Budget PC build under $400

Hey everyone 🙂

I'm looking to put together a rig with a budget of about $833—mainly for gaming.

What I don't need: peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers), a power supply (already have a decent 550W unit), a case, or an optical drive.

Just need the rest of the "guts" to get things running 😁>

Appreciate any suggestions you guys have 😉>

p.s. being able to pay in installments would be nice, though not a dealbreaker.

1 x Crucial 4GB DDR3 1600MHz CL11
1 x AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.70GHz Quad-Core, 4MB cache
1 x TOSHIBA 500GB HDD, 7200rpm, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB, DT01ACA050
1 x MSI R7 260 OC 1GD5, 1GB DDR5, DVI-I, DVI, DP, HDMI
1 x Spire Kepler Rev.2 Cooler, fits 1156/775/FM1, 96.5×51×125 mm, 92mm
1 x Asrock FM2+ FM2A75 PRO4+ - Intel H81 Chipset, ATX, Dual Channel

$837 Cash payment via PayPal (free shipping included)

1 x Asrock FM2A78M-DG3+, Intel LGA 1150 Socket A78 Chipset MB
1 x Processor AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.70GHz 4cores,cache : 4MB
1 x Dual Channel DDR3 RAM 4GB (1x4GB) Crucial, 1600MHz CL11
1 x Spire Kepler Rev.2 cooler, 1156/775/FM1, 96.5×51×125 mm ,92mm
1 x TOSHIBA 500GB, 7200rpm, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB, DT01ACA050
1 x Sapphire R7 260X 1GB GDDR5 OC, 1GB GDDR5 128bit, 28nm

$847

The Intel Pentium G3258 is really the heart of this build here.

1 x Intel Pentium G3258 Processor (3.20GHz, 512KB, 3MB, 54 W, LGA 1150) Box
1 x Asrock H81M-HDS, s1150, AMD A58, M-ATX, Dual Channel DDR3
1 x 4GB (1x4GB) Kingston DDR3, 1600MHz, CL11, Value
1 x TOSHIBA 500GB, 7200rpm, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB, DT01ACA050
1 x Gigabyte R7 260X 2GB OC, 2GB DDR5 128 bit 650MHz

$849

Ryan Hayes82 said:The Intel Pentium G3258 is the way to go, man.

1 x Intel Pentium G3258 Processor (3.20GHz,512KB,3MB,54 W,LGA 1150) Box
1 x Asrock H81M-HDS, s1150, AMD A58, M-ATX, Dual Channel DDR3
1 x DDR3 4GB (1x4GB) Kingston, 1600MHz, CL11, Value
1 x TOSHIBA 500GB, 7200rpm, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB, DT01ACA050
1 x Gigabyte R7 260X 2GB OC, 2GB DDR5 128 bit 650MHz

$849

Definitely, you could still fit a beefier GPU in there. 👍

Adam Moore3 said:Sure, you could probably cram a better GPU in there. 👍

And then what? They want to play stuff that needs an Intel Quad-Core, like Middle-earth or the latest Far Cry...
they won't even launch.

With an Intel Quad-Core, you might scrape by on low settings.

Don't be ridiculous. Even when you look at multi-threaded performance, the Pentium actually comes out on top here.

That Pentium can be overclocked all the way to the moon—and its TDP is practically nothing 😁

Robert Rodriguez2 said:So what? He'll try running games that need an Intel Quad-Core, like Middle-earth or the latest Far Cry...
He won't even be able to launch them...

With an Intel Quad-Core, you can at least manage low settings.

I play Middle-earth without any issues on my Intel Pentium G3258 🙂 Not to mention how much better it'll run once he swaps in an Intel Pentium G3258 😉

From what I can gather, there are actually certain fixes out there that let you run all these modern titles even on a basic dual-core processor. I remember reading somewhere that some guy actually managed to get Far Cry 4 running on an Intel Pentium 4—it was stuttering like crazy, of course, but he technically got it to launch.

Depends on what they plan to play.

Dragon Age: Inquisition just isn't going to run (at all) on a dual-core setup—it looks like even three cores won't cut it. Users are going to run into constant lag and massive frame drops. This is becoming the new norm with modern titles. For a while now, developers have been targeting quad-core processors as the baseline, so honestly, there shouldn't be much of a surprise here.