500 dollar gaming PC

Naturally more of a budget will get you a better gaming computer but the thing that you havn't told us is what games you intend on playing , at what settings and at what resolutions. Just looking at your build anyone will say that it will work and it will play some games but not everyone play the same games. So if you want to give us that info we can tell you where you can get to with this build. Also what is your OS.

tbh if i had this build i would play bf3, crysis 1 and 2 ,dirt 3 ,metro 2033, cod4 , gta4

most people play at 1080p 1920 x 1080 I wasnt going to get this rig any way and just put these parts so ican show people what kind of they can get for 500 $

why build with an i3 2120 whan the AMD FX 4100 processor is cheaper and faster at almost every task ?

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1766/

and thats before you begin to consider overclocking . Usually the FX will hit 4.6 GHz on the stock cooler while the intel pretty much cant be over clocked

they still have phenom 965s well last timed i checked....

the reason i chose the i3 2120 because its sandy bridge and upgradable to the i5 2500k

but its upgradable  DDDDDD

in some games they only use 2 threads wich the i3 2120 spanks the amd phenom iis in..............

Its a 6790!!!!

i5 2500k = BOOM FOR YOUR BUCK

a 6770 only uses a 128 memory bit interface but the 6790 has a 256 bit interface and can unlock to a 6850  

If you want an upgradable PC then ditch the H61 board and get a cheap Z68 board, more features and you can actually overclock on them. or at least a p67 mobo

well the mobo i origanaly had was 78 bucks and it was a z68 board but it ran out of stock yesterday  

i wish there was i3 2100k.... 

haha thanks I really think intel should do that It would be a budget gamers dream  
But il probaly just wait till ivy comes out any way

oh yes this 6790 is only 125 dollers and with rebate its only 110 dollars now thats a deal  

yeah i know i was just trying to stay within bugdwt  

if you disaible the i5 2500k s 2 cores you can do that  

I'd go with AMD due to the motherboard opportunities that you can get for much cheaper than intel you're saying thay you're going with intel because you can upgrade to a I5-2500k but then you select a H61 motherboard which doesn't support the K-series unlocked part so this makes no since. I would go with AMD also because the 960T has a 37% chance of unlocking to a 6 core and a 75% chance of unlocking to a 5 core and right now this is based off the thuban die which are great overclockers and this chip only has a 95W TDP, and it's also only 109.99$ after a gift card right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (ASrock 870 AM3+ Motherboard this will allow for X8/X8 Crossfire in the future and at 79.99 with Sata 6gb/s and USB 3.0 this motherboard is a steal.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (AMD Phenom 960T This is great because as I've mentioned above a 37% chance of unlocking to a 6 core and a 75% chance of unlocking to a 5 core and it's 109.99 ATM a core for that much would be a steal!)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (NZXT source 210 this case is a great size for a midtower (it fits a Noctua Cooler and still allows the side panel to bet put on and it makes cable management easy)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (4 GB of Wintec Ram DDR 3-1600 these have huge heatsinks and wintec makes great ram)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (69.99 HDD I chose this because like you it's the cheapest I could find.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (46.00 Power Supply I chose this due to it being modular I know it's made by raidmax but it's high wattage 630W should be more than enough even if it's made by a bad company)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (Sapphire 6850 this is a great overclocker and for 139.99 atm it's a steal imo)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (I chose this due to it's the cheapest one and LG is a good company)

Total price for this would be around 530$ before mail in rebates.

All & Casey: I'm about to place an order for my first build - and instead of creating a separate thread, I just thought I'd hop on this one since it's very relevant! I picked a different case, RAM (wanted 6gb for light graphics work in addition to gaming), HD (Seagate...to spare an unnecessary convo, I'm a brand-whore) and graphics card (the 6870 is only $10 more than the 6850, has 50fps instead of 42fps on a few other benchmarks for MW3).

Is there anything I'm missing to complete the build later this week? Any random parts I may want to order - or potentially a very light PSU upgrade? Were any of the below a poor choice of part modification? And, what else do I need in addition to another Seagate to support Raid 1?

PS: My upgraded components (with links) were bolded.

Do not get 6 GB of ram because 3 sticks will not run in dual channel instead get 2 4 Gig Sticks, if you're going to spend that much on a HDD i would reccommend getting a SSD instead and just recyling old IDE HDD's, I would also reccommend getting the Coolermaster Haf 912 case right now due to it's price it's only 49.99 on newegg atm and it's easy cable management especially if you got that modular PSU.

Awesome - I didn't realize the dual channel would be an issue. I grabbed four 2-gig sticks (saved $50) and ended up sticking with a HDD because I've always had laptops and don't have any spare IDE HDDs laying around.

Also upgraded the power supply to a Coolermaster. Thanks for your help!

btw i have corsair tx 750 v2 in my main build