Advice for buying a gaming PC!

The XFX 450 w is probably a bit of a subpar power supply.

Hey everyone, I'm looking to put together a new PC build—budgeting around $1,000. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Really terrible timing for this kind of budget 😬

Intel Pentium G4560 (3.5GHz, 3MB, LGA1151) box
Seagate BarraCuda 1TB, 64MB, 7200rpm HDWD110UZSVA
Patriot Signature DDR4, 2400Mhz, 8GB, CL15
LG GH24NSD1 sat Bulk Black 24 x Corsair Builder Series CX450M
Corsair Builder Series CX450M, Modular Power Supply, US version, 5yrs
Cooler Master Mid Tower black without power supply P/N: ZAL-Z1 NEO
MSI Main Board Desktop B250 (S1151,2xDDR4,1xPCI-Ex16,2xPCI-Ex1, USB3.1,USB2.0,SATA III,DVI,VGA,GLAN)
MSI Video Card AMD Radeon RX 480 GAMING GDDR5 8GB/256bit, 1303MHz/8000MHz, PCI-E 3.0 x16, 2xDP, 2xHD
NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 240GB

Total: $1840

I know someone is going to say 'just ditch that Pentium,' but honestly, everything still feels way too expensive at these prices 😁

Maybe you can just upgrade once Zen comes out. Or, I guess it might be best to just hold out for another 5 or 6 weeks.

That Pentium... absolute little beast.

Thanks for the quick reply, I really appreciate it! 👍

crimsonstag84 said:Paying cash? Because I can actually put together a much better combo for the exact same price:
...

Yeah, paying cash, though the reason I was looking at Micro Center is because I know they handle both the assembly and the delivery. I haven't really had much luck shopping downtown before. Has anyone else here picked up gear from there, and what was your experience like? They definitely seem to have better prices once I start tossing my own components into their online cart.
With what I've found, I'm leaning towards this setup:

- ASRock H110M-DGS, LGA 1151, DDR4, S3, USB 3.0, mATX
- Intel Pentium G4560
- Seagate BarraCuda 1TB, 64MB, 7200rpm HDWD110UZSVA
- Kingston DDR4 HX Savage, 8GB, 2400MHz
- SAPPHIRE Video Card NITRO RADEON RX 470 4G GDDR5 PCI-E DUAL HDMI / DVI-D / DUAL DP OC (UEFI)
- Corsair Builder Series CX450M, Modular Power Supply, US version, 5yrs
- LG DVD±RW 24x GH24NSD1 SATA black bulk
- Spire cooler 120x120x25, 12V, 3pin sleeve
- Case Midi ATX Gamer Akyga AKY003BK colorFan/12cm 1xUSB3.0 w/o PSU

Total: $429.63

Though I should mention I'm already saving some money since I was originally looking at the Intel Core i3-6100.

Adam Moore3 said:That Pentium... absolute little beast.

Look, I own a G1840, and honestly? To me, those Celeron and Pentium chips are just straight-up garbage. Seriously, even my i5 and i7 make them look like total jokes compared to what they can actually do. xD

I’ve got a G3220 in my rig at home. Witcher 3 runs just fine paired with a 260X. 🙂

goldenjackal46
offers free assembly too; they just charge you for shipping.
As for the case, if your budget isn't super tight, I’d personally lean toward the Cooler Master Mid Tower (which comes with two pre-installed fans), the Zalman Z3, or maybe even a Cooler Master Deathclaw. For the motherboard, I'd go with an MSI H110M PRO-D (similar $136).

Adam Moore3 said:I've got this old G3220 sitting in my rig at home. Honestly? It handles Witcher 3 just fine paired up with a 260X... nothing crazy, but it gets the job done... 🙂

Man, I’m basically counting down the days... maybe ten years from now, if we're lucky... when we finally get a Celeron hitting 2.8GHz... then we'll actually be getting somewhere... $100...so yeah, basically just looking for something that can hold its own against a modern i5-4440. Not trying to break the bank, just want something that doesn't feel like a total dinosaur when I try to actually run stuff... 😁 That would be a total Best Buy clearance bin situation. Just like how my G1840 is basically on par with a Q8300... honestly, what even is that? 😁 I’ll still have to scrape enough cash together to make it happen, but man... it’s definitely gonna be worth the wait... 🙂

Jack Smith4 said:I’m basically waiting ten years for a 2.8GHz Celeron to hit the market at $100 prices, just so it can finally compete with what an i5 4440 does today. 😁 That would be the ultimate best buy. Just like how my G1840 sits right next to the Q8300. 😁 I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and wait, but it'll be worth it. 🙂

don't think we'll actually need to wait a decade to see a quad-core Pentium that performs like a modern i5

I’m not holding my breath that Intel will be offering a quad-core under the $117 brand ten years from now. If you look back at the last six years, progress has been incredibly sluggish—performance tiers have stayed largely stagnant while prices have actually climbed, with the exception of the current Pentium lineup which is an outlier in both categories. Plus, transitioning to even newer manufacturing processes is going to be a much steeper uphill battle than anything we've seen before.

Timothy Kim60, yeah, but we haven't seen any real shift from the other side over the last six years, specifically from AMD. Now, looking at the quad-cores, we have the Athlon sitting below the $333, which aren't actually any better than an i3—they're basically just competing with Pentiums in terms of market positioning. Sooner or later, maybe in a year or two, some new quad-core (without SMT) will drop below the $333. Once that happens, prices are going to have to tank, forcing Intel to offer a quad-core at that price point. We'll see a quad-core i3 or a Pentium, and eventually, we might see something similar for closer to $50 than $100 (obviously, I'm talking about budget chips with low clock speeds)

crimsonstag84 said:It’s honestly the worst possible timing for a budget like this. 😬

Intel Core i3-6100 (3.5GHz, 3MB, LGA1151) box
Seagate BarraCuda 1TB, 64MB, 7200rpm HDWD110UZSVA
Patriot Signature DDR4, 2400Mhz, 8GB, CL15
LG GH24NSD1 SATA Bulk Black 24x
Corsair Builder Series CX450M, Modular Power Supply, US version, 5yrs
Cooler Master Mid Tower black without power supply P/N: ZAL-Z1 NEO
MSI Main Board Desktop B250 (S1151,2xDDR4,1xPCI-Ex16,2xPCI-Ex1, USB3.1,USB2.0,SATA III,DVI,VGA,GLAN)
MSI Video Card AMD Radeon RX 480 GAMING GDDR5 8GB/256bit, 1303MHz/8000MHz, PCI-E 3.0 x16, 2xDP, 2xHD
SSD NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 240GB

Total: $1840

I know someone is going to say "just ditch that Pentium," but honestly—everything still feels way too expensive when I see these prices. 😁

You could always look into an upgrade once Zen arrives. Or, if you can manage it—which might be the better move—just hang in there for another 5 or 6 weeks.

@crimsonstag84/">@@crimsonstag84, which shop did you put this build together at?

Kyle Martin67

I'm pretty certain we're looking at a glitch on the CNN website.

wiredotter14

Sure, trying to predict where things will be in ten years is a thankless task, but expecting an Intel quad-core to hit $117 is way too optimistic. If you look at a true quad-core—and I’m not talking about those AMD CMT setups with two modules that aren't even real quads—those haven't become cheap chips in over a decade. First off, they have to drop down to $333 just to be relevant, and getting them to half today's price (around $110) is going to take forever. As for the competition, based on the latest rumors, they won't even be launching a pure Zen quad or anything with six cores right away; it'll likely be 4c8t, 8c, or 8c16t architectures instead.

I never actually said it would be $117, just that we’ll eventually see a quad-core i3 or a Pentium—or at least some kind of quad-core from Intel—landing in the same price bracket where the current i3 and Pentium sit now.

Sooner or later, we're going to get a Zen APU that'll likely be a quad-core, and after a while, there should be a CPU-only version of that too. It only makes sense if it stays below $333, which would force Intel to finally bump up their core counts, since they've been stuck at 2 cores in this segment for years.

A 2.4 GHz 8-core Zen could end up priced somewhere between an i5 and an i7, eventually squeezing the current i5 prices down.

I wasn't really aiming for some quad-core Pentium setup... what I meant was that the architecture behind the Celeron / Pentium chips is getting so advanced that their dual-core versions are basically going to punch way above their weight class, acting more like a modern quad-core 4440. Honestly, I think it's totally doable. Just look at how my G1840 holds its own against something like a Q8300 or Q8400... it's already happening. If they can keep those prices where they are for the next 5 to 10 years, we're looking at something seriously impressive 🙂

It looks like dual-core processors might be a thing of the past for quite some time.

It’ll be a dual-core processor. Duals are always going to be cheaper than quads, and honestly, you don't really need a quad for most stuff when a dual with hyperthreading gets the job done just fine. That said, I doubt they'll actually hold a candle to a true quad; we'll just end up getting much better deals on quad cores once the manufacturing processes mature and drive the prices down.

wiredotter14 said:... we’re eventually going to see much more affordable quad-core setups once the manufacturing processes mature and drive those prices down.

Honestly, I think Intel still has a total stranglehold on the market right now. Unless AMD pulls some kind of massive surprise out of their hat this season, I might actually start believing the first half of that sentence... 😬

Jack Smith4 said:I wasn't aiming for quad-core Pentium chips; my point was that Celeron/Pentium architecture is advancing so rapidly that their dual-core setups will eventually perform like today's quad-core 4440. To me, that seems totally doable—just look at how my G1840 stacks up against an old Q8300 or Q8400. If they keep these prices where they are for the next 5 to 10 years, we're looking at something pretty great. 🙂

That’s definitely not going to happen, and honestly, we can already see the trend. IPC typically bumps up by about 5% per generation on average, and sometimes it doesn't move at all (look at the jump from Devil's Canyon to Kaby Lake). Other times, you even see clock speeds being dialed back (like with Broadwell or to some extent Cannon Lake).