

If you thinking of overcloking then get one of these coolers:

Corsair H50/70

or

I would sugest coolIT E.C.O. wich beats the H50

There is one way of getting it down, and thats by going AMD based......

With your budget i wouldn't go INTEL.

I'd like to differ - the i3- stated above actually has native frequency of 1066/1333MHz according to this

so getting a pair of lower frequencies and of 4Gb kit will do you good. PLUS - DON'T get the XMS - thas one way of getting a higher price quotation - get G.skills they are cheaper - i just noticed one a while ago can't remember which one. But get a dual channel kit.

Lower your HDD to 500Gb, get larger HDD's in the future when you have some dough saved up.

The H55's GPU (together with the i3) will give you 'playable' frame rates not the best solution but in essence, your saving up on buying the GPU. When the Ati 6900 series cards'll come out - the 5700 will already have become cheaper. To that note - get a lil higher PSU Wattage.

I have a friend who has the exact config and he's played POP-The Forgotten Sands, CoD-MW2, BFBC2 with the IGPU of the H55 along with an i5-(which is a dual core w/ HT). Civ 5 ain't that taxing on GPU - only when your unhappy with its frame rates, you can splash cash on the GPU.

so the new HDD, lowered ram specs and no GPU will LOWER the price hopefully

EDIT - Hang on a minute if your on a budget build why get a CoolIT ECO or a COrsair H50, get a coolermaster Hyper 212+ and you've done your work with cooling and OC'ing the cpu. More money saved...

Nice build but he dosn't need a monitor so the build can be twice better with AMD phenom ii x4 995 and GTX 460 or HD 6850

with these upgrades OCZ 600W would do.

Don't know, he wrote

. My build is $595 without the monitor.

LE: Lutfij beat me to it.

heh by 2mins43secs

$754 is over budget

Choices, choices ... thanks for another option!

It'll take me a while to go through these builds, y'all are very fast at this!

@ screwysqrl - when you add this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817116009, your price will go up not to mention the OS.

Here are what I think are my two best options:

Option 1:

PSU:SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W Power Supply $59.99

HD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $54.99

Graphics: GIGABYTE Radeon HD 5770 GV-R577SO-1GD Video Card $149.99

Case/DVD: HEC Blitz Black Steel Edition ATX Mid Tower Computer Chassis Gaming Case
LG DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model GH24NS50
COMBO $49.98

Motherboard/Os: BIOSTAR A880G+ Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
COMBO $149.98

Processor/Memory: AMD Athlon II X3 445 3.1GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory
COMBO $129.98

Total $594.91 Edit: had additional $20 off with a mail in rebate, which doesn't impact out of pocket, but does the total price


Option 2:
PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ600MXSP 600W Power Supply compatible with core i7 $74.99

HD: Seagate SV35.5 500GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $49.99

Motherboard: BIOSTAR A880G+ Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $69.99

Case/DVD: HEC Blitz Black Steel Edition ATX Mid Tower Computer Chassis Gaming Case
LG DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model GH24NS50
COMBO $49.98

Graphics Card/Processor: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 5770 100283-3L Video Card
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor
COMBO $223.99

OS/Memory: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory
COMBO $173.98

Total: $642.92 Edit: has additional $40 off with a mail in rebates, which doesn't impact out of pocket, but does the total price

One is completely from mosox' recommendation, one is a hybrid. Once I added the OS, ScrewySqrl was getting too pricey.

Will both work? Is option 2 worth the $50 more? Are both expandable in the next year or two or maybe 3?

And, as this is my first build, are there any other things (I have tools, not parts) that I need - cables, etc?

@ OP - get option 2

the quad core will be handy for multitasking and photoshop work.

@ screwysqrl - getting the 770 will actually wallup future upgrade path for processor - once bulldozer come out or whatever it is from AMD.

Best answer selected by gray_chicago.