New 500-650 USD Gaming Rig

[TheEcksBox]

Approximate Purchase Date: Sometime next month

Budget Range: 500-650$

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, School, 3D Design

Are you buying a monitor: no

Do you need to buy OS: Yes, Windows 8

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg, Amazon

Location: City, State/Region, Country - USA, East Coast

Parts Preferences: None first gaming build

Overclocking: no

SLI or Crossfire: no
Your Monitor Resolution: Null

Additional Comments: nope

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My current HP Desktop is from 5 years ago, and can't even play Minecraft. The OS is Vista. The graphics card is not supported at all anymore. Can't play most games nowadays. Can't even play Gmod without double voices and extreme lag.

 

[X79]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-2120 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($117.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI H61M-P20 (G3) Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($63.00 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($100.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($58.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 1GB Video Card ($173.98 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Shinobi ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($62.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit)
Total: $662.90
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-01 10:39 EDT-0400)

Lots of RAM for the 3D stuff.

An i3 for gaming, which is actually quad-core and thus helps with editing.

A solid GPU for this budget, without knowing what you play.

Lots of storage and a nice looking case.

It actually doesn't go over the budget, if you take away the optical drive.

 

[TheEcksBox]

What about for the CPU, AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black. Would that be better? Less money, more ghz.

And more cores

 

[X79]

It's one of the top-tier ones for best CPU for the money. However it's not

as simple as comparing things like Ghz and core-count. Not unless it's the same

line of CPUs.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,review-32653-5.html

 

[Surya Mylvahanan]

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1dHLJ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1dHLJ/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1dHLJ/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI H61M-P31 (G3) Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($55.97 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($32.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.52 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($255.66 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($44.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $677.09
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-05 23:43 EDT-0400)

sorry i went $27 over budget due to the video card which by the way i own it and its a BEAST! If you prefer a cheaper video card to reduce money i suggest EVGA's Geforce GTX 660- http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-SUPERCLOCKED-Graphics-02G-P4-2662-KR/dp/B00966IREK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373082314&sr=8-1&keywords=evga+geforce+gtx+660

Also you might need a bios update to use the cpu (the motherboard might also come refreshed with the new one)

If you were wondering about the 4gb of ram its plenty, Most applications don't even use the full 4gb,.