Gaming First Gaming PC

[Lanlan]

I'm gonna be building a gaming PC pretty soon, and I think I have the parts picked out. So far it seems to be around $550. Keep in mind that I plan to add a dedicated graphics card later on, for now I'm okay with relying on the apu for graphics.

Can you guys tell me if everything looks good? Anything I should change to get more bang for my buck? Is everything compatible? Also, when ordering from Newegg or Amazon, will I have to order cables as well?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00461G3MS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0057FRTPW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EYV690/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005DOUIIC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004CRSM4I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007BDJ5SM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006J420UE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

[Lanlan]

Oh and the price with a win7 key is $550ish. The hardware alone is like $450

 

[Rydian]

Depending on your GPU a weaker PSU might still work (for example I'm using a 550W with my Radeon HD 5770).

I wouldn't get "gaming RAM" or fancy RAM with heat spreaders. RAM latency/speed is not a main issue for gaming. Save some money with more basic RAM sticks.

The motherboard should come with some cables (though it's not shown in the pics, it usually is), and the DVD drive should come with some as well. The harddrive will most likely not include cables though, as it's "OEM" which means that accessories aren't included, just the base product (though it's not always the case and sometimes you get accessories too, don't count on it). The motherboard should come with 2 data cables anyways and the PSU will have the power connectors so I don't think there will be an issue.

Any specific reason you're going for am unlocked CPU? Overclocking the CPU generally results in only minor performance gains for gaming (if any at all), with a modern system like that the GPU is most often the bottleneck. If you want it for CPU-centric tasks like emulation and stuff than that's fine too, but note that overclocking means more heat.

 

[Lanlan]

Thanks for the RAM tip. Also, I just wanna be able to change up stuff I want. I love experimentation, and with this APU i can overclock the graphics part of the APU as well as the main processing part. I can always get a new heatsink. I'm pretty set on getting an APU over a CPU and this is the best one out there

 

[Rydian]

An issue with an APU is that since the GPU and CPU are on-die, your overclocking potential is more limited since increased heat of either will affect both.