New Gaming build under $800

M

mastermike707

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 25, 2008
Messages
93
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$800 hard budget
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Mesa, Arizona
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU,
RAM,
Motherboard,
Storage,
Video Card,
Power Supply,
Case,
Mouse,
Monitor

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I have the OS already.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Probably not unless you can cram a K series CPU into this budget.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Need one as part of the build, was planning on 1080p monitor.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
USB3 is nice.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I already have a legit OS key.

Here is how far I got:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mastermike707/saved/4qCt

I would specifically like comments on how to bring the price down so I can include the mouse, I'm already over-budget by around $50. As far as mice, I want something comparable to an old Logitech MX500, if possible. I can actually just use an old Dell keyboard I have lying around. Should I be getting an i3? I wasn't sure about the 240GB SSD, but in all the computers I have they seem to make a big quality of life difference. I think maybe getting a 1TB drive with it might be a good idea, but again budget.

Thanks for your input!
 
Ditch that RAM as it's rated at 1.65V, well above the Intel recommended 1.5V for RAM. Go with this RAM instead:
$65 - Kingston HyperX Blu KHX1600C10D3B1/8G 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM

Go with this better quality and $5 cheaper (I ignore MIR) Seasonic PSU instead:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0092ML0MY//?tag=extension-kb-20

What games are you planning to play?

With this strict of a budget and the amount of parts that needs to be bought, no way are you getting a mouse similar to the MX500. Go for the cheapest Microsoft mouse you can find and that's it.

Gonna be honest: your list (with the exception of RAM and PSU) is probably the best bang for the buck option possible. More than likely any downgrade would save you money but the loss in performance/quality would not scale to the price savings you're going to get.
 
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The Ram is a single stick, is that going to result in a performance decrease for dual channel?

I realize that in this case, downgrades aren't desirable, but if you had to cut something down, what would it be?
I'm thinking of cutting the SSD for a 1TB hard drive?
 
mastermike707 said:
The Ram is a single stick, is that going to result in a performance decrease for dual channel?
Click to expand...
A slight decrease that you won't notice outside of synthetic benchmarks.
mastermike707 said:
I realize that in this case, downgrades aren't desirable, but if you had to cut something down, what would it be?
I'm thinking of cutting the SSD for a 1TB hard drive?
Click to expand...
That's why I'm asking what games you play.
 
Games will probably be Path of Exile, World of Warcraft, Dota 2, Titanfall, Hearthstone, Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite both of them, Civilization 5, Civilization Beyond Earth, Assasin's Creed 4.
 
mastermike707 said:
I updated the list with some cheaper parts to get it under $800. No more SSD.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mastermike707/saved/4qCt
Probably gonna purchase this later today if it all looks OK.
Click to expand...

Ditch the PSU: It's pretty crappy and unsuitable for the type of video card you're getting. Go for this PSU instead:
$70 - XFX TS Series XFX TS 550W PSU

Also, ditch the A-Data RAM: A-Data isn't exactly a trustworthy name in RAM yet.
 
meh, Adata is fine. They've been one of the largest players in the DRAM business for over a decade. The major segment they do lag in is SSDs, but that's a different animal.

If there was anything to cut, I'd swap the i5 down to an i3 since most of those games aren't very demanding and will not choke much with a downgrade.
 
rastaban said:
meh, Adata is fine. They've been one of the largest players in the DRAM business for over a decade. The major segment they do lag in is SSDs, but that's a different animal.
Click to expand...
That's probably the main gripe I have with A-Data: Their SSDs are pretty shitty. We had droves of them die out at work. At first we thought the TT Smartpower PSUs our sales team (not the technical engineering guys but the sales team :mad:) bought were killing them. But once we tested on Corsair PSUs, POOF! The same Insta-death we saw on the TT PSUs.

Though I do remember being against A-Data RAM in the past because the majority of their RAM were rated at 1.65V.
rastaban said:
If there was anything to cut, I'd swap the i5 down to an i3 since most of those games aren't very demanding and will not choke much with a downgrade.
Click to expand...
Actually, I would cut down the GPU: It's a lot easier to upgrade the video card than the CPU.
 
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