New(ish) build AMD Athlon X4 860K OR i3-6100???

[swordsman247]

So I'm looking at building a "gaming pc" for my brother. I am try to get him something that will handle newer games like The Division, Witcher 3, GTAV, etc. So the thing is he's on a really tight budget(must be under $200) and I'm going to help him out by using as many spare parts as I can. 

 

My question is whether or not the 860k will be able to drive modern games okayish or not. I mostly play older games and have little knowledge of the newer ones. I have ddr3 ram, a 120gb ssd, an ok psu, a dvd drive(yes he needs one) and an r9 270, That I was hoping to use in this. If we go with an i3 it will close to double the cost of the cpu and we'd need to get newer ram. I am looking into used options but I haven't found any that are super good.

 

I'm hoping someone with more experience in these things can help me out with some guidance. Thank you for reading.

 

 

 

So here we go. We need an okay case, a mobo/cpu and ram if what I have won't work.

(I'm in the us btw)

 

Here is what I was thinking of.(he insists on "glowy" fans so I found some cheap pmw ones to add in)

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/QB2Mnn

 

[DioOmicida]

The 860k is a great little chip and would probably handle itself well but I'd personally go with the i3 if you can swing it simply for the fact that he can move to the i5 or i7 some point later on down the road. Plus, that single core performance.

[LeStringMan]

If the i3 is in the budget then go for it for sure.

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

The i3 is much faster when both cpus are pared with something like a 970 but with a 270 you wont see much of a difference.

[swordsman247]

6 minutes ago, DioOmicida said:

The 860k is a great little chip and would probably handle itself well but I'd personally go with the i3 if you can swing it simply for the fact that he can move to the i5 or i7 some point later on down the road. Plus, that single core performance.

 

5 minutes ago, LeStringMan said:

If the i3 is in the budget then go for it for sure.

 

3 minutes ago, LeapFrogMasterRace said:

The i3 is much faster when both cpus are pared with something like a 970 but with a 270 you wont see much of a difference.

okay guys look into the i3 got it, thanks! Any mobo/ram advice and/or recommendations? Preferably an m-atx build.

[iDeFecZx]

Would just like to point out, you say you already have DDR3, the 6100 is skylake and therefore requires DDR4 or DDR3L

 

Nevermind, you said about that further on.

[DioOmicida]

4 minutes ago, swordsman247 said:

okay guys look into the i3 got it, thanks! Any mobo/ram advice and/or recommendations? Preferably an m-atx build.

Honestly as long as the MB has a 3.016x PCIe slot, USB3, and the proper amount of Sata ports as needed (3 for disk drive/HHD/SSD), that's honestly all you really need.You don't need Asus killer audio chip sets, M.2, or the ability to 8x8x SLI.

[swordsman247]

1 minute ago, iDeFecZx said:

Would just like to point out, you say you already have DDR3, the 6100 is skylake and therefore requires DDR4 or DDR3L

Yeah like I said...

 

13 minutes ago, swordsman247 said:

If we go with an i3 it will close to double the cost of the cpu and we'd need to get newer ram.

So, any mobo/ram recommendations?

[swordsman247]

1 minute ago, DioOmicida said:

Honestly as long as the MB has a 3.016x PCIe slot, USB3, and the proper amount of Sata ports as needed (3 for disk drive/HHD/SSD), that's honestly all you really need.

Yeah, I will probably find an asus board I like, if I can work it in. I think some of the other brands are a bit cheaper right now.

[DioOmicida]

7 minutes ago, swordsman247 said:

So, any mobo/ram recommendations?

Here is a cheap Gigabyte board.
And some cheap Kington RAM to go with it. 

[iDeFecZx]

2 minutes ago, swordsman247 said:

So, any mobo/ram recommendations?

RAM doesnt particularly matter, any will do. As for M-ATX boards, just look for ones with the features that you want and in the chipset you want. If your gonna be upgrading to something like a 6600k in the future spend that little bit extra on a Z170 board.

[swordsman247]

2 minutes ago, DioOmicida said:

Here is a cheap Gigabyte board.

okay I will look into it, thanks.

 

2 minutes ago, iDeFecZx said:

RAM doesnt particularly matter, any will do. As for M-ATX boards, just look for ones with the features that you want and in the chipset you want. If your gonna be upgrading to something like a 6600k in the future spend that little bit extra on a Z170 board.

Yeah I know I just hate buying ram, he's not going to ever be allowed to have an oc...an H110 should be okay. Thanks for the input.

 

p.s. I feel I should mention my brother is in his 20s but very un-techiey

[DioOmicida]

1 minute ago, swordsman247 said:

okay I will look into it, thanks.

p.s. I feel I should mention my brother is in his 20s but very un-techiey

I posted RAM there as well.
Also why I didn't suggest a Z board. 

[swordsman247]

4 minutes ago, DioOmicida said:

I posted RAM there as well.
Also why I didn't suggest a Z board. 

Okay I think one of your links went sideways they both go to the mobo. Can you re-post ram link for? Thanks. Yeah no OC for him, I am not walking him through troubleshooting it.

[DioOmicida]

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($49.99 @ NCIX US) 
Memory: Corsair 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($28.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $189.97

[swordsman247]

1 minute ago, DioOmicida said:

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($49.99 @ NCIX US) 
Memory: Kingston FURY 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $190.97
 

Okay thanks I will try to go for this. How is superbiiz? I've never got anything from them before.

[DioOmicida]

5 minutes ago, swordsman247 said:

Okay thanks I will try to go for this. How is superbiiz? I've never got anything from them before.

If you don't live in NY then I'd buy from B&H. You'll get 3 day free shipping and pay no tax.
Superbiiz doesn't have the best customer service I hear.
But you know, it's only the people who have issues that write the reviews. 

[swordsman247]

2 minutes ago, DioOmicida said:

If you don't live in NY then I'd buy from B&H. You'll get 3 day free shipping and pay no tax.
Superbiiz doesn't have the best customer service I hear.

Yeah I'm in Michigan so...I'll hunt around a bit. Maybe I'll get lucky on eBay or Amazon.

[DioOmicida]

1 minute ago, swordsman247 said:

Yeah I'm in Michigan so...I'll hunt around a bit. Maybe I'll get lucky on eBay or Amazon.

Of those three products, all but the RAM can be bought on B&H so I'd purchase the board and CPU from there.
As for the RAM, they are actually sold out of that cheap Kingston RAM on Superbiiz. Its a good price.
You can get this RAM instead:
 

[swordsman247]

5 minutes ago, DioOmicida said:

Of those three products, all but the RAM can be bought on B&H so I'd purchase the board and CPU from there.
As for the RAM, they are actually sold out of that cheap Kingston RAM on Superbiiz. Its a good price.
You can get this RAM instead:
 

Okay thanks a lot.

[VivashTech]

Hey swordsman247,

 

Go with the i3 6100 as it is about 2-3 times better than the 860k and is even better than the six core fx6300 and the intel processors offer more upgradeability as you are not operating on an apu and hey it consumes less power

[swordsman247]

14 minutes ago, VivashTech said:

Hey swordsman247,

 

Go with the i3 6100 as it is about 2-3 times better than the 860k and is even better than the six core fx6300 and the intel processors offer more upgradeability as you are not operating on an apu and hey it consumes less power

Yeah I went from a fx6100 to the pentium G4400 and it was faster... going to hunt for some deals in the next week or so, so I can get everything at/under budget. Thanks for the input, welcome to the forum.

[VivashTech]

Thank you no problem