PC Upgrade Ideas

I’ve got up to $900 to spend and I need...

For the motherboard and CPU, I'm leaning toward an AMD setup.
A 120GB SSD should be plenty.
I definitely want at least 6GB of RAM, though 8GB would be ideal.

I’ve heard the stock coolers on AMD chips are absolute junk, so if I need to grab an aftermarket one, let me know. Otherwise, even better.

The rig is strictly for gaming; I already have all the other parts on my list.
What do you guys suggest?

Honestly, you're getting way more bang for your buck with Intel in this bracket. The Intel Pentium G3220 is a beast for what it is. If you try to jump up to an Intel Core i3, you're looking at spending about $167, and those chips can be a real headache because they don't just work on any random motherboard. For the price, the G3220 absolutely crushes the competition. 😉

Intel Core i7-4770K processor (16MB Cache, up to 4.20 GHz), LGA 1150 socket
ASUS Prime Motherboard, sAM3+ socket.
The SCYTHE Tatsumi, SCTTM-1000B, works with sockets like 775, 1150, 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011, AM2, AM3, FM1, and FM2. It runs at about 300 ± 200rpm. I guess that’s roughly 25.
The SanDisk X300 256GB SSD is a 2.5” 7mm drive using SATA 6 Gbit/s. You’re looking at read/write speeds of 520 MB/s and 470 MB/s, with random read/write IOPS at 91K/57K. It comes with a 5-year warranty, I guess.
DDR3 8GB (1x8GB) PC3-12800 1866MHz CL10 Corsair Vengeance, HX318C10FB/8

Total: $900 AMD

You really need to let us know what kind of power supply and case you're running, because when you're working with an AMD build, you generally need a much higher quality PSU and a case with decent airflow to keep things stable.

I agree with my buddy—since he’s looking at some off-brand power supply, we should probably include a decent one in the total price.
Here’s how we put it together to keep the PSU included, so take a look and see if this works.

Intel Core i3-4130 (8M Cache, up to 4.00 GHz), sAM3+ - My friend thinks he doesn't need a massive, overpriced CPU, so he wants us to drop the price a bit by switching the PSU.
ASUS Prime Motherboard, sAM3+ - Kept this exactly as you had it.
DDR3 8GB (1x8GB) PC3-12800 1866MHz CL10 Corsair Vengeance,
SanDisk X300 256GB SSD, 2.5” 7mm, SATA 6 Gbit/s, Read/Write: 520 MB/s / 470 MB/s, Random Read/Write IOPS 91K/57K,
XFX P1-450S-GREEN TS Series 450W PSU - I'm running this exact unit in a much beefier build, so it should be more than enough for this lower-end setup.

We cut the cooler out to keep the cost down; he can just pick one up next time. Would a stock cooler actually hold up for a month?

Does this look solid to you? Thanks for the help.

Well, here’s how everything fits together:

ASUS Prime Motherboard (SAM3, DDR3, SATA III, LAN, USB 2.0/3.0) ATX Box
Corsair Vengeance DDR3, 1866MHz, 8GB Black HX318C10FB/8
Fortron 500W 80+ Power Supply
SanDisk X300 256GB SSD, 2.5” 7mm, SATA 6 Gbit/s, Read/Write: 520 MB/s / 470 MB/s, SD7SB6S-256G-1122
LC Power CPU Cooler LC-CC-95 - 90mm
Intel Core i3-4130

Total cost: $878 Centro

It’s basically the same deal as the build from ADMu, though I guess they don't include a cheap cooler in their package...

Awesome, thanks for the help. He’ll definitely grab one of those two options—he'll just see which store makes the checkout process easier for him. 👍