Building for a friend

[Havel]

I've been wanting to build my friend a desktop for a long while now, seeing as how she's a prolific steam gamer on a mid-tier laptop. I have the skill and experience to throw parts together and make it run no problem, my short coming is in sourcing/choosing parts for builds. As i stands right now i have an extremely old and barren case, a gtx 720, and win10 OS for it. if you guys think you can rise to the 'challenge' and help me out with this project that would be wonderful.

[EquippedSword99]

whats ur budget?

[Havel]

100-200, i can drop 50-75 right this second but this is going to be done over a couple months more than likely.

[Shura]

Depending on what kind of mid-tier laptop she has, it might actually be better or similar in performance to a $100-200 build using a GTX 720. In fact, if she is already gaming on said laptop, it probably has a decent gpu. The GTX 720 is a low end graphics card, not that much better then iGPUs.

[Havel]

Yea, i was hoping not to use the 720 if at all possible but i do have it as a spare part lying around so if nothing else i've got that

[Shura]

My Recommend Entry level build would have to be this:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($109.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus H110M-A/M.2 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($46.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($41.99 @ Jet)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($34.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 470 4GB HS Black Edition Video Card  ($169.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($31.87 @ Jet)
Total: $434.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-05 01:44 EST-0500

 

Yes it's double your budget but I think if your gonna spend money, you should at the least save up enough to build something entry level like this.

Now the bare minimum for a really low end gaming PC would be this:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88M PRO3+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  ($52.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($34.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB ACX 2.0 Video Card  ($144.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($31.87 @ Jet)
Total: $363.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-05 01:56 EST-0500

 

This build will reach its limits within an year in my opinion, depending the type of games your friend wants to play; with the first build, you can just upgrade the CPU later be good for 2-3 years.

[Havel]

MUCH love for you Shura, that's pretty much exactly what i was looking for. Even if i can't afford a good portion of that right now having an awesome list like that to go back to for reference is more helpful than you can imagine, THANK YOU SO MUCH DUDE

 

[Shura]

7 minutes ago, bdphxdude said:

MUCH love for you Shura, that's pretty much exactly what i was looking for. Even if i can't afford a good portion of that right now having an awesome list like that to go back to for reference is more helpful than you can imagine, THANK YOU SO MUCH DUDE

 

No problem, again I recommend the first one; lot more upgrade options, will last longer and is faster than the second build as it is. Good Luck with your build.