Budget upgrade for a primarily light gaming system ($500)

[Joseph Eggert]

I'm looking to upgrade my current system. It is long past its lifespan, and could use a new shot in the heart. The applications aren't crazy demanding, like WoW, Dead Space 3, SimCity, etc, so it doesn't have to be a massive system. To give you an idea where I'm starting at, here is what I'm currently working on:

Motherboard: Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
RAM: 4Gb DDR2
Video: ATI Ratheon 5670 (better card died)
Power: Enermax EG465P-VE 460W

I plan to reuse my drives for now, case, monitors (22" and 17"), and hopefully power supply. It has a Thermaltake Bigwater 760i water cooler, but I suspect I won't find an adapter plate for the 1155 chipset. I'll be running Windows 7 64-bit. If I go ahead with this, I would probably purchase within a week or two.

After mucking around on here and pricing on Newegg.com, here is what I've pieced together so far.

Motherboard: ASUS P8B75-M LX PLUS LGA 1155 Intel B75 ($69.99)
CPU: Intel Core i5-3350P Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 ($179.99)
Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 ($29.99)
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 ($62.99)
Video: PowerColor AX7750 1GBD5-HL Radeon HD 7750 1GB ($109.99)

Puts me around $450. Are there any major flaws in these choices, or are they adequate for my meager need? Thanks

 

[Shockeray]

I would use this motherboard...
MSI ZH77A-G43 LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s
the one that you said you found on NewEgg is a Micro AXT, really there's no reason to go that small unless you can't fit a larger one in your case.

And I would replace your GPU with this one...
Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB
It's only $20 more and is quite a bit faster, probably enough to gain you 5-10FPS depending on the game.
Everything else you have suggested looks good though. Happy Upgrading

 

[bodeen2012]

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KQnn
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KQnn/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KQnn/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($129.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: ASRock 970 PRO3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($82.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston XMP Blu Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($48.96 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $461.47
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-19 18:54 EDT-0400)

 

[Joseph Eggert]

Good idea on the video card. I didn't think the price different was that little.

While looking at full sized ATX motherboards, I discovered this:
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $135 + free ram

It was the same ram that I was getting, has more memory sockets, Z77 Northbridge. I'm just not familiar with the brand. Since bodeen recommended a board by them, I thought it was worth a look.

 

[Shockeray]

Some of ASRock's boards are really good, others turned out bad.

That board is good, and since it's $55 more, but you don't have to buy the $55 RAM, you are breaking even and getting a high end MoBo. If you are buying soon, that deal would definitely worth it.