Hardware Building my first gaming PC need help.

[xcrimsonstormx]

So this is my first ever attempt at building a gaming PC. It is a Christmas present for myself, and I really need to know if what I'm buying is compatible, and work. Here is what I'm currently looking at. Oh... and my budget is about $500 for the PC itself not including the monitor ,and mouse and what not.

Any recommendations or help would be appreciated to make it better.
BTW i am using Newegg for purchases.

Thanks!

Rosewill CHALLENGER-U3 Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ,comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top ...
Item #: N82E16811147060
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy -$30.00 Instant
$15.00 Mail-in Rebate Card

$69.99
$39.99​

Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822148767
Return Policy: Iron Egg Guarantee Return Policy
Protect Your Investment (expand for options)
Recover Your Data(expand for options)
Send this item as a gift

-$10.00 Instant

$59.99
$49.99​

MSI 970A-G43 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813130679
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
Protect Your Investment (expand for options)

$69.99​

EVGA 01G-P4-2650-KR GeForce GTX 650 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Item #: N82E16814130827
Return Policy: Iron Egg Guarantee Return Policy
Protect Your Investment (expand for options)
Send this item as a gift

$10.00 Mail-in Rebate Card

$116.99​

​

1​

NVIDIA $75 Value In-Game Coin Coupon II
Item #: N82E16800995178
Return Policy: Iron Egg Guarantee Return Policy
Send this item as a gift

-$49.99 Saving

$49.99
$0.00​

Thermaltake TR2 TR-600 600W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply
Item #: N82E16817153166
Return Policy: Iron Egg Guarantee Return Policy
Send this item as a gift

-$15.00 Instant
$20.00 Mail-in Rebate Card

$64.99
$49.99​

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-2133C9D-8GXL
Item #: N82E16820231689
Return Policy: Iron Egg Guarantee Return Policy
Send this item as a gift

-$15.00 Instant

$74.99
$59.99​

AMD FX-4300 Vishera 3.8GHz (4.0GHz) Socket AM3+ 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor FD4300WMHKBOX
Item #: N82E16819113287

 

[trumpet-205]

I honestly will pick a different PSU, like Rosewill Green 530 W. It is $15 more expensive, but a much better quality one than that Thermaltake.

Never cheap out on PSU, #1 rule in PC building.

Keep in mind that AM3+ is pretty much a dead platform. If you are buying it because of budget that's fine, but if you are buying it hoping upgrade to a better CPU then don't. No new CPU will come for AM3+.

Me personally prefer Haswell i3 + H81 mATX motherboard, slightly more expensive but more powerful than FX-43xx.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Agreed with the Intel comment.

You could replace the motherboard with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130653
And the CPU with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116773


My desktop is quite similar to yours, I have a GTX 650, Intel i3 2100, and 16GB of RAM, and it can run everything so far at high settings, so this should do great for gaming.

 

[xcrimsonstormx]

My desktop is quite similar to yours, I have a GTX 650, Intel i3 2100, and 16GB of RAM, and it can run everything so far at high settings, so this should do great for gaming.

I decided to go with the Intel CPU instead because I wasn't aware that they were stopping support. Plus it's only about $10 more. Thanks for helping. Oh... I also swapped the mother board out with the one you recommended what about my Video Card is it still compatible as well?

Never cheap out on PSU, #1 rule in PC building.

See I thought that all that mattered was the amount Wattage I didn't know that the maker mattered so could you give me a link to a good PSU for my budget gaming PC.
Thanks!

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Yeah, it's still compatible. GPUs don't use specialized slots like CPUs do, they're all pretty much PCI-Express x16.

 

[xcrimsonstormx]

Alright thanks man for the help I wasn't aware that AMD was going to stop support of those cards I'm glad I swapped to intel thanks!

 

[aiat_gamer]

I honestly will pick a different PSU, like Rosewill Green 530 W. It is $15 more expensive, but a much better quality one than that Thermaltake.

Never cheap out on PSU, #1 rule in PC building.

Keep in mind that AM3+ is pretty much a dead platform. If you are buying it because of budget that's fine, but if you are buying it hoping upgrade to a better CPU then don't. No new CPU will come for AM3+.

Me personally prefer Haswell i3 + H81 mATX motherboard, slightly more expensive but more powerful than FX-43xx.

It will be a while for AMD to replace AM3+ with anything newer. Especially since they are now focusing on their APU for the next few years. AM3+ will still be used for high end desktop CPUs, also I don't think he would want to upgrade to anything more than a 8 core CPU( for example a 8350) so considering Intel`s core i7 are more expensive than AMD FX 8 core CPUs, it wont be such a bad choice to go with AM3+.

 

[aiat_gamer]

$69.99​

​

EVGA 01G-P4-2650-KR GeForce GTX 650 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Item #: N82E16814130827
Return Policy: Iron Egg Guarantee Return Policy

​

Item #: N82E16819113287

I strongly suggest buying a amd 260x instead.

 

[trumpet-205]

See I thought that all that mattered was the amount Wattage I didn't know that the maker mattered so could you give me a link to a good PSU for my budget gaming PC.
Thanks!

It's not so much about maker but about particular models. This one is on sales right now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026.

430 W is plenty. I run i7-3770K with HD7870 on top of 4 HDDs on 430 W PSU and I only consumes 250 W at load.

It will be a while for AMD to replace AM3+ with anything newer. Especially since they are now focusing on their APU for the next few years. AM3+ will still be used for high end desktop CPUs, also I don't think he would want to upgrade to anything more than a 8 core CPU( for example a 8350) so considering Intel`s core i7 are more expensive than AMD FX 8 core CPUs, it wont be such a bad choice to go with AM3+.

I honestly don't think AM3+ will even have a successor. I mean AMD will still make GPU-less CPU for server market (Opteron), but those will strictly relegate to C32 and G34 sockets.

AMD is more likely to kill off AM3+ socket and stick with FM2+. It is possible that AMD might pull off a "8 core/4 modules" APU.

 

[xcrimsonstormx]

I strongly suggest buying a amd 260x instead.

Can I get a link please? And why would that one be better than what I have currently? Price, power, compatibility? Thanks!

 

[xcrimsonstormx]

It's not so much about maker but about particular models. This one is on sales right now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026.

430 W is plenty. I run i7-3770K with HD7870 on top of 4 HDDs on 430 W PSU and I only consumes 250 W at load.

Ok thanks how many watts does an average gaming computer run on? And how can I get a good estimate on how many watts a computer will require without testing it first?

 

[trumpet-205]

Cheapest way to measure wattage is assemble the computer and use Kill-A-Watt. You will most certainly be fine with 430 W PSU with a GT 650.

I personally have UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and I can measure wattage there.

 

[xcrimsonstormx]

Right then 430 sounds good to me nice. Thanks for the help!

 

[ILuvGames]

The Corsair CX430M should be good for you for the PSU. The cheapest price seems to be from Microcenter @ $34.99. The modular nature of the PSU means a tidier build (less cabling and potentially better airflow inside the case) than the standard CX430 trumpet-205 suggested.

 

[xcrimsonstormx]

The Corsair CX430M should be good for you for the PSU. The cheapest price seems to be from Microcenter @ $34.99. The modular nature of the PSU means a tidier build (less cabling and potentially better airflow inside the case) than the standard CX430 trumpet-205 suggested.

Alright taken note of will probably go with this one then since its seems cheaper. Thanks!

 

[ILuvGames]

I specced a Haswell build if you are interested. It covers every component you suggested in your own build. You will have to manually edit the timings/voltage in the bios if you want to use the ram you chose as anything over 1600mhz isn't officially supported. The motherboard will handle it, though. The build comes to $518 including rebates. The link is http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2hVQT. The link is for a price comparison site, not a store.

The build doesn't include windows of course.

If you forgo the higher ram speed and buy 1600mhz ram you can save a little money on the motherboard and ram (but not a lot with the motherboard because the price for the specced motherboard is already very competitive) and choose an H81 chipset motherboard (as trumpet-205 suggested). Unfortunately it seems that only the Z87 chipset motherboards support higher ram speeds than 1600mhz. The specced motherboard does have two disadvantages, though. It supports Crossfire and not SLI (should you wish to use two graphics cards in the future) and there is no support for Intels TurboBoost technology. The specced cpu doesn't have TurboBoost capability but, if you wish to upgrade the CPU in the future to one with TurboBoost it may be worth considering a different motherboard.

 

[ILuvGames]

Sorry, I made a mistake with the link I posted. Please check the updated link.

You can save $10 if you swap the i3-4330 for the slightly slower i3-4130.

 

[xcrimsonstormx]

Thanks man I really appreciate you doing this for me! I will look at it right now, and I will probably just order this, although I won't be able to order till Christmas.

 

[aiat_gamer]

Can I get a link please? And why would that one be better than what I have currently? Price, power, compatibility? Thanks!

See here:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Although it is around 30 dollars more, it has much better benchmark.

 

[ILuvGames]

Thanks man I really appreciate you doing this for me! I will look at it right now, and I will probably just order this, although I won't be able to order till Christmas.

I 'strongly' suggest you get another opinion (maybe by showing someone else this thread or asking another GBATemp member) or look at some reviews from people who have bought those parts if you are gonna buy them. I may have missed something or there may be some compatibility issues between the parts or there may be some features you may want that build doesn't have. You will almost certainly require a more powerful PSU if you plan on upgrading the GPU later.

I tried to find a compromise between value for money, performance and reliability.

If you had an extra $40-$50 the MSI Z87-G45 Gaming is a good value motherboard upgrade. It would give you up to three way SLI and Crossfire support (so you could use two NVidia GPU's if you had the money or the inclination to upgrade the PSU and add an extra card). The board got 'very good reviews everywhere' (buyers and well known tech sites alike), but the reliability of MSI's motherboards has dropped and about 7-10% of people who have bought that board have had to return theirs faulty or have had issues with it. I bought one a few weeks back and it is gathering dust in it's box because I cannot afford the CPU for it till Christmas .