Building a low budget PC

[Prolific-Jay]

Hi! I am looking to build a low budget PC in the near future. I am not overly tech savvy when it comes to the internals of PC's so I need all the help I can get. I am a console gamer so I don't want a gaming PC but I like to record gameplay and edit clips. My current laptop is awful (cheap ACER) and whenever I record footage, the sound is never in sync with the gameplay and there are times when the screen will freeze and then catch back up a few seconds later. I am guessing this might be due to the low processing power my laptop has. Even when watching the preview screen on the laptop while recording, it is very slow and always ends up being a few minutes behind by the end of recording.

So I am seeking advice on the cheapest PC I can build from scratch for the sole purpose of recording footage and editing video in 720p at the minimum. Like I said, I don't know very much about the internals so I am kind of lost. I basically need to know everything, other than a monitor. At least a quad core I'm assuming as well. I also don't need a ridiculous amount of storage, maybe 500 gb harddrive or so.

Any help or walkthroughs you can provide me with would be greatly appreciated! If it helps any, I live in Canada and use an Elgato game capture HD to record. Also by low budget, I'm hoping like $500 or less. Not including Monitor, keyboard or mouse.

Thanks in advance, cheers!

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Here's a basic system that has a quad-core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD. It went a bit over $500, but it's a nice system.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($190.00 @ Canada Computers)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Canada Computers)
Memory: A-Data XPG V2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.99 @ Canada Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.75 @ Vuugo)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Memory Express)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 400W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Memory Express)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($17.82 @ DirectCanada)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.99 @ NCIX)
Total: $577.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-16 17:11 EDT-0400

If you need to stick closer to your budget then here's an AMD version of the build. The i5 chip is much more powerful, though. I would go with the Intel build if you have some flexibility in the budget.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($124.95 @ Vuugo)
Motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M LX PLUS Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($49.75 @ Vuugo)
Memory: A-Data XPG V2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.99 @ Canada Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.75 @ Vuugo)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Memory Express)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 400W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Memory Express)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($17.82 @ DirectCanada)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.99 @ NCIX)
Total: $517.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-16 17:15 EDT-0400

 

[Prolific-Jay]

Thanks very much! Appreciate the answer. Now as far as assembling everything within the tower, I am slightly lost. I have never really seen the internals of a PC as I have owned nothing but laptops so I'm not quite sure how it all goes together lol. Is it pretty straight forward or should I be looking for some sort of guide to assist me? Another question is what about a cooling system? Would I need to buy a fan or something for this as well?

Sorry, am quite new to this lol. Thanks again.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

If you do a Google search for how to build a computer you will have a ton of tutorials and videos available to help with the building process. There's also a sticky at the top of the forum with step-by-step instructions on how to build a computer.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274745-31-step-step-guide-building

It isn't hard, but you do need to understand what you're doing and how to minimize the risk of damaging components. If you won't be doing any overclocking then the CPU cooler included with the CPU will work just fine.

If you run into any problems after doing the build then you can use the troubleshooting checklist in my signature.