Planned Budget Gaming PC Questions

[Whoopsie988]

So I plan to build a budget oriented gaming PC and I was wondering about CPUs. Keep in mind that I live in Australia and our tech prices are insanely high compared to America's. Now, due to money I'm getting the PC without the GPU first and then getting the GPU later on when I have the money. The GPU I plan to get is the GTX 960 4GB from Gigabyte.

 

My main question is whether I should buy an Intel Celeron G1850 which has 2 cores, no hyperthreading and is clocked at 2.9GHz or get a second-hand i7 920 which is clocked at 2.6GHz but has 4 physical cores and hyperthreading and has more cache.

 

The lowest I have seen an i7 920 on Ebay is ~$22 (including postage) and I can get a LGA 1366 motherboard for $50-$70. The Celeron is $50-$60 and I can get an LGA 1150 for around about the same cost. The other components I can get for all less than $100 each besides the GPU.

 

Any feedback would be awesome.

[astranger200]

i7 all the way. im an aussie too, and im about to buy an i3 4170. the performance of the 920 would be massively better that the celeron. the celeron would bottleneck the crap out of that gpu. my opinion? get a 960 2gb and get a i3.

[Whoopsie988]

i7 all the way. im an aussie too, and im about to buy an i3 4170. the performance of the 920 would be massively better that the celeron. the celeron would bottleneck the crap out of that gpu. my opinion? get a 960 2gb and get a i3.

For the PC without the GPU, I have a budget of $400 and I doubt i could fit an i3 into that.

[TheMechEngineer]

For the PC without the GPU, I have a budget of $400 and I doubt i could fit an i3 into that.

 

I don't necessarily want to say it, but your budget might be a bit too limited if you plan on running a GTX 960.

My suggestion is to get a Pentium G3258. It might be more expensive than a used processor, but it has heaps of headroom for overclocking.

Pair that up with a motherboard that will allow overclocking (some of the low-end motherboards actually do sometimes allow it), and that way you won't have to swap out components later.

[Whoopsie988]

I don't necessarily want to say it, but your budget might be a bit too limited if you plan on running a GTX 960.

My suggestion is to get a Pentium G3258. It might be more expensive than a used processor, but it has heaps of headroom for overclocking.

Pair that up with a motherboard that will allow overclocking (some of the low-end motherboards actually do sometimes allow it), and that way you won't have to swap out components later.

$400 is the maximum, unfortunately. Would you recommend a GTX 950 or an AMD card since they seem to have enormous performance boosts with DX12? 

[astranger200]

For the PC without the GPU, I have a budget of $400 and I doubt i could fit an i3 into that.

$400? WHAT! I'm spending 700 and im getting a 960 2gb.

[Whoopsie988]

$400? WHAT! I'm spending 700 and im getting a 960 2gb.

Maybe I should get something cheaper

[TheMechEngineer]

$400 is the maximum, unfortunately. Would you recommend a GTX 950 or an AMD card since they seem to have enormous performance boosts with DX12? 

 

Yeah if $400 is the max it would be best to look for an alternative graphics card.

The GTX 670 punches above its weight in game performance and can actually out-perform the GTX 960, so you might want to check that one out.

[astranger200]

$400 is the maximum, unfortunately. Would you recommend a GTX 950 or an AMD card since they seem to have enormous performance boosts with DX12? 

how would you fit any of this in a 400 dollar budget. you would be looking ant like a gtx 750 if that with a pentium and 4gb ram.

[Whoopsie988]

how would you fit any of this in a 400 dollar budget. you would be looking ant like a gtx 750 if that with a pentium and 4gb ram.

The PC without the GPU will cost ~$400

[Whoopsie988]

CPU: Intel Celeron G1850 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($59.00 @ CPL Online) 

Motherboard: ASRock H81 Pro BTC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($58.00 @ CPL Online) 

Memory: G.Skill Value Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($63.00 @ IJK) 

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($69.00 @ Umart) 

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R7 370 2GB PCS+ Video Card  ($199.00 @ Mwave Australia) 

Case: Thermaltake Versa H24 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($59.00 @ CPL Online) 

Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($77.00 @ Umart) 

Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer  ($17.00 @ IJK) 

Total: $601.00

[TheMechEngineer]

 

CPU: Intel Celeron G1850 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($59.00 @ CPL Online) 

Motherboard: ASRock H81 Pro BTC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($58.00 @ CPL Online) 

Memory: G.Skill Value Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($63.00 @ IJK) 

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($69.00 @ Umart) 

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R7 370 2GB PCS+ Video Card  ($199.00 @ Mwave Australia) 

Case: Thermaltake Versa H24 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($59.00 @ CPL Online) 

Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($77.00 @ Umart) 

Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer  ($17.00 @ IJK) 

Total: $601.00

 

 

If you want to only spend $600 on a computer and don't want to overclock, then it might do the job.

The thing is though, whilst it might be a good computer right now, you'll need to swap out components or buy a whole new computer if you want better performance later.

Just sayin' is all, it might seem like a waste to spend more but the performance yield is significant.

 

A G3258 costs $40 more, but can be overclocked for massive gains.

A Z-Series chipset motherboard costs more, but has far more features such as overclocking, support for SLI/Crossfire, more USB and RAID interfaces etc etc.

8GB of RAM with XMP performance profile costs barely $20 more.

The extra money required adds up to about $130-$150, but you get so much more value and future-proofing for your system.

 

The cheap stuff is just that: Cheap.

Spend a little more and you get something that is much more desirable: Value for money.