$300 Gaming Build (May 2013)

[Henry]

Hello Techies,

Heres a $300 gaming build made by me for very light gaming: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/codaassasin/saved/1wxf

 

When it comes to budget gaming, AMD's APUs is well above Intel.

 

- Henry

 

Update :

 

- AMD A4-5300 to AMD A6-5400k

- Corsair CX430 430W to Seasonic SS-300ET 300W power supply

- Cooler Master HAF 912 to NZXT Source 210

[unidentical]

Rockin out dem emulators somethign fierce. 

 

That's what I use my little laptop for!

[Larrivee013]

Solid build for the price! I'd probably change the case for a Fractal Design Core 1000 and find lower priced 1600mhz memory. With the money saved would probs look into an A6 5400k. Just my thoughts... 

[Henry]

Solid build for the price! I'd probably change the case for a Fractal Design Core 1000 and find lower priced 1600mhz memory. With the money saved would probs look into an A6 5400k. Just my thoughts... 

 

For memory, that was pretty much the cheapest. I prefer only Corsair and Kingston for memory.

[M4XvPA1N]

Mushkin makes good memory. Times are really fast on their redline series.

[WhatARoaster]

For memory, that was pretty much the cheapest. I prefer only Corsair and Kingston for memory.

 

For a $300 build theres no need to splash out on fancy memory, get stuff that works, use the money saved to improve elsewhere.

[Henry]

For a $300 build theres no need to splash out on fancy memory, get stuff that works, use the money saved to improve elsewhere.

U shouldnt skimp on stuff like memory.

RMA is long and boring..

[WhatARoaster]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  AMD A8-5500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($93.70 @ SuperBiiz) 

Motherboard:  MSI FM2-A55M-E33 Micro ATX  FM2 Motherboard  ($48.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Memory:  Kingston Blu 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($29.70 @ Newegg) 

Storage:  Toshiba  500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.99 @ Newegg) 

Case:  Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($39.99 @ NCIX US) 

Power Supply:  SeaSonic 300W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply  ($39.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Total: $302.34

 

There, if you can spare the extra £2, you can have far greater performance with an A8.

If you can't spare the extra £2, ill save you $15.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  AMD A6-5400K 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.99 @ NCIX US) 

Motherboard:  MSI FM2-A55M-E33 Micro ATX  FM2 Motherboard  ($48.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Memory:  Kingston Blu 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($29.70 @ Newegg) 

Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.99 @ NCIX US) 

Case:  Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($39.99 @ NCIX US) 

Power Supply:  SeaSonic 300W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply  ($39.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Total: $283.63

[Henry]

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  AMD A8-5500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($93.70 @ SuperBiiz) 

Motherboard:  MSI FM2-A55M-E33 Micro ATX  FM2 Motherboard  ($48.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Memory:  Kingston Blu 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($29.70 @ Newegg) 

Storage:  Toshiba  500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.99 @ Newegg) 

Case:  Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($39.99 @ NCIX US) 

Power Supply:  SeaSonic 300W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply  ($39.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Total: $302.34

 

There, if you can spare the extra £2, you can have far greater performance with an A8.

If you can't spare the extra £2, ill save you $15.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  AMD A6-5400K 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.99 @ NCIX US) 

Motherboard:  MSI FM2-A55M-E33 Micro ATX  FM2 Motherboard  ($48.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Memory:  Kingston Blu 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($29.70 @ Newegg) 

Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.99 @ NCIX US) 

Case:  Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($39.99 @ NCIX US) 

Power Supply:  SeaSonic 300W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply  ($39.98 @ Outlet PC) 

Total: $283.63

 

I'll keep the memory and change the processor, power supply, and case. 

 

[Reuben]

Here's a faster setup I configured.

[Reuben]

U shouldnt skimp on stuff like memory.

Then why did you go with 4GB when 8GB is only ~$15 more?

[Henry]

Then why did you go with 4GB when 8GB is only ~$15 more?

I mean in terms of reliability.

 

And again, I need to stay within budget.

[Reuben]

I mean in terms of reliability.

 

And again, I need to stay within budget.

If you look at my list, it's all high quality parts and has 8GB RAM. http://pcpartpicker.com/user/reubenvm/saved/1B9L

[Henry]

If you look at my list, it's all high quality parts and has 8GB RAM. http://pcpartpicker.com/user/reubenvm/saved/1B9L

1. 500GB can be little for many.

2. I prefer Corsair and Kingston for reliability.

 

For some, my build may be better. For some, yours may be better. Depends on personal preference really.

[Reuben]

1. 500GB can be little for many.

2. I prefer Corsair and Kingston for reliability.

 

For some, my build may be better. For some, yours may be better. Depends on personal preference really.

500GB is enough storage for at least 70 games (at least games that run on an APU), and this is a gaming build. Don't tell me Kingston and Corsair are better than Mushkin, because Mushkin is one of the best RAM manufacturers on the market. In 90% of cases, my build would make more sense. If they really need that extra storage (which they almost definitely won't if they have this small of a budget), they can drop an extra $25 on getting a 1 TB drive. I also don't understand why you would go with the motherboard you have configured as opposed to the MSi board I chose. Could you please explain why you did this?

[Henry]

500GB is enough storage for at least 70 games (at least games that run on an APU), and this is a gaming build. Don't tell me Kingston and Corsair are better than Mushkin, because Mushkin is one of the best RAM manufacturers on the market. In 90% of cases, my build would make more sense. If they really need that extra storage (which they almost definitely won't if they have this small of a budget), they can drop an extra $25 on getting a 1 TB drive. I also don't understand why you would go with the motherboard you have configured as opposed to the MSi board I chose. Could you please explain why you did this?

Explain why I did what?

Corsair and Kingston are better/more reliable than Mushkin...ask Linus :P

BTW, I used up almost half of my 1TB HDD, but I guess everyone is different 

 

[Eric1024]

Great build for the money. Yeah everyone thinks they can improve on your build by making it 15$ cheeper for what they think is better, etc, etc.

 

I really like that you didn't skimp on the power supply or the hard drive. Squeezing a 1tb 7200rpm drive into a build like this opens all sorts of opportunities (games, media, lots of programs, etc).

[M4XvPA1N]

Why build a pc that low in price anyway. Not much room for upgrading.

[M4XvPA1N]

Explain why I did what?

Corsair and Kingston are better/more reliable than Mushkin...ask Linus :P

BTW, I used up almost half of my 1TB HDD, but I guess everyone is different 

 

Alright somebody bring in Linus to inspect our conversation lol

[SirReallySam]

Alright somebody bring in Linus to inspect our conversation lol

Agreed I would like his opinion on RAM, mine is that RAM is RAM and yeah.... I haven't had any RAM fail or be faulty with a whole bunch of different manufacturers...

[WitzTech]

For the lols, here is an Intel/discrete gpu build for just $295.  (inspired by this Tom's article a while back: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-gaming-do-it-yourself-computer,3364.html)

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Xu1a

 

If I may weigh in on the RAM argument, as long as it isn't a totally random company without a website in English, etc, they are all pretty much the same.  I've bought from ADATA (Microcenter brand), OCZ, Corsair, Mushkin, and Gskill, as well as reused HP branded RAM.  If anyone could tell me the two brands there that have failed on me (one of them DOA, the other took a year of abuse), I'd be mighty impressed.

 

And remember folks, you need fast RAM to take advantage of an APU's iGPU, so I'd spend a little more for 1866.

[PCBudgetSolutions]

U lose half your gpu power going 1x4gb over 2x2gb dual channel gives you double the bandwidth on your apu.

[Henry]

Updated to have better processor, lower wattage power supply, and a  cheaper chassis.

UPDATE NOTES IN ORIGINAL POST.

[Reuben]

Explain why I did what?

Corsair and Kingston are better/more reliable than Mushkin...ask Linus :P

BTW, I used up almost half of my 1TB HDD, but I guess everyone is different 

 

Explain why you had a $64 board from ASUS when you can get a similar one from MSi for $43.

 

Why does Linus use Mushkin Blackline in his test bench if he's afraid it'll blow up? He's had no problems with it.

 

If you did some quick math, you'd realize that less than half a terabyte of data would still fit on a 500GB drive.

[M4XvPA1N]

Agreed I would like his opinion on RAM, mine is that RAM is RAM and yeah.... I haven't had any RAM fail or be faulty with a whole bunch of different manufacturers...

Same here. Maybe it's just my lack of experience with hardware but I haven't had any parts from any of my build's fail me at all. Maybe I just get lucky :P