New pc build

[selfrezz]

I'm looking to build a gaming pc. Budget is between $500-$600. The following games are going to be played on it: WOW (casual), Smite, Wizard 101, D3. I have Keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Also, looking for suggestions for windows7 or 10 depending on the setup. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

[paranormalcy]

500-600 doesn't leave you a lot of room to do much. At that price point you probably want to plan on throwing away the PC and rebuilding once every couple years. If you were closer to 1k, I'd tell you to drop most of your money on the cpu. You can always upgrade to more/better ram or a better GPU as needed. Unfortunately intel feels like obsoleting every chipset once a year now so the mobo most likely won't be compatible with another CPU in the future.

I was going to post a screen clip of MMO's monthly PC setup specs but you can't on a new account. Right now it's on page 9. (Ctrl F "Setup of the Month" on that page) The next one should be out in a couple weeks.

Have fun with the build.

[selfrezz]

I can probably raise my cap to about $700. I tried to post a build but the forums won' let me...

[GodlyBob]

None of those games are too terribly hardware intensive. If you want to get a PC to build yourself and then tinker with as you go along, just make sure you start out with a full sized tower and a PSU. Get some mediocre hardware now and then work on swapping it out in the future as you get money, maybe treat yo'self to an upgrade every 2 months or so. In other words, build the skeleton now, grow the muscle later.

[Deleted]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($193.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Silverline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card ($166.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($26.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) ($94.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $681.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-25 02:17 EDT-0400

[Vash The Stampede]

Some reason people believe you need to spend $1k for a gaming PC and that's not true. Here's a build that focuses more on the GPU while the CPU is good enough. Kostattoo build is more focused on CPU than GPU which is great for WoW. The problem with Intel CPU's is there's nothing good bellow i5's or above the G3258. Kinda a dead zone there.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($73.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A78M PRO3+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($51.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.94 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 290 4GB TurboDuo Video Card ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Apex SK-393-C ATX Mid Tower Case ($26.21 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: CoolMax 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($33.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $609.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-25 02:36 EDT-0400

[selfrezz]

With the radeon r9 290 being a power hog is 500-550 enough power? or maxingout the power supply?

[Vash The Stampede]

The R9 290 requires 31 Amps on the 12v rail and according to NewEgg the CoolMax ZX-500 has 34 Amps. It should fine but if you have concerns just get a 600W, though most tests show that nothing really ever goes past 450W with a single GPU and a normal quad core CPU. It's only $10 more for a 600W just make sure it's 80+ Bronze and you'll be fine.

[Kagthul]

Some reason people believe you need to spend $1k for a gaming PC and that's not true. Here's a build that focuses more on the GPU while the CPU is good enough. Kostattoo build is more focused on CPU than GPU which is great for WoW. The problem with Intel CPU's is there's nothing good bellow i5's or above the G3258. Kinda a dead zone there.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($73.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A78M PRO3+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($51.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.94 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 290 4GB TurboDuo Video Card ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Apex SK-393-C ATX Mid Tower Case ($26.21 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: CoolMax 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($33.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $609.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-25 02:36 EDT-0400

Eh? A fast i3 (4160 or 4170) can be had for about ~100$ (or less on sale) and will stomp that Athlon X4 into the dirt pretty handily.

[Vash The Stampede]

Eh? A fast i3 (4160 or 4170) can be had for about ~100$ (or less on sale) and will stomp that Athlon X4 into the dirt pretty handily.

Whatever the OP wants. Just remember the whole issue with artificial dual core restriction implemented in Ubisoft games.

[selfrezz]

Is it a waste to bump up from the gtx 960 to a 970?

[Vash The Stampede]

Is it a waste to bump up from the gtx 960 to a 970?

The GTX 970 is the most populuar graphics card on the market. So no, it's not a bad idea but with news of DX12 a R9 390 might be better. But what CPU did you decide to go with?

[Bigvizz]

About the best I could do. Since wow and D3 are your main games the cpu is fitting and you can overclock the hell out of it.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.88 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet CPU Cooler ($22.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Silverline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($44.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate 500GB 2.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($38.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card ($173.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($58.89 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $626.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-28 01:05 EDT-0400

[selfrezz]

The GTX 970 is the most populuar graphics card on the market. So no, it's not a bad idea but with news of DX12 a R9 390 might be better. But what CPU did you decide to go with?

I chose to go with the intel i5-4590 3.3 GHZ. I went with Kostattoo's post above but changed the GFX card. I've seen alot of information with the radeon cards (290 and 390) getting very hot and also pretty loud (whining).

Also would there be a need to add a CPU cooler for this build? I have no intentions of OC' ing.

[Deleted]

You should note that i chose the gtx 960 over any amd card on similar budget, cause nvidia cards run alot better than amd on blizzard games. If you had the budget for a R9 390(x) it wouldn't matter but between a gtx960 and r9 380 gtx960 is easily the winner.

[Vash The Stampede]

Also would there be a need to add a CPU cooler for this build? I have no intentions of OC' ing.

It's a K CPU so there's no point. Overclocking those are a pain. But if you're on a tight budget you'll do fine with that CPU.

[callipygoustp]

If you're looking to save ~$50 bucks, I'd skip the SSD. Its a luxury not a necessity.

[Lathais]

If you're looking to save ~$50 bucks, I'd skip the SSD. Its a luxury not a necessity.

Actually, in today's market, I would almost consider the secondary storage HDD to be the luxury, with the SSD being almost mandatory except on the most extreme of budgets. You can get a 128GB SSD for the same price as a 1TB HDD and a 256 for only about $25 more. Having both is a luxury, but you need at least one, so if you are ok with not having storage, have an external HDD you can use as storage or some cloud based storage and are ok with only having a couple games installed at a time, the SSD is a solid choice.

[Vash The Stampede]

Actually, in today's market, I would almost consider the secondary storage HDD to be the luxury, with the SSD being almost mandatory except on the most extreme of budgets. You can get a 128GB SSD for the same price as a 1TB HDD and a 256 for only about $25 more. Having both is a luxury, but you need at least one, so if you are ok with not having storage, have an external HDD you can use as storage or some cloud based storage and are ok with only having a couple games installed at a time, the SSD is a solid choice.

Personally don't have a SSD cause having one would be annoying. I have a lot of data and install a lot of games so a 128GB is only good enough for Windows 10 + basic applications + WoW. With a 256GB I could just throw in a few more games like GW2 and Witcher 3. I would be comfortable having a ~500GB SSD cause that way I can actually use it. So for the moment I'm just waiting for ~500GB SSDs to get cheap enough.

Right now getting a 128GB SSD wouldn't make sense cause you wouldn't be able to put more than one or two games on it to benefit from it. I also just keep my gaming PC in standby so rebooting it isn't frequent enough for me to justify it. My HTPC just runs and never goes to standby. Right now for $130 a 480GB SSD is just not cheap enough to make it worth it for me. And if I can't load games onto the SSD then what's the point?

[Evildeffy]

Personally don't have a SSD cause having one would be annoying. I have a lot of data and install a lot of games so a 128GB is only good enough for Windows 10 + basic applications + WoW. With a 256GB I could just throw in a few more games like GW2 and Witcher 3. I would be comfortable having a ~500GB SSD cause that way I can actually use it. So for the moment I'm just waiting for ~500GB SSDs to get cheap enough.

Right now getting a 128GB SSD wouldn't make sense cause you wouldn't be able to put more than one or two games on it to benefit from it. I also just keep my gaming PC in standby so rebooting it isn't frequent enough for me to justify it. My HTPC just runs and never goes to standby. Right now for $130 a 480GB SSD is just not cheap enough to make it worth it for me. And if I can't load games onto the SSD then what's the point?

Come to the EU then... if you think 130 USD for a 480GB SSD is too much..

Also just to annoy that feeling of yours a bit about price.. I have an Intel SSD DC S3700 800GB.
Google that thing, I've had it for a year