Daughters 1st attempt building a low budget gaming PC..review & comment please

[emcwiz]

My daughter has researched what she thinks will make a good low budget (<$700) gaming PC. Her interests are Steam gaming, and League of Legends (a lot of this). Please I have looked over the list, but I am not an expert on what is compatible with what. I am looking for a sanity check from some of you folks. Thanks

Processor: AMD FX-6350 Six-Core ($140)
Video Card: GeForce GTX 560 Ti ($140)
RAM: Pareema 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ($75)
Motherboard: ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 AM3+ AMD 760G ($75)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM ($70)
Power Supply: APEVIA ATX-AS520W-BK 520W ATX ($40)
Case: RAIDMAX Blade ATX-298WW Black/White Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ($50)
CD Drive: ($20)
Wifi card: ($10)
Keyboard: ($20)

[uddarts]

hey

if your located in the states, newegg is a good place to look. sign up for their promotions and you can get some nice savings. here are a couple of links from last week. some of which may still be valid.

http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail...x-_-E0-_-Item&

http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail...-E0-_-PromWord
i see 3 items that can be tweaked and still keep within the budget.

1. more ram for less dollars.

2. there are much better psus for around the same price.

3. there are newer video cards out in the same price range that would be much better. i hope some of the gamers will give a look see here. they would be able to give a better idea of what the best bang for the buck are.

ud

[emcwiz]

Thank you very much uddarts, the deals do look great!
I appreciate the recommendations also.

[kbohip]

Also check out a site called Slickdeals.net. There is usually a great deal on a video card or decent (Corsair, Seasonic) power supply. Recently for example there was a Corsair 600 watt for $38 on Newegg. On the video card front there's a Radeon 7950 for $180. Keep in mind the newest Radeon line is supposedly coming out next month so you might want to wait a bit and save some money on the 7950.

[emcwiz]

kbohip, thank you, what great deals, I am feeding all the recommendations to my daughter, she told me they are very much appreciated.

[hosko]

That ram is expensive for 2gb you can get 8gb (2x4gb) for cheaper Crucial Ballistix 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600. 2gb of Ram on a modern system would be a major bottleneck especially when gaming.

The video card is a bit long in the tooth, If you can afford to jump a little higher the Gigabyte R9-270X at around $200 would be a much better solution. I know its $60 more but its a 2.5 year new component. This compares the 2 specs. I'd personally drop the CD drive and spend the cash on a better GFX card, even dropping to the AMD FX-6300 would save another $20 and NewEgg has the motherboard for $10 cheaper so you should be able to fit the R9 270x into the budget.

[PandaZ3]

Let me Chime in. The CPU is a good Choice, but you can get a 4350 for $20 less and it is fast! Faster than a 8350 or 6350! I have one 4350 and three 8350's had I known about the 4350 first they would all be 4350's

[emcwiz]

Thank you everyone for the great advice, it is very much appreciated, she is collecting the $$$ now

[emcwiz]

Thank you all, we (my daughter and I) purchased and assembled her 1st homemade gaming PC, thanks you all. Here is what we got. Black Friday deals at Micro Center in Madison Heights MI, USA. Salesman Alex Krstevski was EXCELLENT!!!

Thermal TA V3 BLACK GAMING CHASSIS ($21 AFTER $10 REBATE)
AMD FX-8320 BLACK EDITION 8-CORE MICROPROCESSOR ($99 PART OF PKG DISCOUNT)
CRUCIAL 8GB 4x2 D3 1600 DIMM RAM ($49 AFTER $10 PKG DISCOUNT)
GIGABYTE GA-970-AUD3 ATX AM3+ MOTHERBOARD ($79 AFTER $40 PKG DISCOUNT)
Micro - Motherboard - RAM package discount
CORSAIR CS 600W BRNZ ATS POWER SUPPLY ($54 AFTER $20 REBATE)
IPSG LG 24X DVDRW SATA DRIVE ($15)
WESTERN DIGITAL 1TB 3.5" SATA 6.0 HD ($59)
GIGBYTE GTX650 TI 2GB OC DDVH GRAPHICS CARD ($159)
DELL 24" LED E2414HR MONITOR ($99)
6ft HDMI TO DBI MONITOR CABLE ($19)
KENSINGTON KEYBOARD ($15)
IPSG Z130 SPEAKERS ($8)

$730 with tax and after rebates @ Micro Center

Thanks again, now we will see how she runs today.

[emcwiz]

The first post didn't go thought, here it is again.

Thank you all for your help, we shopped at Micro Center Black Friday. Here is what we got.

Thermal TA V3 BLACK GAMING CHASSIS ($21 AFTER $10 REBATE)
AMD FX-8320 BLACK EDITION 8-CORE MICROPROCESSOR ($99 PART OF PKG DISCOUNT)
CRUCIAL 8GB 4x2 D3 1600 DIMM RAM ($49 AFTER $10 PKG DISCOUNT)
GIGABYTE GA-970-AUD3 ATX AM3+ MOTHERBOARD ($79 AFTER $40 PKG DISCOUNT)
Micro - Motherboard - RAM package discount
CORSAIR CS 600W BRNZ ATS POWER SUPPLY ($54 AFTER $20 REBATE)
IPSG LG 24X DVDRW SATA DRIVE ($15)
WESTERN DIGITAL 1TB 3.5" SATA 6.0 HD ($59)
GIGBYTE GTX650 TI 2GB OC DDVH GRAPHICS CARD ($159)
DELL 24" LED E2414HR MONITOR ($99)
6ft HDMI TO DBI MONITOR CABLE ($19)
KENSINGTON KEYBOARD ($15)
IPSG Z130 SPEAKERS ($8)
$730 with tax and after rebates @ Micro Center

Thank you again for your help.

[holytoledo]

There is a much cheaper and overclockable CPU called the G3258. The linus tech tips dudes overclocked it and easily got it to reach 4790k performance in terms of frames per second.

So it's half (2 vs 4 cores) a 339 dollar processor for 65 or so dollars. Great for gaming.

That is definitely the best bang for dollar processor, IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evXpqpNhu_Y

Jump to the 4 minute mark and watch from there if you just want to see the benchmarks. They start around that time.

[YTech]

emcwiz > Others have some good points and covers you on other aspects.
I would increase the RAM and increase the GPU.

The motherboard uses Dual-Channel, so buy the RAM in pairs. Also for gaming, 4GB should be the minimum, but I recommend 8GB.

I recommend the 700 series (I like the GTX 760), but a 600 series may be fine too. You'll end up wanting to change the 500 series the next year.

Cheers!

[mcpw]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3fTC99

If you don't need windows or the optical drive, then just remove + upgrade GPU