First Ever PC Gaming Build ~$600

smoothoperative

Honorable
Nov 11, 2012
18
0
10,510
Hey guys, I am attempting to build my first PC and I need a little bit of help. I've narrowed it down to a basic collection of parts for my budget, which is roughly 600 dollars after rebates, with a bit of wiggle room. I basically want to use this computer for gaming (e.g. Minecraft, Portal 2, League of Legends, Borderlands 2, etc.), image editing in photoshop, watching tv shows, and live streaming on twitch.tv. I don't have to have top notch everything HD, but I'd like something that can handle me better than my outdated PC of almost five years without being obnoxiously loud. That being said, I do plan to use a few things from my current system to save on cash, like my hard drive and disk drive. I will also be re-appropriating my current monitor, mouse, and keyboard. So this is what I've come up with and any input on the subject would be amazing and most appreciated! Thanks.

Case: NZXT Phantom 410 CA-PH410-G1 Gunmetal Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Black Trim Computer Case

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4GHz LGA 1155 Processor

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBXL

Video Card: XFX HD-677X-ZNFC Radeon HD 6770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Alternatively, I looked into this video card: EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
for reference

Disk Drive: hl-dt-st dvd-ram gh15l (from HP pavillion m9400t)
for reference

Power Supply: Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Or possibly the Rosewill Green Series RG530-S12 530W Continuous @40°C, 80 PLUS Certified, Single 12V Rail, Active PFC "Compatible with Core i7,i5" Power Supply


To be honest, I am still confused as to how many watts it would take to power up everything I've assembled, so I don't know if 530-550W is too much or too little. Any other suggestions for the power supply and parts are welcomed also. I don't really know much about overclocking either, so I'm not really sure if that's something to think about or not. I just want to make sure parts are compatible and that I can hook this thing up properly. Thanks again for taking the time to read this and I hope to hear from you soon!
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
For a $600 build you won't be able to reuse that DVD burner as it's made for a proprietary case - as is all prebuilt computers. Neither video card or power supply you've picked out is worth purchasing. Your case, motherboard and CPU are all excellent but on a $600 budget they're unobtainable.

I'd suggest something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($125.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($87.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($37.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($88.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($200.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec One ATX Mid Tower Case ($42.37 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $670.85
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-11 03:14 EST-0500)