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$500 Gaming PC Suggestions

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Hello,

For almost the past year, I have been looking to purchase parts for a PC, and I'm on a tight budget. I can spend around $500, and seems like Black Friday is the best time to do it.

I am aiming to be able to play games at high settings with a minimum of 40-50 FPS. An i5 processor would be nice, but if an i3 would suffice, that would be great too.

Approximate Purchase Date: This Week

Budget Range: $500 Before Shipping

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: None

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg

Location: Round Lake, Illinois USA

Parts Preferences: by brand or type: Intel CPU

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 1440x900

Additional Comments: Counter-Strike Global Offensive, Crysis, Assassin's Creed III, Grand Theft Auto IV, Minecraft (With GPU-Intensive Shader Mods), and more.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My rig is old and obsolete.

More about : 500 gaming suggestions

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($114.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G41 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Microcenter)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 431 Plus (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $382.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-22 23:34 EST-0500)

Take a look at the many different Builder Marathon Pc Builds here at tomshardware that aim at $500 budget gaming builds.

You wont be able to use hd texture packs or any gpu intensive mods for minecraft. I was surprised to find my GTX 680 being maxed out just because of a texture pack. It's because java is resource hoarding and kills frames.
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cutebeans said:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($114.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G41 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Microcenter)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 431 Plus (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $382.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-22 23:34 EST-0500)


Great! This looks awesome. Thank you so much. I'll wait to see if a few more suggestions roll in. Otherwise, that's a great budget system!

thetechnoobguy said:
Take a look at the many different Builder Marathon Pc Builds here at tomshardware that aim at $500 budget gaming builds.

You wont be able to use hd texture packs or any gpu intensive mods for minecraft. I was surprised to find my GTX 680 being maxed out just because of a texture pack. It's because java is resource hoarding and kills frames.


Alright, thanks.

That's fine. As long as it runs Minecraft at a steady framerate I'm content.

Aeronnax said:
Great! This looks awesome. Thank you so much. I'll wait to see if a few more suggestions roll in. Otherwise, that's a great budget system!


The board, memory, video card and power supply are all on super rebates that's why they are so dirt cheap.

It's gonna be gone if you wait. Trust me and my Silver HomeBrew Badge that this is the best that it's going to get.

If I was you, I would salvage the tower, the hard drive and the graphics card from your old build. This gives you hundreds more that you can use towards a better graphics card or cpu, and you can always get a new tower or whatever later on.

You could get an i5 and use your old graphics card until you can get a new one. Just something to consider.

thetechnoobguy said:
If I was you, I would salvage the tower, the hard drive and the graphics card from your old build. This gives you hundreds more that you can use towards a better graphics card or cpu, and you can always get a new tower or whatever later on.

You could get an i5 and use your old graphics card until you can get a new one. Just something to consider.


I can maybe salvage the tower and HDD, but the graphics card won't be able to run anything anymore.

Do you have a micro center nearby? They had old i5-2500k for $100 this week; not sure if that's still relevant but something to consider. Also, since you stated that you don't need an OS, you can stretch a bit of your graphics budget higher. The stated graphic card sold out quickly anyway, some other considerations-

GTX 560 Ti for $150 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Sapphire HD 7770 for $120 after rebate and shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Gigabyte HD 7850 for $150 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
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