Budget PC Gaming Builds

A question about : Budget PC Gaming Builds

I'm looking to build a new PC, it's been a while since I built my own so I'm wondering if anyone can tell me that all of these will work?

AMD Machine

Processor - Ј59 - AMD (Piledriver) FX-4300 3.80GHz (4.00GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 4-Core Processor
Motherboard - Ј48 - Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P AMD 970 ATX Motherboard
Hard Drive - Ј32 500GB Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 3.5 SATA III
RAM - Ј59 - TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Graphics Card - Ј138 - Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Dual-X Boost OC AMD Graphics Card 2GB Graphics Card
Power Supply - Ј33 - EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply
Case - Ј29.75 - BitFenix Neos ATX Tower Black/Black

Intel Machine

Processor - Ј141 - Intel Core i5-4460 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Hard Drive - Ј32 500GB Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 3.5 SATA III
Motherboard - Ј48 -GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H Intel B75 (Socket 1155) Micro-ATX Motherboard
Graphics Card - Asus GeForce GTX 760 DirectCUII OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
RAM - Ј62 - G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Power Supply - Ј56.39 - 600W Corsair Builder Series CX600M 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply
Case - Ј29.75 - BitFenix Neos ATX Tower Black/Black

As long as I'm going over 50FPS with the top games with these machines I'm happy.

Best answers:

• The Intel processor is a lot more powerful than the AMD one in those builts. The rest is very similar spec wise.
  You may get over 50fps on the latest games with those rigs with some of the settings on low/medium but unlikely to on high for some of the bigger games.
• The Intel build is better.
  You should be able to get an R9 280x for around the same price as a GTX760 which would provide you with some performance boost.
• Slight problem with the Intel build.
  How do you plan on squeezing an LGA1150 CPU into a LGA1155 socket?
• Try and stay with the Haswell intel CPU if you can. They're the 4th gen "i" series processors.
  I'm running an older i5 2500k (2nd gen) Sandybridge. It's just over 3 years old and at 3.3Ghz and a 780GTX it runs everything up full, vsync on etc and gets pretty much solid 60fps.
  Most games just now depend more on the graphics card than processor so as long as you get a 2nd gen or later i5, you will only really be limited by your graphics card so buy the best you can afford.
• I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but you might be better sticking to a 1150 cpu and motherboard as they're more mainstream
• May also be worthwhile looking at the anniversary Celeron processor, available for around Ј50-60, at stock speeds it's bog standard, but apparently it overclocks like a beast. Custom PC magazine did a feature using said processor 4-5 months back building a rig under Ј500 I'm sure you can probably find the article.
• If a processor becomes famous for overclocking then they often update it so that doesn't work. I don't like celerons or overclocking. I always build PCs now with an SSD for the operating system. When it is working perfectly and normally very fast then I put in the large mechanical hard drive for photos, music, etc.
• I like 80 plus PSUs and Asus or Gigabyte motherboards. Have you checked the chipsets out to make sure they're the ones you want?
• Sorry, turns out it's not a celeron, but it overclocks to crazy levels & is dirt cheap (https://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...dmi-32x-ratio-) That'll run a reasonable graphics card but may struggle with certain games, particularly the more complex efforts, but ultimately it's all about your own thoughts. If I was building a machine to play FM & Minecraft I'd put one in without any thought & overclock it, but it's all relative to what you're going to be playing! Personally my next build will be an i5 effort, no need to boost for the i7 just yet for what I'd be playing & the money saved there is better spent on extra grunt in the graphics card & an SSD.
• The Pentium Anniversary Edition isn't really a good gaming/power choice unless your budget is severely restricted. Two real cores and no HT just doesn't cut it in most applications from 2013 onwards. I can see the argument for it on a Ј250-299 budget if it's really set in stone (it can have great per-core performance which sometimes makes it okay), but as your budget is over Ј500 the Pentium AE shouldn't be anywhere near your shortlist. I'd recommend the i5 - either pick up an H97 + i5 or spend a little extra for a Z97 + i5-K (overclockable - needs a "Z" motherboard & "K" CPU).
  However, I'd recommend *nothing* this week. In three weeks (well, January 21st, most likely) Intel's Broadwell series will replace Haswell, so you'll either pick up a slightly cooler CPU or get a better price on clearance stock. Broadwell isn't revolutionary - just a bit more performance per watt - but you'll either get a cheaper Haswell or a more efficient same-price-as-Haswell-today Broadwell, so either way you win. Both today's Haswell and next month's Broadwell fit on socket 1150 motherboards, so any 1150 research you've done won't go to waste.
  With motherboards, you don't really "need" anything higher than the most basic spec with the correct chipset. All the H97s and Z97s have 6+ SATA ports and onboard sound and USB3. However, for completely new builds - especially in a house without boxes of PC parts lying around - it can be worth getting a better motherboard that includes all sorts of useful extras in the box. As a basic comparison, ASRock (possibly the best price/performance, short-term bargains aside) have a basic "Pro4" for Ј85, or a superior "Extreme4" for Ј107 (prices at Amazon.co.uk, using UKPCPartPicker).
  We should also see Nvidia's 960 release next month. The 760 was a decent buy briefly until the 770's price cut in November 2013, and since then has never had the price cut it's needed to be a bargain buy. The 960 should womp it in performance and use far less power. It's rare that I judge items before they've even released, but the 760 sticks out like a sore thumb with its unimpressive price for the performance/power, and the 970 has been a brilliant card, so the 960 should be much better than the 760 - in theory. Obviously wait for some reviews before buying.
  You do not need a 600W Corsair power supply unless you're running two high-end graphics cards and a few HDDs! Aim for a decent brand 500W, but 450W should be more than enough unless it's a terrible-brand (or unbranded) PSU. (I quite like the German beQuiet! PSUs - very price/performance competitive, and near-silent.)
  So I'd suggest:
  Wait for 23 days.
  Get the cheapest 1150 i5-K (either Haswell if it's significantly cheaper, or Broadwell) + a nice Z97 motherboard (Ј85 for a basic Z97, Ј107 for a nice one)
  Ј60 8GB RAM (that ludicrously-named G.Skill RipJawMunchFasten set is fine for Ј62)
  Ј48 500W PSU (Here you can get a 500W Corsair Builder series 80 PLUS Bronze or a 500W beQuiet! 80 PLUS Bronze for under Ј48.)
  At least a 64GB SSD for Windows for Ј30.
  At least a 1TB HDD for Ј40.
  Case is very much a personal choice, but I recommend picking one up with four front USB ports, at least two of which are USB3.
  Graphics card - wait for 960.
  If you're desperate to buy today, the i5-4670K is Ј152 from Amazon at the moment, which is a bit of a bargain. It would bring the parts I've listed above to Ј447 + graphics card (expect the 960 to land at ~Ј160). Of course, you can buy everything except the graphics card today, and use the CPU's onboard graphics for a few weeks (the H97 and Z97 motherboards both support the CPU's GPU feature).
  You can also consider a 96/120/128GB SSD if your budget allows for it, and stick a few slow-loading games on there - I spy a 120GB Kingston SSD for Ј39.45 at Amazon at the moment.
  If you're looking at buying any parts from Scan, note that you can get free shipping from them - you just need some non-spam posts on certain forums (Hexus or AVForums, if memory serves).
  Thank you for helping me procrastinate in the office today.
• Thanks for the help everyone, especially you PenguinJim.
  You mentioned an SSD to load off windows, does that increase performance? Or just load the machine quicker?
• Another fan of the SSD here. I have a WIN7 Ultimate boot which loads from power on to usable in just under 14 seconds on a 128Gb Sandisk.
  I also have one game and one app (Photoshop) that I use all the time installed on it. Eveything else is installed on and runs from a normal SATA HDD.
  As Tropez says, you get a much smoother Windows experience running from the SSD. I have toyed with the idea of getting an SSHD as a replacement for the SATA drive, but I don't see that the minimal performance boost would be worth it for me.
  If you DO decide to go the AMD route, that mobo has a 100W rail for the processor, so you could fit an FX 6300 in place of the 4300. I have the black edition in mine (same mobo) and it runs at 4.1Ghz out of the box at 95W. Slightly dearer CPU, but worth the performance boost imho. Board fitted with a GTX 650 GPU runs World of Tanks on full settings at ~40fps, and Alien Isolation at the same rates.
• for clock speed vs cores, it really depends on what games you are running.
  older games tended to be single threaded, so could only really make use of 1 core. So having less but faster cores was better overall.
  however, more and more games are now becoming multithreaded, so they do make use of the additional cores, so more cores will be better.
  for a gaming pc, i would go for an i5 rather than an i3
  a 760 is a decent gpu, and should play most games well.
  the fps is dependant on alot of things, like the resolution you are playing at, the graphics settings you are using, and the game itself.
  if you are only playing at 1080, then most decent gpu's should handle this fine.
  There are a few graphics settings that might cause some problems, but they are generally designed for very high powered, expensive pcs