Help with a PC build for my son
#1
Wed, 06/06/2012 - 16:14
Help with a PC build for my son
My oldest son wants a new pc for his room and we're looking at building him one. Anyone have any good budget gaming builds? An i3/i5 or AMD CPU is fine. Also, I need a cheap but decent Video card. I'd like to be under 500. I can handle OS, Monitor, keyboard and mouse. I just need a basic tower with a semi decent vid card. Thanks.
Now that NVIDIA are pushing the 690 cards, the GeForce 500 range has become cheaper.
I'd imagine under 500 bucks will still get you something pretty sexy - because running games on ultra setting is essentially for nerds.
This seems like a good deal. I've got a 580 in my PC and can run any modern game on ultra if I'm feeling nerdy
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Superclocked-Mini-HDMI-Lifetime-015-P3-1582-A...
They suck a bit of power,and I upgraded my ram to 16GB, but memory is so cheap these days, go overboard !!
I really don't know much about PC builds, but maybe economise on the graphics card and spend more on the chipset ( i7 ? ).
Seems to me graphics cards, like Call of Duty are an endless upgrade option, but a decent processor will future proof the computer a bit longer ?
Various sites post system builds based on various budget levels. [url=http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-pc-do-it-yourself-geforce-gtx...'s one from Tom's Hardware[/url] with a list of parts for a $500 budget that was just updated.
$500 for the whole build ?
My bad
LMAO, yeah. Trying to do a budget one. I looked at the one from the tom's hardware link. I'm no sure about that. I think I'd rather get a different CPU and downgrade the GPU. The 560ti seems to be over kill for that system.
Here you go dude:
Tomshardware.com $500 gaming pc build:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-pc-do-it-yourself-geforce-gtx...
see link for full details.
I would personally UPgrade the CPU and Downgrade the Videocard - go with a i5 and something less than a GTX 560TI
I saw that and I also was thinking the same thing. That's a lot of Video card and such a puny CPU. Plus, I'd shop around on the video card, I got my 560 TI about 6 months ago for the same price. Killer card.
What about AMD CPUs? I'm really only familiar with the Intel brand.
I was a long-time AMD CPU fan as these are the budget CPU leaders.
I gotta tell you they run HOT though so you need a good cooler and a orderly ventilated case, not full of spaghetti cables.
You can go with an AMD fx-4100 cpu and vidcard combo instead of intel.
however Sandy Bridge and now Ivy Bridge intel CPUs pretty much smoke AMD now.
my last CPU was an i3 dual core for a budget build but the i5-quad core is really the best CPU for the buck now.
my opinion but an i3 dual core is fine for gaming coupled with a decent video card as the GPU will be doing most of the heavy graphics lifting, not the cpu.
I also recommend at least 4 gig of ram.
later down the road, add an SSD drive to really speed up disk performance.