Upgrade from console

Max Money AWA · May 1, 2013

I have a build idea for a gaming PC. I'd like to clean up my desk by getting rid of my old Dell and XBox 360 and get one machine for gaming and surfing the web. Here is my build, but I'd like to see what the groupthink can come up with.

Now on to the cut & paste part:

1. Budget & Location

$600 USD or less, with $625 the absolute limit.

2. Aim
I really want it as close to the size of my XBox as literally possible. I also want to be able to play Blu-ray as that seems to be where things are going. Otherwise, it will be for gaming and web surfing. I need it to play Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 as those are the big ones all my friends play.

3. Monitors

One--an Emerson 22" LCD, 720p, 60MHz TV.

4. Peripherals

Nothing new to get right now. I just play for fun, though I might get a game controller receiver for my wireless 360 controller as that's what I'm familiar with.

I'll be going with LINUX for an OS now that Steam has made the switch.

5. Why are you upgrading?

With the brick and mortar stores in danger of going extinct and new sites like Steam popping up, it makes sense to get a gaming PC.

And as I mentioned above, I want to make space on my desk. I want to eliminate my old Dell and only have one box the size of my 360 on my desk.

So ... what do you have for me?

Crabtr · May 1, 2013

I'll make this in points as well :P:

1) Welcome to the PC dark-side B)

2) For $10 I'd suggest upgrading to the A75 version of that motherboard as it'll give you 6Gb/s SATA ports instead of 3Gb/s (that HDD is 6Gb/s) as well as USB 3.0 support.

3) I have the 1155 socket version of this motherboard in my 2nd PC/server which is running Ubuntu server 12.10 (with upgraded kernel) so it will work great, however Xfast doesn't like to play nicely with Linux and thus the ethernet ports won't work (unless I got a borked mobo); I bought a dual-gigabit card which works better.

4) Are you sure you really want this to be super small? A microATX case isn't much bigger but it'll really open up a lot in terms of performance but while still being inexpensive and also giving you room to upgrade/improve, I'd really suggest it. I assume you've based this off of TekSyndicate's $400 build so I made a mix between your build and his which, including the changes I suggested and a slightly better gpu, is the same price. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/UmL9

Vassili62 · May 1, 2013

You can go for a APU build at around that price margin.

OneGun · May 1, 2013

Drop down your memory to 1600mhz as you will not see a difference with the rest of your system.Why WIFI adapter?You really wanna be hardwired for gaming as WIFI cuts out and such in the heat of battle plus there is a lag with it..