Save or Buy Budget?

[manual mode]

I currently have around $450 to spend. I'm sure I could earn more if I needed to. I have a 1440x900 resolution (900p) monitor, and I spend most of my time playing League of Legends. Not because it's the only entertaining game, but it's the only game I can really run with solid performance. I also have a Steam account with nine different games. I can run a few perfectly fine with the laptop I'm stuck with now.

 

The games included in my Steam library are:

 

Amnesia: The Dark Descent (can run it at 30fps, but it's more of a cinematic game)

Borderlands (doesn't reach 60FPS, even on low)

Borderlands 2 (hardly playable)

Castle Crashers (runs perfectly fine)

Counter Strike: Global Offensive (it runs okay with settings turned down)

Hero Siege (it runs fine I think, but I haven't played it much)

One Finger Death Punch (runs perfectly fine)

Planetary Annihilation (haven't actually played it yet haha)

Sid Meier's Civilization 5 (runs fine with settings turned down)

 

I also mess around on Minecraft and occasionally ROBLOX as well. I'm planning on buying Dark Souls 3 when it's released, and the system requirements for that title are:

 

Intel Core i5 2500 3.1 GHz / AMD® A8 3870 3.6 Ghz 

NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 465 / ATI Radeon TM HD 6870 

 

Those requirements kind of answer my question of "can I get away with buying an i3", but I don't know if I SHOULD get an i3. Will the i3 6100 last me for at least two years of gaming, or should I raise a bit more money to get an i5? I don't know what games I might decide to play, but I do know that I might decide to record some of the less graphic intensive games. In the end, there are two possibilities for this PC build:

 

1) Get an i3 6100, buy a GTX 970 or R9 390 sometime in the future, and upgrade to an i7 (Kaby Lake or Cannonlake) later

 

2) Get an i5 6400 or i5 6500, buy a GTX 970 or R9 390 sometime in the future

[Wiflare]

I'm currently running a 3-generation-old i5 (3570k) on a 4-generation-old (z68) motherboard.

If you save up for an i5, it'll last.

 

What's your budget? and do you live near a micro center?

[manual mode]

Just now, Wiflare said:

I'm currently running a 3-generation-old i5 (3570k) on a 4-generation-old (z68) motherboard.

If you save up for an i5, it'll last.

 

What's your budget? and do you live near a micro center?

I don't live near a Micro Center, sadly.

 

I currently have $450 to spend, and I can probably put in another $200 or so, not including the GPU. The cheaper the PC the sooner I can buy it. Honestly, I'd be happy with an i3 because it still destroys the i5-5200u my laptop is using and it can handle my entire Steam library.

[Wiflare]

1 minute ago, manual mode said:

I don't live near a Micro Center, sadly.

 

I currently have $450 to spend, and I can probably put in another $200 or so, not including the GPU. The cheaper the PC the sooner I can buy it. Honestly, I'd be happy with an i3 because it still destroys the i5-5200u my laptop is using and it can handle my entire Steam library.

What's your zip code? you might live near a fry's electronics.

you can put your zip code into pcpartpicker and it shows special in-store deals you can get.

[manual mode]

Just now, Wiflare said:

What's your zip code? you might live near a fry's electronics.

you can put your zip code into pcpartpicker and it shows special in-store deals you can get.

I do live near a Fry's Electronics. I don't generally see great prices there.

[glitchmaster0001]

the r9 380 is a better futureproof card than the 970. and most games need at least a quad core to run so an i5 6600k would be a great deal along with a budget z170a muddahboard like the MSI Z170 PC MATE

[glitchmaster0001]

1 minute ago, manual mode said:

I do live near a Fry's Electronics. I don't generally see great prices there.

they give out promocodes if you sign up for thier email thing 

[manual mode]

1 minute ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

the r9 380 is a better futureproof card than the 970. and most games need at least a quad core to run so an i5 6600k would be a great deal along with a budget z170a muddahboard like the MSI Z170 PC MATE

I'm not interested in overclocking whatsoever. Also, I mentioned the R9 390, not the R9 380.

[glitchmaster0001]

Just now, manual mode said:

I'm not interested in overclocking whatsoever. Also, I mentioned the R9 390, not the R9 380.

still the r9 390 will anihalate the 970 and it has a FULL 8GB of VRAM while the 970 has only 3.5GB useable (not counting the 512mb of slow ass VRAM) 

[manual mode]

Just now, glitchmaster0001 said:

still the r9 390 will anihalate the 970 and it has a FULL 8GB of VRAM while the 970 has only 3.5GB useable (not counting the 512mb of slow ass VRAM) 

The only reason I would get the GTX 970 would be for Shadowplay, but I think OBS should be perfectly fine. Also, newer version of the GTX 970 have corrected the VRAM issue (non-reference cards.)

[shadowbyte]

1 minute ago, manual mode said:

The only reason I would get the GTX 970 would be for Shadowplay, but I think OBS should be perfectly fine. Also, newer version of the GTX 970 have corrected the VRAM issue (non-reference cards.)

the issue still exists, AFAIK

[manual mode]

8 minutes ago, shadowbyte said:

the issue still exists, AFAIK

Huh. Thought I heard one of them fixed it.

 

Oh well. Not getting the card anyways.

[Wiflare]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.89 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD2 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($59.88 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Team Dark 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($27.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($45.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card  ($299.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ NCIX US) 
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($43.56 @ Mac Mall) 
Monitor: Acer UM.WV6AA.B01 60Hz 21.5" Monitor  ($92.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $775.18
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 00:35 EDT-0400

 

this is the total price of a system with an i5 and an r9 390 (gtx 970 is more expensive by a few dollars)

the 390's performance slots in comfortably between a gtx 970 and 980.

[shadowbyte]

@Wiflare

He doesn't need a monitor.

Also, the budget was 650 max

[Wiflare]

Just now, shadowbyte said:

@Wiflare

He doesn't need a monitor.

Also, the budget was 650 max

He didn't say specifically what he needed, so I included everything.

just for the things he did want, would be this:

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.89 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD2 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($59.88 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card  ($299.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $534.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 00:43 EDT-0400

 

[manual mode]

4 minutes ago, Wiflare said:

He didn't say specifically what he needed, so I included everything.

just for the things he did want, would be this:

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD2 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($59.88 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card  ($299.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $534.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 00:43 EDT-0400

 

I think that if I wanted to get an i5 I would probably go for a Skylake because of the increase in IPC (instructions per clock). Probably an i5-6500. It's slightly more expensive, but more than certainly worth the price difference.

 

Also, the DDR4 helps in CPU oriented tasks (non-gaming ones, mostly.)

[Wiflare]

5 minutes ago, manual mode said:

I think that if I wanted to get an i5 I would probably go for a Skylake because of the increase in IPC (instructions per clock). Probably an i5-6500. It's slightly more expensive, but more than certainly worth the price difference.

 

Also, the DDR4 helps in CPU oriented tasks (non-gaming ones, mostly.)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($196.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($51.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card  ($299.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $548.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 00:59 EDT-0400

 

I guess it's about time that I switch over my pcpp bookmarks from haswell to skylake, the motherboards are finally coming down in price.

it used to be the cheapest one I could find online was $85. it was crazy.

 

You'll see about a 10% performance increase in games, best case scenario.