Best PC for $500-$700?

[K-Shaps]

Hi This is my first post here so I might be putting it in the wrong section, so mods please move it if that is the case.

Anyways,

I have been out of PC gaming for years. I built my first PC in 2003 in preparation for Half-Life 2. PC gaming is great these days and I want to build a new rig.

I was curious if it is at all possible to build a water cooled PC that could run Max Payne 3, Skyrim and GTA IV with all the cool ENB wrappers at full resolutions. Like I said I have been out of it for awhile and I'm sure this might not even be possible, but if it is if someone could please list some components that could possibly make this a reality or give me a realistic price that would be greatly appreciated. I can't wait to get back to PC gaming!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been moved from the section Video Games to section Systems by Mousemonkey

 

[obsama1]

Water cooling isn't necessary to game. You only need it to overclock to 4.6GHz+. If you want to run all those games and more at max settings, spend ~$1K.

 

[K-Shaps]

Wow...I didn't want to spend that much. If you had to guess what could I run those games at with a $500-700 rig?

 

[eleptyx]

Do you want to run them or run them on high? I recently put together two systems under 1000 that can run Skyrim. I haven't tried the other two games you'd like on it, but I don't see them causing problems based solely on specs. Just make sure the majority of your budget is going to the CPU and the GPU. That's pretty much what I did and we got two pretty decent systems. I believe the better system ended at a little under 800. Do you have a particular place you're looking to buy parts from?

As to what you could run them at...I'd have to look at the games in particular. I know that we have our systems running Diablo 3 on high settings. I believe skyrim is the same.

Also, I didn't use water cooling in these systems. If that is something you're set on I would definitely wait until you can up your budget.

 

[K-Shaps]

Water cooling was just an idea. It's not necessary to me at all. I just want to make sure my system will be quiet an cool. My last PC ran very loud and I was never a fan of it. I was planning on either buying from newegg or tigerdirect, really whatever is the cheapest. I really just want to get the best possible rig for my money (don't we all haha).

 

[eleptyx]

http://pcpartpicker.com/ is a very good site for putting together a rig while being able to look at the prices as you go along. Just set it to look for pieces from the sites you're okay looking from.


You could try something like this. Just add or remove parts you don't need. I'd up the i3 to an i5/7 if you can afford it. It'd work well enough for what you're looking for. Maybe change the video card to a 6870 or something? Just ideas, but I'd play around on part picker. :]
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9Arm

 

[obsama1]

Yeah, I am building a $500 rig of my own, but I've saved my HDD, DVD drive, monito, and keyboard to save money. If you buy from MicroCenter wou will save a ton of $$$ on the parts.

 

[K-Shaps]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/a4rz

Here's what I would like...it's double my budget Oh well. Anything on here that could be scaled down, but is still somewhat future proof?

EDIT:
This one too, but it's still way more than I wanted to spend.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/a4JW