Join the PC Gaming Arena- for $400.

[Travis Touchdown]

Even with services like Steam, gamepad compatibility, performance, upgradeability and compatibility, PC gaming is a bar too high for some users. A lack of technical knowledge, not enough money, etcetera...
Well, I'm about to drop a rig that drastically outperforms our current-gen consoles.
And it costs about $400.

Here it is.

Part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks


CPU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Biostar TA75MH2 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($78.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($31.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Raider ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Power Supply: Sparkle 350W ATX12V Power Supply ($32.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $411.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-12 11:24 EST-0500)

Get Windows separately or find a copy lying around. Install it from a flash drive if you don't want to invest in a disc drive.

If you don't want to build it, get someone to build it for you.

This rig is enough to play most modern games, 720p, at good framerates and with much, much better-looking graphics than the current consoles.

I'd estimate twice as much as the 360, in terms of graphical horsepower.

It's a solid PC by itself, too.

There you go.

(And for when you want a graphics upgrade, pop in a 6570 or 6670 to run in Crossfire with the processor. There's tutorials online for this, and it'll increase performance significantly. This is if you're tight on a budget, though- if you can afford it, toss in a 650 Ti, 660 or 7970 to up your performance. The CrossFire for this rig is really only good if you're on a tight budget.)

[Mighty Hatman]

Surprised the 1TB drive is so cheap.

[Travis Touchdown]

Funny thing- the drives with lower storage and speed are either around the same price or more expensive.

The only expensive storage medium, really, is solid state. SSDs, SD cards, the such.

[Edd Strid]

Has the memory (HDD/SSD) market recovered fully since the floods? I could do with an upgrade but the prices jumped to too high a mark.

[Mighty Hatman]

External drives don't seem to be going down as much but internal are doing well.

[Travis Touchdown]

External drives are decent. I got a 300 gig USB external for like forty bucks earlier last year.

[Travis Touchdown]

As a sidenote, the current gen consoles run games in 1080p upscaled from 720- basically, a stretched image.

[Gorilla Gravy]

Interesting. Been looking for a cheap build to play Skyrim and all the Steam games I bought from the summer sale. None of the. Are really that graphically intensive save for Metro 2033 maybe. So long as I get above 30 FPS's with minimal screen-tearing I'm happy.

And I already have a pretty nice case so I guess I can use that extra $89 in the budget to upgrade some parts. Last time I went around asking my techie friends about building a gaming rig they advised me to get a power supply that's at least 500W.

[Epic-KxDtoid]

Damn.

[noobspoon]

You might even be able to do a better build than this for the same price using a sandy bridge pentium and a gpu, the APU's don't get good graphical performance unless you partner them up with a 6570.

[Travis Touchdown]

Interesting. Been looking for a cheap build to play Skyrim and all the Steam games I bought from the summer sale. None of the. Are really that graphically intensive save for Metro 2033 maybe. So long as I get above 30 FPS's with minimal screen-tearing I'm happy.

And I already have a pretty nice case so I guess I can use that extra $89 in the budget to upgrade some parts. Last time I went around asking my techie friends about building a gaming rig they advised me to get a power supply that's at least 500W.

Here's some performance from the A10. Medium settings with AAA and 4x Antialiasing grants 31 frames at 1280x1024 and 22 at 1080p.

Looking at the other pages of the review will also tell you what it benchmarks at at what settings.

[noobspoon]

Something like this would massively outperform the build from the OP.

[Gorilla Gravy]

Something like this would massively outperform the build from the OP.

If I wasn't about to drop $200 on fixing my car I'd order these parts now.

[Travis Touchdown]

Something like this would massively outperform the build from the OP.

Yeah, this one is way better than my build.

Good job, bro.

[Gorilla Gravy]

Showed my nerd friends that build and they said I should get an i3, switch out the itx for an atx, and get more RAM.

I have no idea what they are talking about or what any of that means.

[Mighty Hatman]

i3 is a step up from Pentium. They're just a different series of processors based on performance. For gaming though I don't see why Pentium isn't perfect. They focus on dual cores and have a good clock speed which is all you need for game applications really.

Afaik ITX is just a different shape of motherboard to ATX with likely less features if it's a small one. As long as it has a decent build quality and can hold the GPU I don't see why the upgrade would be that worth it for someone wanting a gaming system on an almost console-like budget.

[noobspoon]

Also, you're probably never going to need more than 4gb of RAM for a gaming system, though if you have the extra cash you may aswell stick 8gb in there. It's cheap enough.

[Shredded Angel]

Also, you're probably never going to need more than 4gb of RAM for a gaming system, though if you have the extra cash you may aswell stick 8gb in there. It's cheap enough.

I know there was a few games I modded to use more ram to run smoother. I think either Fallout New Vegas or Skyrim was one of them (something from Bethesda, I know that). It can come in handy when modding those games with higher resolution textures to get around your GPU being four years old.

[Mighty Hatman]

There aren't that many games with 4GB+ unofficial patches though as only games with shitty optimisation from the game and/or mods really need it.

[Shredded Angel]

That's true. It's always nice to have the extra memory, though. Who knows what you may end up wanting to do down the road.