Troll'sBuild, $500 Budget High Preformance Gaming Build (No Janky Parts.)

[TrollFaceTheMan]

So hello guys my name is TrollFaceTheMan, I run a YouTube channel with about 22,500 subs. I am looking to share a build that I spent about 5 hours researching and pricing. I do apologize if anything I do in this post is wrong I am new to the site and couldn't find the rule page.

Basically I set out with a goal of building a pretty decent, high quality gaming PC for $500 or below. This is best optimized for Q4 2017-Q1 2018. A special requirement for me though was no Janky Parts. Most of the time people shove in the cheapest, budget parts they can get and they either break or don't work right.

So my prerequisite is any parts I use for this build have to have 4 stars or above for me to use them. So this is what I came up with.

Basically the build is:

-Ryzen 1400 CPU
-MSI B350m Gaming Pro MoBo
-8GBs (2x4Gb) DDR4 3000MHz Viper Elite Ram
-450watt Arc series PSU (Suggested Alternative Seasonic PSU, I like the look of the S12II 620 BRONZE. 34.99 after $15 mail in rebate.)
-SanDisk SSD Plus, 120GB.

-Rosewill Micro ATX Mini Tower Case
-Gigabyte Geforce 1050 (Suggested alternative by Deerling7, EVGA 1050 Ti)


When priced it came out to $450. (Good to spend the left over cash on a HDD me thinks.)

I think for what it cost it's a pretty solid build though I bet others might still be able to shave off a few more bucks if price checking multiple sites.

My eyes want to bleed from how long I had to stare at a computer screen over this XD

Now another thing I did in this time was type up a huge blog post. Talking about the Parts, showing the Prices and why I chose them along with Some Recommendations.

If anyone is interested I really can use some feedback on my post such as checks for spelling mistakes or suggestions on how to make future post better. I also have links to all the parts on the page so anyone can check the prices and pick up the parts if they want.

Figured that way it'd be pretty convenient. The post is on my BlogSpot page and is my first one, you can find it here:

https://trollfacetheman.blogspot.com/2017/11/500-budget-high-preformance-gaming.html

If people like the build I think I might be up for trying my hand at making a $1,000 budget build. Please let me know what you guys all think. And please drop a comment if you have any questions

Edited November 13, 2017 by TrollFaceTheMan

[TrollFaceTheMan]

Oh shoot... Misspelling in the title... Can't edit it... Anyone know how?

[FMod]

IDK if 22k subs is a lot or not, but presumably it pays enough to get a more than $450 PC - most people pay more for their cell phone.

Also, the prerequisite of parts having a set number of "stars" on probably some shopping site is silly. They're just random people's opinions. Stars are more often given for features, not actual experience. Reliability is different to predict these days, and you have to look at reviews to get some idea.

 

The budget is so tight, you can't make a versatile build. You have to optimize for a specific game or set of games. And the specific resolution you'll be using.

If you're in the US, or one of the other supported countries, pcpartpicker.com is the best way to price your build. It lets you compare similar options, account for special offers, etc, to get the best price.

 

As for feedback on the post: part descriptions looks like they were written by a novice marketing copywriter. IDK about others, my brain is well trained to filter out such claims. Since you're not actually selling that stuff (and it would be even more applicable if you were), why not write facts instead of generic praise?

Like, say, link to a test that shows how well a given card or CPU or something actually performs, cite a few best and worst points, etc.

[TrollFaceTheMan]

IDK if 22k subs is a lot or not, but presumably it pays enough to get a more than $450 PC...

 

This is not for me, and this statement implies you didn't thoroughly read my post. Also you don't earn money off subs, you earn it off views. And trust me when I say I make next to nothing.

 

Also, the prerequisite of parts having a set number of "stars" on probably some shopping site is silly. They're just random people's opinions. Stars are more often given for features, not actual experience. Reliability is different to predict these days, and you have to look at reviews to get some idea.

 

It really isn't silly, we aren't just looking at 'Some shopping site' the parts all came from Amazon meaning reviews on them were legitimate. And stars correlate to the satisfaction of a product. You don't think a product is going to have a low star count if it is prone to fail quickly? Someone isn't going to go "I liked this product and even though it failed in a month I'm going to give it five stars for it's features..."

 

Or "This products is cool and even though it was Dead on Arrival I'm going to give it 4 stars because of all the features it had that I could of used..." That would be just completely absurd.

 

All the parts I used excluding the RAM have several hundreds if some thousands of reviews that average 4 stars or above, and once again all from Amazon which are legitimate. I trust that 1000xs more than some part that has 50 reviews and averages 3 stars. Because if you look, like for example at the motherboards having low average stars that I checked out, they fail quick or come Dead on Arrival or simply do not have the firmware to support what they are supposed to support.

 

$450 PC - most people pay more for their cell phone... The budget is so tight, you can't make a versatile build. You have to optimize for a specific game or set of games. And the specific resolution you'll be using...

 

I don't get how you can even claim this isn't versatile, it literally is a quad core with 8 threads at 3.4 GHz and easily overclockable to 3.8-3.9. 8Gigs DDR4 RAM (Ideal would have course be 16.) An SSD, a 1050 graphics card, along with a Solid Mother board and PSU. Also the about $50 bucks left in the budget can be used to get a HDD or to upgrade the SSD to 250GB if the person wants to. That is pretty dang versatile if you ask me, it'll have an excellent balance between single-core processes and multi-core, plus be great for gaming at 1080p.

 

Also you say "Most people pay more than $450 on a phone..." That's great for them if they can afford that, many people such as myself have a $100 dollar phone (ZTE zMAX Pro) because we can't afford to blow a ton of money on something like that.

 

Which brings me to the next thing, I think you are missing the point of all this. The idea of this post is specifically building the best PC you can on a tight budget. $500 is an extremely common price that many people shot for when building their first PC, so this post gives the best possible build I could come with at the time for $500.

 

The good thing about this though Is it's only a suggestion, if people want to increase their budget to let's say $600 they can swap out parts and upgrade as they see fit. I even wrote suggestions on the bottom of the post saying some of the changes I suggest making such as Upgrading the PSU and Getting a 1 TB HDD.

 

If you're in the US, or one of the other supported countries, pcpartpicker.com is the best way to price your build. It lets you compare similar options, account for special offers, etc, to get the best price.

 

Pcpartpicker in my opinion is a great starting point but not where you should finish a build, a lot of times I've encountered errors in pricing on the site saying parts are much cheaper or more expensive than what they actually are, or worse yet the prices don't even show up. Or a lot of times they don't take things like Mail in Rebates into consideration. And when it comes to possible deals with bundled parts... Well that isn't the best either.

 

But that aside like I said It is a good way to start a build, as for the actual price hunting of parts I suggest doing that manually. I also want to point out that stated right in the start of my post I suggest people to shop around at different sources to get the best deal.

 

Only reason I used Amazon was because between it and Newegg, the build was something like $20 cheaper when I compared the two. But sourcing some parts from both sites would potentially save you even more.

 

As for feedback on the post: part descriptions looks like they were written by a novice marketing copywriter. IDK about others, my brain is well trained to filter out such claims. Since you're not actually selling that stuff (and it would be even more applicable if you were), why not write facts instead of generic praise? Like, say, link to a test that shows how well a given card or CPU or something actually performs, cite a few best and worst points, etc.

 

This I agree with partially, what I agree with is I definitely could use some sourcing on performance claims and such and I will look into adding it in a bit. But as for generic praise I think that is something that is impossible to avoid having without sounding like a robot...

 

If I think a product is good and I think it is worth recommending I am going to be excited talking about its features even if nobody might understand what it means. For example I could talk about the I9 Skylake's 14nm architecture being a good thing over Hanswell's 22nm architecture because it means less voltage leakage and more power packed onto a smaller chip.

 

That would be considered General Praise and though I could go into a huge in depth explanation about it, the truth is most people wont know what nm architecture means and a majority wont actually care. And for the few that do It's a quick google away. If I went into factual explanations on every thing I talk about instead of just general praise as you said then the post would be 5x longer.

 

And seeing as this specific post is targeted at people looking to build a super cheap budget PCs, they probably aren't die hard computer junkies and most likely wont care much to read it anyways. I think what you are saying will be better in future post where I write stuff more targeted at an advanced user base.

 

But like I said I still agree I should get some performance numbers up and I will look into adding some along with sources shortly. Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it.

 

[TrollFaceTheMan]

Since I was brought up my computer specs are:

-Hex core, 12 thread, I7 4930k, Overclocked from 3.4GHz to 4.3GHz with H105 Closed Loop Liquid Cooling.
-64GB DDR3 1666 RAM, Ballistix
-X-79 Deluxe MoBo
-Samsung 850 pro SSD, 256GB (Boot Drive)
-3x Geforce 960's, Factory overclock

-EVGA 750w, 80 Gold Plus PSU
-2x, 1TB 7,200 RPM HDD's (One recording other general storage.)
-4TB HGST 7,200 RPM HDD (Backup drive.)

Built it about 4 years ago for my YouTube channel, could probably rebuild it for half the price now...

But like I said the build in the post definitely isn't for me. Though if I was doing a first build I would totally do the one I composed, however with probably a few slight modifications. For example personally I'd likely go with a $600 budget, get a 250GB SSD, 1TB HDD and a better Heatsink for Overclocking and maybe a slightly higher PSU if I could squeeze it in.

[FMod]

I'm glad they are better than the former. I actually figured the build wasn't for you halfway through reading your blog post, but decided not to edit out the initial statement. It still carries a point... are you comfortable advising people to build something you won't and wouldn't build yourself?

 

To be brutally honest - since we're not discussing a mod - your first ($450) build is better optimized for the money than your actual home build. The latter has several mistakes in it (yes, accounting for it being a 2013 one). The former is actually OK.

 

 

Now, I'll briefly go over your key points. And sorry for not being diplomatic here - I would if you were doing it for yourself - but if you're giving out advice, you open yourself up to being held to a higher standard.

 

 

Or "This products is cool and even though it was Dead on Arrival I'm going to give it 4 stars because of all the features it had that I could of used..." That would be just completely absurd.

From this statement, one might conclude you don't know how shopping site ratings work. It's not 4 stars because everyone gave it 4 stars. It's 4 stars from 400 people who gave it 5 stars for no reason other than that it wasn't DOA, and 100 people who gave it 1 star because they had some deviation - be it DOA or a poorly marked USB 3.1 slot - from their expectations.

 

So, to reiterate, shopping site reviews are meaningless when it comes to complex hardware like computer parts. They tell a $5 chinese knockoff that works apart from a $5 chinese knockoff that doesn't. They don't tell the subtle difference between two $100 components from major brands that both work, but differ in something specific few people are aware of.

 

 

 

The idea of this post is specifically building the best PC you can on a tight budget.

This is sadly impossible. It's easy to come up with the best PC for $5,000, but there is no one best build for everyone at $500.

 

* A budget gaming PC doesn't need a SSD. If all that fits on your SSD is Windows (and with a 120 GB, that is the case), then all it helps is Windows startup. And it's only a few seconds on laptops; on desktops, it's not. I have one of the fastest SSD money can buy (960 Pro)... my time from Reset to game splash screen is 1 minute from the 960, and 1.5 minutes from an 8 TB SMR drive. The only time these 30 seconds matters is when my PC freezes in the middle of a MMO raid and I have to get back in.

 

* The GPU you've suggested is underpowered. It's fine for people who want to revisit PC/PS3/xb360 multiplatform games - the 1050 can handle everything stuff called for, at 1080p. It's woefully lacking for all but the least-demanding Xbone/PS4 era games.

 

Back to brutal honesty?

There are 3 optimal builds at the $500 level, depending on what you want to do:

- Work and light gaming: SSD only, i3 8100 or Ryzen CPU, any GPU

- Older games in high quality: HDD or SSD+old HDD, Intel CPU, low RAM, Nvidia GPU

- Future games in low quality: HDD, quad-core Ryzen CPU, more RAM, AMD GPU

 

All in all, you've really suggested a great PC for work and light gaming.

 

SSD+HDD is no longer a practical combo at this price point - buying a tiny SSD and a tiny HDD takes away too much economy of scale. There's too little budget to spread it over one more part, and internet speeds are coming close to the low end of hard drives for backup storage. Also, Windows 10 works great with HDD, far better than 7 and XP, there's so much caching and all that half the sessions you don't even notice you're on a mechanical drive. For a gamer especially, it's better to wait 3 minutes for game load and get 50 fps for an hour than to wait 2 minutes and get 35 fps for an hour. Especially when that 2 vs 3 minute difference will only apply to that one single game that fits on a 120 GB SSD alongside Windows, and not every game will at all.

 

 

I think what you are saying will be better in future post where I write stuff more targeted at an advanced user base.

It's your post. But really, the same rules apply for any user base. Unless you're trying to sell something (and sell it to idiots, to boot), you're better off telling people the real ups and downs of an item, or telling something else informative, not copying/retelling advertising blurbs. Forgive my lack of excitement; for me, most of that stuff would be something to toss in a box and ask around the department if anyone wants it before I send it straight to IT.

[TrollFaceTheMan]

It still carries a point... are you comfortable advising people to build something you won't and wouldn't build yourself? To be brutally honest - since we're not discussing a mod - your first ($450) build is better optimized for the money than your actual home build. The latter has several mistakes in it (yes, accounting for it being a 2013 one)....

 

And sorry for not being diplomatic here - I would if you were doing it for yourself - but if you're giving out advice, you open yourself up to being held to a higher standard...

 

You know what I was trying to be nice... But to be honest your first comment came off as very pretentious and condescending and this one is even worse. So simple thing, you don't want to be diplomatic in doing this? Then that's great neither do I have to be then, so let's start...

 

First off I just told you I'd build it myself so that point is completely mute...

 

Then implying that I would have to build it to recommend it is completely asinine. If you believe that then go around to any Tom's hardware build guides and complain to all of them too because not one of them actually makes the PC builds they recommend, unless there is a specific need to test a specific rig. It's all theoretical build they comprise based on price.

 

As for you telling me my home build isn't the most optimized for money... You don't say..? I used a freaking i7-4930k, you are talking about an X series processor. Basically the Flagships of the CPU world... You think I would believe that it was the best value for the money..?

 

That is like you telling a Ferrari owner “You know that for the price of that Ferrari you could of bought 4 Sedans so that Ferrari isn't the best value because you could have had 4 vehicles for the price of one...”

 

You think the Ferrari owner doesn't realize that..? Do you think the Ferrari owner cares..? No... The Ferrari owner bought a Ferrari because they wanted one or they needed one for a specific purpose.

 

Also you tell me my build has “Several Mistakes in it” I'd love to hear what those are... I'll have no problem proving you wrong on it with pics if you don't believe me.

 

“From this statement, one might conclude you don't know how shopping site ratings work. It's not 4 stars because everyone gave it 4 stars. It's 4 stars from 400 people who gave it 5 stars for no reason other than that it wasn't DOA, and 100 people who gave it 1 star because they had some deviation - be it DOA or a poorly marked USB 3.1 slot - from their expectations.”

'From this comment, one might conclude you have terrible reading comprehension...' Or simply just are skimming through everything instead of actually reading it... I'll refer to a quote of myself above...

 

“All the parts I used excluding the RAM have several hundreds if some thousands of reviews that *AVERAGE* 4 stars or above, and once again all from Amazon which are legitimate.”

 

Then I am going to quote you again...

 

“It's 4 stars from 400 people who gave it 5 stars for no reason other than that it wasn't DOA, and 100 people who gave it 1 star because they had some deviation - be it DOA or a poorly marked USB 3.1 slot - from their expectations.”

First of this makes no sense... Your telling me right now out of 500 reviews, 400 hundred of them are just going to be people giving 5 stars for no reason and 100 stars for some minor reason... And your the one telling me I don't understand how shopping sites work... Here is a simple formula.

 

Product Good, Work Right, Last Long = More Stars

 

Product Bad, Don't Work, Break Quick = Less Stars

 

If a product has a lot of Stars with a significant enough sample group then we can assume that it Is Useful and of Good Quality, it works right for what it's supposed to, and doesn't break in an unreasonable amount of time... Or in the least the value is enough to make up for for any trade-offs.

 

If the product has a low star count with a significant enough sample group we can assume this it is Not very useful or of Poor quality, it doesn't work right for what it is supposed to, or it breaks in an unreasonable amount of time... Or in the least the price you pay isn't low enough to make up for its short comings...

 

I mean right now you are trying to tell me with your logic that I should trust a product with 100 reviews and just average of 1.5 stars just as much or if not more than a product with 100 reviews and a almost perfect 4.75 stars... You can't get much more absurd then that...

 

“It's easy to come up with the best PC for $5,000, but there is no one best build for everyone at $500.”

 

I'm actually going to do that childish nitpicking thing you keep doing

 

'Well actually no!! It's not easy to come up with the best PC imaginable for $5,000 dollars FMod... Don't you realize everyone's needs are different!! Someone might want to optimize a build to do one specific thing so that five thousand dollars might not be enough!! And you claiming that you can build a 'Best PC' for that price is actually not true because... Blah... Blah... Blah...”

 

That's really all you are doing at this point, nothing but nitpicking and not even in a reasonable way... You are telling me “Oh somebody might have a slightly different need than what your PC has to offer so because of that your whole post is garbage...”

 

And once again this comes down to your reading comprehension and I quote myself again:

 

“$500 is an extremely common price that many people shot for when building their first PC, so this post gives the best possible build *I COULD* come up with at the time for $500.”

That fact I say “I could come up with” right there makes your whole point about “It's not optimized for everyone ever, to do everything ever so it can't possibly be the best...” Completely mute... (Which once again without even that, the point is ridiculous in the first place...)

 

“A budget gaming PC doesn't need a SSD. If all that fits on your SSD is Windows (and with a 120 GB, that is the case), then all it helps is Windows startup. And it's only a few seconds on laptops; on desktops, it's not.”

 

Completely wrong, first off win 10 is only 20GB, let's give it 40GB just to be safe. That's still about 80GBs you can install plenty of games on. Most games except super new ones are typically 6GB or under.

 

And once again reading comprehension here... I specifically say in the post:

 

“The 120GB will be plenty for most gamers that stick with a few games at a time, like COD, Battlefield, League of Legends or such. But a few large games like Grand Theft Auto 5 will eat through the space rather quickly.”

 

Have you even read anything at all in the post or my comments, because so far what you keep saying is either complaining about me not addressing things I've already addressed or grossly misinterpreting things I've very clearly said to something nothing like I've said.

 

The other thing is you saying an SSD only boots up Windows “Only a few seconds faster...” Are you kidding me? On average over a 7,200 RPM HDD the time it speeds up boot is between 20-40 seconds. If you are using a slow 5,400RPM drive like in laptops you see even better performance.

 

My computer went from a minute and a half boot to about 10 seconds since installing my SSD. That's way more than a 'Few Seconds...'

 

Also It wouldn't “Just help Windows...” Even if applications are on other drives any time they need to access anything like windows files on you SSD they will see a performance boost from that. And windows itself will see less general lagging from drive access because it is not being bottle-necked.

 

"The GPU you've suggested is underpowered. It's fine for people who want to revisit PC/PS3/xb360 multiplatform games - the 1050 can handle everything stuff called for, at 1080p. It's woefully lacking for all but the least-demanding Xbone/PS4 era games."

 

Seriously..? What in the world don't you understand about a budget build!? You say the 1050 is 'Underpowerd...' Compared to what!? The 1080ti!? A $800 graphics card!! Of course it is, why don't you call up the freaking news and tell them you have the story of the century...

 

It's a $110-$120 graphics card what do you expect!? Once again this is a “BUDGET BUILD!!”

 

Next you'll be trying to tell me a $30 flip phone is 'Underpowered' compared to a $1000 IPhone... But who could belive that..?

 

“Back to brutal honesty?

There are 3 optimal builds at the $500 level, depending on what you want to do:

- Work and light gaming: SSD only, i3 8100 or Ryzen CPU, any GPU

- Older games in high quality: HDD or SSD+old HDD, Intel CPU, low RAM, Nvidia GPU

- Future games in low quality: HDD, quad-core Ryzen CPU, more RAM, AMD GPU”

 

Here is your 'Brutal Honesty...' It's obvious from right here you have no clue what you are talking about... You literally only named one part for 3 builds then just brand names for the rest and called them “Optimal Builds." The absurdity of it is you are laughably criticizing my in depth build so much when that is what you offer in comparison!?

 

For build two on your 'List' all you literally said is you need an “Intel CPU..?” Oh that's great then, I should be able to just put an old Pentuim 2 Clocked at 66MHz and slap it in there and it'll work well...

 

Oh I also forgot the other requirement you listed is a Nvidia GPU..? Sweet I'll just bust out my old GeForce 6200 and install it too... Because according to your magic formula that is all you need for an "Optimized Rig for playing older games in high quality..."

 

Oh and what about “Quad-core Ryzen CPU, more RAM, AMD GPU...” Get out of here with that BS... Do you even know about clock speed and how they affect performance..? What about how core counts are utilized or threads..? You say you need more RAM..?

 

Most games still only use a 32 bit architecture meaning no matter how much RAM you have in it does nothing. The can only use at max 4GBs.

 

Now onto the next thing...

 

"SSD+HDD is no longer a practical combo at this price point - buying a tiny SSD and a tiny HDD takes away too much economy of scale."

 

Really..? I suggested a 1TB HDD, how in the world is that 'Tiny..?” Is this another case of poor reading or are you just crazy..? And even still many gaming computers you get in store tends to only come with a 500GB one.

 

I deal with RAW footage and archiving videos and I have used up maybe 1.5TB in 4 years... Almost nobody is going to come even close to that.

 

“Forgive my lack of excitement; for me, most of that stuff would be something to toss in a box and ask around the department if anyone wants it before I send it straight to IT.”

So you'd throw a brand new Ryzen 1400 chip, brand new DDR4 Motherboard, 8GBs of 3000Mhz DDR4 Ram and Brand new, 450w PSU in a box and turn it over to IT...

 

You can just get out of here with you BS. Honestly everything you've said here has giving me nothing but the implication that you know next to nothing about computers but you wish to pretend you do.

 

You also don't posses a basic ability to read something thoroughly or you really just like to try and put words into others mouths. And you have a serious problem with acting condescendingly towards others as you blab about stuff you apparently know little about.

 

This whole thing has been an extreme waste of my time, and I have no further wish to continuing arguing with you.

 

[FMod]

As for you telling me my home build isn't the most optimized for money... You don't say..? I used a freaking i7-4930k, you are talking about an X series processor. Basically the Flagships of the CPU world... You think I would believe that it was the best value for the money..?

Also you tell me my build has “Several Mistakes in it” I'd love to hear what those are...

The 4930K isn't the unoptimized part. That CPU was great value for the money, I ran the same model myself. It was a no-brainer when Haswell flopped.

 

I was referring primarily to using 3x960 instead of 2x980 or 980Ti. There's no rational reason to do so, two faster cards are always better than three slower ones.

Not sure what your reason for 64 GB RAM was. That much memory is used in rendering and FEA, do you run a ramdisk for video editing or something?

Even in 2013, SSD capacity was cheap enough to get more flash storage, which easily beats having multiple HDD.

 

Don't know your exact use case, but for most people a more practical late 2013 build with an early 2015 GPU upgrade would be 16 GB RAM (optionally upped to 32 in '15), 980Ti, 2x480 GB SSD (first '13, second '15), same 4 TB HDD.

 

I couldn't find a 3x960 benchmark, BTW - you could totally fill that gap and do one. Based on known SLI scaling for the 900 series, I'd expect them to just edge out a single 980Ti in FLOPS-hungry games and stay just behind in VRAM-hungry games.

 

 

Here is a simple formula.

Product Good, Work Right, Last Long = More Stars

Product Bad, Don't Work, Break Quick = Less Stars

That's not how it works. Most ratings are given on either day 1 of use, or on the day the product breaks. People don't wait 3 years to give a 4.5-star review, but only if the product lasts that long; they'll have long forgotten about their purchase by then.

 

So it's more like:

User likes everything on day 1 = 5 stars

User doesn't like something or product breaks = 1 star

 

There's only a small number of users that go into any more detail, and they don't make the overall rating.

And failure rates today are small at a few % and quite similar across brands and products.

 

 

I mean right now you are trying to tell me with your logic that I should trust a product with 100 reviews and just average of 1.5 stars just as much or if not more than a product with 100 reviews and a almost perfect 4.75 stars...

No. I'm telling you that you should trust a product with 1 review over both of the above - if that review is good and comes from TPU, SPCR, HardOCP, or a similarly reputable website.

 

 

Completely wrong, first off win 10 is only 20GB, let's give it 40GB just to be safe. That's still about 80GBs you can install plenty of games on. Most games except super new ones are typically 6GB or under.

That's on day 1. Install some general applications, fill up your user folders, let it do a big update once or twice, and you're looking closer to 60 GB taken up on your system drive.

You want to keep at least 10%-15% free at all times, so that leaves just 40-50 GB for your games...

 

...or, as of 2017, your game. XCOM2 is 36 GB, Bioshock Infinite is 40 GB, ME: Andromeda is 50 GB, Deus Ex: MD is 55 GB, GTA V is 60 GB.

Even indies aren't small anymore - DFC is 20 GB, SRHK is 12 GB, South Park is 16 GB. South Park!

Hence my recommendations above: at this tight a budget, SSD for old games, but HDD for new games. SSD are great for general computing comfort, but they don't help much with game framerates.

 

 

And once again reading comprehension here... I specifically say in the post:

“The 120GB will be plenty for most gamers that stick with a few games at a time, like COD, Battlefield, League of Legends or such. But a few large games like Grand Theft Auto 5 will eat through the space rather quickly.”

And I felt like that statement needs to be corrected.

"A few large games like GTA5" won't "eat through the space rather quickly" - a few of them won't fit at all.

 

 

Seriously..? What in the world don't you understand about a budget build!? You say the 1050 is 'Underpowerd...' Compared to what!?

It's a $110-$120 graphics card what do you expect!? Once again this is a “BUDGET BUILD!!”

If it's for gaming, drop the tiny SSD and get a better GPU. Every little bit helps here.

 

You want more gaming-oriented builds around $500? Here comes:

$480 - https://pcpartpicker.com/user/FMod/saved/KR6qkL

If at all possible, one should stretch to $527 and get this - https://pcpartpicker.com/user/FMod/saved/dc7pbv

 

Alternately, if it's a general purpose PC, not just a gaming one, then a SSD is called for. A SSD build is also doable.

With the same 1050Ti, that would be just about $500 - https://pcpartpicker.com/user/FMod/saved/prfFdC

 

With even less emphasis on gaming, it can be $486 with a slightly better SSD - https://pcpartpicker.com/user/FMod/saved/pnrYrH

RX560 vs 1050 is a tough choice. The 560 is a couple % slower, but its 4 GB will handle any game at reduced settings for years to come, and its Freesync keeps games playable at lower framerates with a compatible display. If one prefers higher quality in older games over future-proofing, however, the 1050 is better.

You can spend the remaining $14 on the PSU - https://pcpartpicker.com/user/FMod/saved/4ksnnQ (BTW: your suggested PSU upgrade is a bit expensive, and it's still only a Bronze unit. At $50 one can get a 80+ Gold PSU: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817153198. Yes, it's a special, but there's a special every day.)

 

Or stretch to $520 and get the best of both worlds - https://pcpartpicker.com/user/FMod/saved/PqgQVn

Note that this comes with a 275 GB SSD that is actually useful for more than just Windows plus one game. It still requires a good internet connection - but at least you'll be able to play Game A while Steam's installing Game B, not sit waiting for it.

Edited November 12, 2017 by FMod

[TrollFaceTheMan]

 

As for you telling me my home build isn't the most optimized for money... You don't say..? I used a freaking i7-4930k, you are talking about an X series processor. Basically the Flagships of the CPU world... You think I would believe that it was the best value for the money..?

Also you tell me my build has “Several Mistakes in it” I'd love to hear what those are...

The 4930K isn't the unoptimized part. That CPU was great value for the money, I ran the same model myself. It was a no-brainer when Haswell flopped.

 

I was referring primarily to using 3x960 instead of 2x980 or 980Ti. There's no rational reason to do so, two faster cards are always better than three slower ones.

Not sure what your reason for 64 GB RAM was. That much memory is used in rendering and FEA, do you run a ramdisk for video editing or something?

Even in 2013, SSD capacity was cheap enough to get more flash storage, which easily beats having multiple HDD.

 

Don't know your exact use case, but for most people a more practical late 2013 build with an early 2015 GPU upgrade would be 16 GB RAM (optionally upped to 32 in '15), 980Ti, 2x480 GB SSD (first '13, second '15), same 4 TB HDD.

 

I couldn't find a 3x960 benchmark, BTW - you could totally fill that gap and do one. Based on known SLI scaling for the 900 series, I'd expect them to just edge out a single 980Ti in FLOPS-hungry games and stay just behind in VRAM-hungry games.

 

See this right here is why I am not even going to bother responding to the rest of your comment. I "Should of bought two 980 Tis instead of 3x 360s because they would perform better?"

 

Let's take a second and do the math... 980ti release price $649, 960 release price $199...

 

So at the time of buying the 960s they were $180, the 980 Tis were. So 3x 960s = $540, 2x 980 ti = $1200.

 

So once again what in the world do you not understand about money and budget..? Some how according to you I am supposed to magically have had an extra $660 that day to of gotten two 980 Tis instead..?

 

Are you loaded and just assume that everyone else is..? Because it seems that you have absolutely no grasp on the fact people can't just spend and unlimited amount of money on a computer anytime.

 

64Gbs is because I do both video rendering and 3d rendering for Blender, though I will say I made a mistake with the 960s because though they all work independently to render in the program they use a max pool of RAM equivalent to one GPU.

 

Also 960s only SLI two way and SLI performance is S*** anyways, this wasn't bought for games. This was bought to primarily render stuff in Blender and as I've said each graphic card acts independently rendering chucks of a frame in the program.

 

And you saying the 4930k is a "Great value for the" is also simply not true. It has a price to value ratio of about 23, which is about 3x less than the FX-6300, FX-8530 and significantly worse than the I7 2600, I7 6700k and the I7 3770. To name just a few CPUs.

 

The price performance is so low the the CPU doesn't even make it into a list of top 100 ranking of Price to Performance CPUs.

[FMod]

One 980Ti, not dual. Yes, one 980Ti or 2x970 would've made for a much better setup.

 

The 4930k's PP is only lacking in a straight CPU vs CPU comparison. If you needed more than 4 cores, it was the only option that made sense, and, in a full system comparison, the premium was reasonable. Of course quad-cores have always been more cost-effective in absolute terms. Anyway, unrelated to the thread subject.