Best PC for $600?
 

Hey guys,

Here in about 3 weeks I am going to start building a new rig. Its been years since I have built a new PC from scratch and as we all know many things have changed alot over the past 3 or 4 years.

My goal is to build a PC as close to $600 as I can but still pull enough power out of it to run anything I want on atleast medium settings. At the current time I have an extra HDD and a Nvidia 9400 gt 512mb card that could be used in the new PC if needed to save some money.

here is what I came up with at a whim last night.

Thermaltake TR2 W0379RU 500W ATX 12V v2.2 Power Supply - $55

G.SKILL Flare 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1800 (PC3 14400) Desktop Memory Model F3-14400CL9D-4GBFLS - $90

OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD3-2AGT90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - $190

GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard - $110

AMD Phenom II X6 1075T Thuban 3.0GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT75TFBGRBOX - $200

Now you will notice no video card in the selection as I was banking on the Nvidia 9400 GT 512mb to keep up. Whats the best you can build and still stay around $600?

Don't bank on that card keeping up. You can get a GTS4xx for $110ish.

I find looking for a great deal on a basic PC and then just adding parts as needed is a much better investment than trying to build something awesome on a constrained budget.

The technology changes too fast.

lol your telling me to go to staples and buy a PC and toss some ram and video card into it?

thanks but no thanks.

Don't skimp on the video card -it's probably the single most important piece of hardware you'll buy. Spend at least $200 on the video card.

If you're a nvidia fan go for:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127510

it's a solid card.

Your Phenom choice is ideal for low budget performance.

SSD is great, but if the HD you're using now still works why get a new one? (Unless of course you're just expanding).

Take that $90 an invest it into a good Video Card.

I have this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130563

It's beautiful.

That's a lot of money to spend on storage considering the rest of the system. You would be far better off just using your old HD and spending that money on a better video card or processor.

If you really need extra storage grab a standard HD.

It has been forever since I've done this for someone online I don't know, but here is my suggestion.


processor 185 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...76&Tpk=i5-2300

mobo 115 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121482

ram 61 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148262

PSU(55) - whatever you got I guess is fine, newegg doesn't have one I am too excited about. You can't use your old one?

GPU 140 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121390

total comes to 556. You could always get a 6850 is you're an ATI fan though.

If you still want a HD I'd recommend this one for 65 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136319

HDD - $64.99 - 1TB 7200 RPM HDD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148433

Video Card - $209.99 - Geforce GTX 460 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127510

Processor - $159.99 - AMD Phenom II X4 965
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103727
You don't really need a 6-core processor in a budget PC. Most software isn't even optimized for 4 cores yet.

Motherboard - $109.99 - Asus M4A88T0V EVo/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI USB 3.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

Memory - $47.99 - A-DATA Gaming Series 4GB (2 x 2 GB) 240-Pin DDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211409

PSU - $44.99 - APEX AL-D500EXP 500W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817154026

Total: 637.94

I little over your 600 limit. If you can reuse a hard drive or power supply then you are golden. My advice on a budget is don't skimp on the video card it's the most important piece in a gaming rig. Don' be tempted by intel's i3/i5/i7 line, AMD is great for budget PCs. You don't need a 6-core processor though!!!

Good luck.

If you're gonna get one of these, OP, better double check on whether that PSU can handle it. 12v rail amp and all that.