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What is an affordable gaming desktop?

What parts should I consider when building a gaming desktop?

  • My gaming laptop is going on three years old.   Wanting to build a gaming desktop. Never done it before, but want to know what parts are most important.   Can you also suggest or link me to specific parts that you recommend? EDIT: I'd like to spend $1,000 on it. However, I would not mind going over that assuming the upgrade in gaming performance is worth it with a significant increase.

  • Answer:

    The overall goal in this build is to put the maximum possible performance GPU in an extremely budget friendly build for gaming up to 1440p.   GPU: We're going to spend half of our budget here.... right at the top. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202079 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130951   Why? GPU is going to drive FPS in action oriented games, is going to affect your max resolution and will dictate how far up you can crank your quality settings. Either of those will game just fine at 1440p on high or max settings for most games. Why the Sapphire card? It's one of the top rated R9-290X cards and has a cooling system that manages to not be overly loud (3 fans is good.) Why the EVGA GeForce card? Because EVGA builds some of the best Nvidia GPUs on the market. Are these the best GPUs on the market? No... but they're very, very good GPUs.   CPU: This may be a surprise: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117374&cm_re=pentium_anniversary_edition-_-19-117-374-_-Product   Yes, that's a 2 core, non-hyper threaded Pentium. Not an i3, i5 or i7, a Pentium. It's unlocked. We're going to be taking that thing up to 4.2 Ghz or higher... more on that later. The truth is, most games aren't heavily threaded and don't make use of all of the cores in an i7 or other high end CPU. Save your money.   CPU Cooling: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103179&cm_re=seidon-_-35-103-179-_-Product That's a pretty basic 120mm closed water loop CPU cooler. Much quieter than a pure air cooler. You could go 240mm with a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103181&cm_re=seidon-_-35-103-181-_-Product but I think this is a little overkill as a cooler for our target processor. Still, the price difference isn't great, so if you can afford it, might as well step up.   Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157528 Why this board? Because it was built for our choice CPU and features an auto-overclock for Pentium AE chips to 4.2 GHz (which will be plenty stable with our choice of cooler, really, people are taking the chip well above 4.5) Also... we're going to get more premium sound out of an inexpensive board, which will be good for enjoying the sounds of our enemies exploding :)   Power Supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438025 The power supply may be a little overkill for our build. The Pentium AE sips power, but those GPUs guzzle it. Stepping down to a 650W may work out just fine, or it may not. I'd err on the side of a little extra and EVGA makes really solid hardware.   Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119277&cm_re=n400-_-11-119-277-_-Product Why this case? Because it's inexpensive and it supports 240mm water cooling if we decided on that option. Coolermaster does make a version of it with a window, but I'll be darned if I can find where you can actually buy it.   SSD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148694 Fairly basic here with a solid 240GB SSD. If you have high data storage needs, you could swap this out for a 1TB spinning drive, but the SSD will perform better.   RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233180&leaderboard=1 Nothing shocking here, some very run of the mill gaming ram, 8 is plenty for most gaming applications and you won't see the return on investment for 16 GB on most games. Besides, with an SSD for paging, if you did need to use paging space, you wouldn't take the same hit as you would on a spinning disk.   Total system cost? Just north of $1,000 ($1050ish with my rough math along the way, but then, some of those parts have rebates and I only looked at cost out the door, so you may come in under $1,000 when it's all said and done.)   The goal of this build is really simple: Don't waste money you won't see a benefit from and pour every available cent into a performance video card.   There are other build philosophies. Note: there's no room in that budget for a windows license... if you need one, scale back the GPU a bit. If you want to do things that aren't gaming... you want to edit video or do some 3D graphics work or spend a ton of time in Photoshop... this isn't the build for that.   For many gamers, this is a pure entertainment work horse build. Game. When you're not gaming, you'll still web browse and Netflix and do most other tasks just fine. If you need more computing power, you're going to have to sacrifice a lot of GPU to get a more robust CPU to use... that Pentium AE saves a lot of money in the build. Final note: I've been working in system design for over fifteen years, and many of the above brand selections reflect both my personal bias and professional opinions based on benchmarking data and user reviews. There are plenty of other options for specific parts and I'm reluctant to say X brand is always better than Y brand (with some exceptions.) I'm always happy to answer questions about specific parts and provide links to bench mark data as well.

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You'll want a decent discrete graphics card and decent CPU to compliment it, 1 or 2 notches down from the cremé de la cremé if you can afford. 2 years ago i got an Intel i7 3770K, top end but not the top CPU money could buy, similarly with the graphics card I bought a Gigabyte Windforce x3  NVIDIA 670 GTX card (factory overclocked) there was only the 680 (and 690 which was 2 chips on one board) above it still comfortable with everything i've thrown at it, which over the past few months is not enough but that's having kids for you! I'd say 8GB RAM or more, again don't got cheap nor top of the line unless you have money to burn but at least if you are after DDR3 go for PC3-12800 or faster. Do not scrimp on power supply get a reputable brand an preferrably an 80Plus certified one. Also don't scrimp on motherboard as this gels all the components together ( I bought the ASUS Sabertooth Z77). A case will need adequate ventilation. Ultimately I've always found set your self a price and get the best balance for that price. UPDATE: a quick throw together and I came up with the following: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sCp6P6

Peter Buxton

The most important component for a purely gaming PC is definitely the graphic card. Your question does not indicate that you are a serious gamer, and so I personally feel getting top of the line components just because you can afford it is a waste. Hence I suggest an Nvidia GTX 760 or an AMD R9 270x as your graphic card. The AMD card is around 190$ and the GTX 760 is around 250$. These will serve you well for 1920x1080 gaming at relatively good settings and offer playable frame rates. Next part to be chosen is the processor, and I recommend an Intel i5 processor. This is a quad core processor, and it offers excellent gaming performance. An i7 offers very little benefit over an i5 and is not required. You can get an overclockable processor (4670k or 4690k) for around 230$ and locked ones for 190$. The next part to consider is the motherboard. A good motherboard is important because it is what connects all the components. For the processors I have suggested, you can go for a Z87 or Z97 motherboard, in case you have chosen an overclockable processor. If not, an H87 or H97 will fulfill your requirements. The Z series will cost around 150$ and the H series will be 100$. Manufacturer is a personal preference. I have an MSI mother board and have never had any problems with it. It is totally up to you. You will need 8 GB of RAM for gaming. This will cost around 120$. There is absolutely no need to get RAM with higher clockspeeds for gaming. A 1600 MHz will suit your needs perfectly. Even a 1333 MHz RAM can be used if necessary, without significantly affecting gaming performance. My preferred brand is G.Skill. Corsair is also a brand to consider. The next part is the power supply. It is very important for your safety and the life of your precious components that you don't skimp out in this department. If you have selected the components I have suggested, you will need a 500-550 W PSU. (So you don't have to replace it for 5-6 years). Seasonic and corsair are my brands of choice. The Seasonic S12ii 520 W costs 60$. You can get a decent mid tower case for around 40-50$. Next part to consider is the storage. An SSD is highly recommended to reduce loading times and waiting times. A 120 GB SSD can be bought for 90$.(Samsung 840 EVO). For your media storage, you can get an additional mechanical hard disk of 2-3 TB. Add in a monitor, speakers, keyboard and a mouse based on your preferences. The total comes to be around 1200$ (with the overclockable processor and a GTX 760 and Z97 motherboard). You can go for the alternates suggested and reduce the total by around 150$. This will suit your requirements and I believe it is in your budget. Hope I helped. Edit: John has rightly pointed out that 8 GB of RAM is around 75$. You can get 16 GB for 120$. I apologize for the mistake, and thank John for bringing it to my notice.

Raghu Teja

as consider for my system -NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT 1GB Video Card, play all new games on high quality, at good FPS -4GB of RAM -AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ -500GB HDD http://www.electrocomputerwarehouse.com/shopcontent.asp?type=Desktop+PC+Container stacym861 @http://gmail.com

Stacy Mark

The Pentium G3258 is an excellent choice of CPU for the price.  However, games are now being released (such as Far Cry 4) that will not run at all with less than four cores.  A 4670k/4690k processor will cost you more - probably another £100 in the UK (not sure in dollars?) - but its performance will remain relevant for much longer.

Adam Saint

It's   always best if you build your own system it will run faster and harder   than anything bought brand name (from dell or alienware). you'll need  1. very powerful processor. think intel....think quad core...think intel quad core Qx9770. 2.  RAM. kingston or corsair. browse over to thier site and see what's   available.also key note is to decide if you want DDR2 or DDR3....i   recommend DDR3 3. video card. nvidia for me but you can go with ATI if you desire.      browse over to their sites and see what interests you. also do u want one video card or 2 or even possibly 3 for ultimate gaming supermacy.? 4.a  good motherboard. this is the hardware. run a google search and see   what you like, or tiger direct and new egg ppl can help you here. i recommend the XFX 790i motherboard. 5. size of hard drives and type of dvd burner ...your preferance here 6. casing and power supply....thermaltake is the best. check their site and see what you like. 7 .lastly a basic knowledge on how to build a pc to put thses components together to build your pc. http://www.consumerreviewsbuzz.com/best-gaming-desktops-under-800-reviews/

Cleo Gay

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