New PC tower build to outperform 5 year old laptop, as budget as possible.

[Titan Slayer]

Not sure where to start, so I'll start with what I've got. My laptop:

HP Envy 14 Beats edition
Intel i5 480m
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
8gb RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium

I bought this laptop in March of 2011 while I was on R&R from Iraq. It's served me faithfully until maybe a year ago. Fan burnt out, CD-ROM died, just generally slowing down. Since I'm out of the Army, I really don't need a laptop anymore, so I'm looking to build a tower for budget, upgradeability, and ease of maintenance.

It's prime purpose is for gaming. Now this is why I say I only need it to modestly outperform what I have; I don't want to play the latet and greatest. I've got a decent Steam library and I'd like to be able to play my old games again. I guess the most graphics intensive games I have are EVE Online, Just Cause 2, State of Decay, and Space Engineers (great game).

Ideally, I'd like to build within the $200-$300 range, hopefully including a Windows OS. My issue is that I've been out of the loop for so long, I don't know what's better than what where top of the line isn't a consideration. So I appeal to you for help, and any given will be accepted with much gratitude. Thanks for reading!

 

[Outlander_04]

This is about as cheap at it practically gets

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($111.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($42.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 1GB Video Card ($71.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill RANGER-M MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer ($12.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $455.56
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-18 04:53 EDT-0400

and frankly since there is no room to expand the RAM Id buy this 2 x 4 gig kit instead of the one listed above even though it adds $15 to the cost
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f31600c9d8gab

 

[jmsellars1]

If you're just looking to 'modestly outperform' your laptop, pretty much any desktop CPU with any desktop GPU should be fine. The mobility Radeon 5650 is comparable to a desktop 5570, even when it came out around 4 years ago that was entry level stuff to the point where it would have been a stretch to call it a gaming card. The i5-480m is comparable to the i5-4200u in my laptop and this is probably similar in performance to a desktop Celeron or something. An APU like the A10-7850K or an A8 using the integrated graphics would probably slightly outperform what you have. If you can include almost any modern graphics card though it is going to be a lot better.

This is probably the absolute cheapest you could go:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fJ3J99
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fJ3J99/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor ($52.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-S1 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($38.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($26.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GT 730 1GB Video Card ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Rosewill FBM-02 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($21.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec Basiq 350W ATX Power Supply ($25.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $255.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-18 05:20 EDT-0400

That should slightly outperform the laptop in games. You should be aware that that motherboard needs an up to date BIOS otherwise it might not work with that CPU. Just check with the shop before buying if you go for it. Same situation with the MSI board recommended above.