$700 US Gaming Build

tlmills82 · March 19, 2015

A friend of mine has had some hardware failures in his very old pc and is looking to build a new one. His budget is $700 US. I put this together tonight and am wondering if there's are better options available for the price range he's looking at. His only request was he wanted an i5.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($173.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($42.98 @ Newegg)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($62.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.49 @ Directron)

Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($279.99 @ NCIX US)

Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($37.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ NCIX US)

Total: $696.42

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-18 23:43 EDT-0400

Lolzious · March 19, 2015

Look good. I take he's gaming?

Lotus · March 19, 2015

Nope, that's about exactly as I'd build it. It's a pretty kick-ass rig. The PowerColor PCS+ R9 290 is the same price, has a kickass cooler, and has like a $30 rebate going on right now so it'll be $30 cheaper after that. Other than that, looks great.

tlmills82 · March 19, 2015

Nope, that's about exactly as I'd build it. It's a pretty kick-ass rig. The PowerColor PCS+ R9 290 is the same price, has a kickass cooler, and has like a $30 rebate going on right now so it'll be $30 cheaper after that. Other than that, looks great.

I've honestly never used PowerColor, are they reliable?

Lotus · March 19, 2015

I've honestly never used PowerColor, are they reliable?

I had a PowerColor 5770 in my rig until a few months ago. Replaced due to a desire for better performance. It never failed. Anecdotal evidence aside, yes, they are a reliable brand. I did hear about some original firmware issues a while ago like with the original Samsung 840 Evo, but those were fixed.