Build for friend

[BloodyWaters]

My friend has this 5 yr old laptop that was low end when it came out, and he uses it now for PC gaming. He barely manages 20 FPS in Minecraft. He still games on it though. I wanted to make him a build that he could actually game on. My planned build:

 

CPU: Intel Core i3 7100 $120
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NCESRJX/

Motherboard: Asrock H110m-dgs $65
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E1SFJY8/

RAM: Balisticx Sport 8gb $55
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DPSQOO4/

Hard Drive: WD Blue 1tb $50
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088PUEPK/

Graphics Card: MSI RX 470 $170
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N3TCNNW/

Case: Roswill FMB-01 $25
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005LIDU5S/

Power Supply: EVGA 450 B1 $40
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F5LX55K/

DVD Drive: LG DVD Drive $15
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00MOUBYDQ/

Total Price: $540

 

Does it look good? Budget around $500 USD

[grimreeper132]

a ssd maybe, good graphics card, case isn't the nicest, but it'll do, does he need a screen?, and does he need it straight away cause otherwise, I suggest waiting for ZEN, due to the price drops which will come with it. Also does he actually need a DVD drive? I mean I have only used mine twice (max) in the last year and a half

[Droidbot]

Are you limited just to Amazon? 

This would smash that out of the water:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.79 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($73.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.33 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 480 4GB Red Dragon Video Card  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($50.89 @ Newegg) 
Total: $479.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-08 06:49 EST-0500

 

 

Pentium is essentially that i3 just a little slower, and leaves room for upgrade to an i5 or 7 later. 

RX 480 is self explanatory. 

PSU is better than EVGA B1. 

 

[grimreeper132]

2 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Are you limited just to Amazon? 

This would smash that out of the water:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.79 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($73.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.33 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 480 4GB Red Dragon Video Card  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($50.89 @ Newegg) 
Total: $479.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-08 06:49 EST-0500

 

 

Pentium is essentially that i3 just a little slower, and leaves room for upgrade to an i5 or 7 later. 

RX 480 is self explanatory. 

PSU is better than EVGA B1. 

 

I still say wait for zen, in case there is an improvement there, also a cheap 120GB SSD might be worth putting into that build in order to run the certain games that will benefit greatly from them

[BloodyWaters]

6 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Are you limited just to Amazon? 

This would smash that out of the water:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.79 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($73.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.33 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 480 4GB Red Dragon Video Card  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($50.89 @ Newegg) 
Total: $479.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-08 06:49 EST-0500

 

 

Pentium is essentially that i3 just a little slower, and leaves room for upgrade to an i5 or 7 later. 

RX 480 is self explanatory. 

PSU is better than EVGA B1. 

 

Should I overclock the Pentium?

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, grimreeper132 said:

I still say wait for zen, in case there is an improvement there, also a cheap 120GB SSD might be worth putting into that build in order to run the certain games that will benefit greatly from them

With a $550 budget SSD is possible. Not with $500. And yes, wait for the end of this month OP, since Zen will be coming out 

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, BloodyWaters said:

Should I overclock the Pentium?

You can't, but it's still a good value processor. 

[grimreeper132]

2 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

With a $550 budget SSD is possible. Not with $500. And yes, wait for the end of this month OP, since Zen will be coming out 

From the looks from the original idea, the budget is $500, but can go up to about $550, which mean you can get a SSD in it as well, just

[grimreeper132]

2 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

With a $550 budget SSD is possible. Not with $500. And yes, wait for the end of this month OP, since Zen will be coming out 

with a 120GB SSD, it would bring the price up to $530

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, grimreeper132 said:

with a 120GB SSD, it would bring the price up to $530

Crammed a 240GB SP550 in:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.79 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($73.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($73.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.33 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 480 4GB Red Dragon Video Card  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($50.89 @ Newegg) 
Total: $553.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-08 07:00 EST-0500

 

[grimreeper132]

Just now, Droidbot said:

Crammed a 240GB SP550 in:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($64.79 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($73.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($73.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.33 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 480 4GB Red Dragon Video Card  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($50.89 @ Newegg) 
Total: $553.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-08 07:00 EST-0500

 

yea, that looks better, and it will offer an upgrade path to an i5 for VR, if he want's it,

[Light-Yagami]

Pentium G4560 is really a good CPU solution, this guy Droibot is absolutely correct. Here's a video to back it up: 

 

[BloodyWaters]

23 minutes ago, grimreeper132 said:

a ssd maybe, good graphics card, case isn't the nicest, but it'll do, does he need a screen?, and does he need it straight away cause otherwise, I suggest waiting for ZEN, due to the price drops which will come with it. Also does he actually need a DVD drive? I mean I have only used mine twice (max) in the last year and a half

No he doesn't need it now. I'll probably end up waiting for dem price drops. 

 

Edit: he needs a DVD drive

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, BloodyWaters said:

No he doesn't need it now. I'll probably end up waiting for dem price drops. 

Zen is coming soon, and the variety of low-end parts it will bring are very good for the PC market (especially low end parts according to a leaked roadmap, but take that with a grain of salt). Wait for the price drops. 

[BloodyWaters]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

Zen is coming soon, and the variety of low-end parts it will bring are very good for the PC market (especially low end parts according to a leaked roadmap, but take that with a grain of salt). Wait for the price drops. 

Ok

[danny58264]

41 minutes ago, BloodyWaters said:

My friend has this 5 yr old laptop that was low end when it came out, and he uses it now for PC gaming. He barely manages 20 FPS in Minecraft. He still games on it though. I wanted to make him a build that he could actually game on. My planned build:

 

CPU: Intel Core i3 7100 $120
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NCESRJX/

Motherboard: Asrock H110m-dgs $65
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E1SFJY8/

RAM: Balisticx Sport 8gb $55
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DPSQOO4/

Hard Drive: WD Blue 1tb $50
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088PUEPK/

Graphics Card: MSI RX 470 $170
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N3TCNNW/

Case: Roswill FMB-01 $25
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005LIDU5S/

Power Supply: EVGA 450 B1 $40
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F5LX55K/

DVD Drive: LG DVD Drive $15
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00MOUBYDQ/

Total Price: $540

 

Does it look good? Budget around $500 USD

How about this? The G4560 performs very similarity to your i3. So I got a better gpu.https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bfR8XH

[Droidbot]

2 minutes ago, danny58264 said:

How about this? The G4560 performs very similarity to your i3. So I got a better gpu.https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bfR8XH

crap psu/case, mobo is usually old stock so probably not updated for kabylake, and how tf are those ramsticks cheaper than 1x8? 

[grimreeper132]

1 hour ago, BloodyWaters said:

No he doesn't need it now. I'll probably end up waiting for dem price drops. 

 

Edit: he needs a DVD drive

ok, fair enough on the DVD drive, but it's hard to say what the price drops will be, e.g. you might be able to get an i5 with an RX 480 easily with the price drops, or it could make a very little difference and leave you with the same system, we will need to see, that also being said, AMD is trying to get rid of dual and single cores (thank fuck, finally this should of happened slightly sooner) far as what I remember meaning that their competitor to the Pentium will be quads, and so possibly will be both a more powerful CPU in terms of core as well as in single threaded performance, and yes I understand that probably won't happen but I can dream damm you!