Piecing Together a Budget PC

[Asciri]

So I've been wanting to build a gaming PC for awhile but the money just hasn't been there. At the moment I'm thinking of getting the AMD A10 6800k CPU and crossfiring with a HD7750 to play skyrim and some modern games, not too crazy though. I was just wondering what anyone thought about the APU and GPU Cross firing set up. My budget is only about $650 so I'm trying to make the most out of it, if anyone could recommend parts or even full builds from parts online id be grateful. Its just going to be for Skyrim, WoW, battlefield (if I can). Thanks for the help!

[Rennn]

Battlefield isn't terribly hard to run, thanks to its awesome engine. I got medium-high settings at 55-60 fps on a single GTX 460, before I upgraded.

Actually, Battlefield 3 is easier to max than Skyrim for many people, due to the fact that Skyrim runs on an awful tweaked engine from 2002.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Rennn

[Asciri]

Well I took a few hours to look at different processors and GPUs, and I came to an extremely odd conclusion. I decided that I was in more of a need for a laptop than another desktop. And to combine my interest for gaming and need for a laptop I'm now looking for something with specs to play skyrim maxed out but in a easy to carry form. I've been looking at a Lenovo y510p and an MSI GE60. Both have i7 CPUs, but the y510p has an SLI setup with two 750m's while the GE60 has a single 765m. And I'm changing my budget to a little over $1,000 for more realistic needs. Maybe $1,000 but $1,100 tops Edited August 24, 2013 by Silver Grace

[Thor.]

That Lenovo got my attention, that is probably the best bang for the buck i have ever seen, especially the specs. :dance:

 

you might want to upgrade the lenovo's hd though, 5200rpm isn't going to cut for gaming, with those laptops you can open the back right up and see the motherboard and everything. I suggest get a 250gb ssd or a 1tb hd sense gaming these days will take up a lot of space.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Thor.

[Asciri]

That Lenovo got my attention, that is probably the best bang for the buck i have ever seen, especially the specs. :dance:

 

you might want to upgrade the lenovo's hd though, 5200rpm isn't going to cut for gaming, with those laptops you can open the back right up and see the motherboard and everything, i suggest get a 250gb ssd or a 1tb hd sense gaming these days will take up a lot of space.

Well I was leaning more towards that one until I saw both notebooks in front of me with fps, and programmed benchmarks and the ge60 rated higher due to compatibility issues with sli and a lot of games supporting it. The 765m actually had a higher frame rate than the sli set up which was a bit odd to me at first. I'm thinking that if I do get the MSI that I'll throw in about 250gb+ sdd in it along with the HDD as there are slots for both.

[freddy_farnsworth]

Kinda at a choice for Laptops, Some have CPU's high end lotsa memory, some have GPU highend, others have good HD's and large monitors, the thing stopping em from getting "It all" is simply power requirements, till some better power source comes along, you stuck with it plugged in somewhere, to do any long play gaming.

 

And a coolpad or somesuch to keep it from blowing up :)

[Thor.]

Tip if you are looking for quality, make sure the heat vents are above near the monitor, next to the keyboard facing upwards.

it makes it so you can use it on your lap without it exploding.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Thor.

[Vindekarr]

Well I took a few hours to look at different processors and GPUs, and I came to an extremely odd conclusion. I decided that I was in more of a need for a laptop than another desktop. And to combine my interest for gaming and need for a laptop I'm now looking for something with specs to play skyrim maxed out but in a easy to carry form. I've been looking at a Lenovo y510p and an MSI GE60. Both have i7 CPUs, but the y510p has an SLI setup with two 750m's while the GE60 has a single 765m. And I'm changing my budget to a little over $1,000 for more realistic needs. Maybe $1,000 but $1,100 tops

 

Which specific currency, BTW? If that's Australian money, you could easily get a top-end gaming laptop from anyone but Alienware. CAD? not sure, probably not. USD? more or less the same bucket as Australia. As for the Lenovo, don't have any experience with that particular model, but we've got some pretty hefty PCs set up at work for handling graphics design, complex 3-D applications, and ECU debugging, they're all Lenovo and we haven't had any problems with them(unless you count someone(Terry) changing the screen background of all of them to the words "dick-butt" last April Fool's)

 

That's also pretty close to the CPU I have in my current rig, which works well for me. My one major recommendation as a former laptop gamer would be look at where the fans are ducted. If I learned anything about engineering, it's that geometry trumps size. Look for a system that's got it's hot components well insulated, and vents that come out on top near the top of the keyboard. If the vents exit downwards, it'll set your genitalia ablaze, which is as my boss would say "sub-optimal"

 

Final tip: Gaming laptops produce a <your expletive here>-ing huge amount of heat. Heat conducts through metal really well, so if you get a chance, flip them over and make sure they've got a plastic/carbon/fibreglass underside, otherwise your crotch will burst into flames if you ever use it as a lap top. I used to have a Hewlett-Packard with a metal lap rest, and live in a desert. You get the picture.

 

Edited August 24, 2013 by Vindekarr

[Thor.]

the ventilation was already mentioned :D, i could consider myself a partial computer engineer, self taught of course :thumbsup:

[Asciri]

Its USD currency, and I avoid alienware at all costs to be honest. Great build quality, though subpar gaming setup compared to laptops set a few hundred dollars less. The GE60 and Y510p both push air out of one side using one fan, but there is another laptop by Gigabyte called the P2542G that has better ventilation but the GPU isn't on the same level as the current gen GE60 or the SLI from the y510p. I could pay $929 for a ge60 without the i7 (it has an i5) because there isn't much of a difference while gaming from what I've seen. Maybe 3-4 fps difference