Gaming Pc For $500 Budget?

[don_svetlio]

25 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Must we say this over and over again- don't buy AMD's CPUs or APUs until their new Zen processors launch later this year- the architecture is hopelessly outdated and things will get a lot better with AM4.

Well - A10 7870K (Athlon 860K) are kings of the low-end atm.

[Prysin]

3 hours ago, AlanAlan said:

Is it possible to get a good gaming for a budget of $500? I am not planning onto to play the heaviest titles. I am also going to use it for movies and videos. 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  ($98.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock 970M PRO3 Micro ATX AM3+/AM3 Motherboard  ($56.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory  ($37.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($45.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card  ($192.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($44.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $514.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-20 13:12 EDT-0400

 

This is your best hope

[Prysin]

7 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Well - A10 7870K (Athlon 860K) are kings of the low-end atm.

nope, 845 man. Dat IPC increase.

 

Anandtech is in the middle of doing a reivew on the 845. I bet it will be out this coming week ;D

[Aereldor]

7 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Well - A10 7870K (Athlon 860K) are kings of the low-end atm.

The CPU, sure, but the integrated graphics cores don't stack up so well. I use The Witcher 3 as a benchmark, and the 7870k's iGPU can barely hold 30FPS at the lowest settings at 768p. Also, seeing as FM2+ is a dead end with the 860k, I'd even pick the Pentium G3258/G4400 for the upgrade path.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

The CPU, sure, but the integrated graphics cores don't stack up so well. I use The Witcher 3 as a benchmark, and the 7870k's iGPU can barely hold 30FPS at the lowest settings at 768p. Also, seeing as FM2+ is a dead end with the 860k, I'd even pick the Pentium G3258/G4400 for the upgrade path.

Thing is - Pentiums stutter horribly due to the 2 threads vs the 4 on the Athlon - that makes a big difference as the Athlon has twice as good minimums. As for iGPU - it's quite potent actually - it can easily do low 768p 40fps - not sure where you got those numbers from. All it needs is a 212 EVO and some basic fiddling with settings in the Bios to set core speed to 1GHz as well as 1866 Dual-channel RAM

[Aereldor]

4 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Thing is - Pentiums stutter horribly due to the 2 threads vs the 4 on the Athlon - that makes a big difference as the Athlon has twice as good minimums. As for iGPU - it's quite potent actually - it can easily do low 768p 40fps - not sure where you got those numbers from. All it needs is a 212 EVO and some basic fiddling with settings in the Bios to set core speed to 1GHz as well as 1866 Dual-channel RAM

I got the numbers off stock benchmarks, not a test bench with a Hyper 212 EVO and some basic fiddling, although oddly enough with 2400MHz RAM. I'd still grab the x4 860k and an R7 360 or something- it can hold up far better settings and get better framerates all the way up at 1080p. Hence, for about $40 more, you get more than double the performance.

 

However, this is subject to change when the new Zen APUs hit, with support for faster DDR4 memory and these bizarre rumours of the APUs featuring on-die HBM.

[SquidBacon_YOUTUBER]

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

Must we say this over and over again- don't buy AMD's CPUs or APUs until their new Zen processors launch later this year- the architecture is hopelessly outdated and things will get a lot better with AM4.

I bought way before am4 was annouced

[Aereldor]

26 minutes ago, SquidBacon_YOUTUBER said:

I bought way before am4 was annouced

Yes, but you showing off the sick deal you got could have been misinterpreted as a recommendation, and it would be a poor one, as at this moment, we're months away from all the AM4 stuff launching.

[AlanAlan]

3 hours ago, don_svetlio said:

Yes. I meant the XFX TS are usually 5$ cheaper than S12II

 

3 hours ago, Aereldor said:

Must we say this over and over again- don't buy AMD's CPUs or APUs until their new Zen processors launch later this year- the architecture is hopelessly outdated and things will get a lot better with AM4.

What power supply should I get?

[don_svetlio]

Just now, AlanAlan said:

 

What power supply should I get?

S12II or XFX TS or Antec HCG

[BoxBoii]

whatever you do dont cheap out on your mother board and power supply if u plan on upgrading those two are pretty essential to keeping the cost at a minimum

[Aereldor]

5 hours ago, BoxBoii said:

whatever you do dont cheap out on your mother board and power supply if u plan on upgrading those two are pretty essential to keeping the cost at a minimum

I agree with what you said about the power supply, as you should never compromise on quality when the fate of your rig depends on it.

 

Overspending on a motherboard isn't a great idea, especially when the LGA 1151 platform has such great budget offerings from MSI and Gigabyte. Motherboards don't impact performance. They affect features, which a gamer may or may not need. When you're on a tight budget, gearing your money towards performance is for the best unless you really need two GPUs in your rig or RAID support if you don't like backing up your data.

 

Furthermore, not everyone can compromise on performance with the promise of getting more later. That being said, you can go a long way without getting a top-of-the-line Z170 motherboard.

 

One of my favourite value Haswell CPUs is the Xeon E3 1231-V3, which is a locked chip that is supported by almost every LGA 1150 motherboard (even the cheapest ones like the MSI H81M-P33), but is still a performance monster. It's essentially a Core i7 4770 (non-k) without the iGPU, and is proof that you don't need an overclocking motherboard to have an upgrade path. I only hope we get something like it on the Skylake platform.

[BoxBoii]

7 hours ago, Aereldor said:

I agree with what you said about the power supply, as you should never compromise on quality when the fate of your rig depends on it.

 

Overspending on a motherboard isn't a great idea, especially when the LGA 1151 platform has such great budget offerings from MSI and Gigabyte. Motherboards don't impact performance. They affect features, which a gamer may or may not need. When you're on a tight budget, gearing your money towards performance is for the best unless you really need two GPUs in your rig or RAID support if you don't like backing up your data.

 

Furthermore, not everyone can compromise on performance with the promise of getting more later. That being said, you can go a long way without getting a top-of-the-line Z170 motherboard.

 

One of my favourite value Haswell CPUs is the Xeon E3 1231-V3, which is a locked chip that is supported by almost every LGA 1150 motherboard (even the cheapest ones like the MSI H81M-P33), but is still a performance monster. It's essentially a Core i7 4770 (non-k) without the iGPU, and is proof that you don't need an overclocking motherboard to have an upgrade path. I only hope we get something like it on the Skylake platform.

What I meant by don't cheap out on it is that you shouldn't forget about important things like if u want more ram for sum reason or another GPU and so on just make sure u spend a lil more on the one that offers more to what u need whether it be up grading or overclocking