Cheap Gaming PC - Input Wanted

[jluksetich]

I am planning on using this set up for gaming. I'll more than likely be buying these parts from Newegg. Going for an Intel setup. I'm really only upgrading a few things, so I'll still be using my stock optical drive, two HDDs, 580w HiPro PSU, and PNY nVidia GTS 250 video card. I do plan to do a medium overclock, nothing too crazy. I plan to be gaming at 1920x1080 resolution. I'll be building this within the next two weeks. I currently play WoW and plan to play other PC games such as Dawn of War II and the Total War series. How much of an improvement will I see just replacing the CPU/Mobo? Any suggestions?

-- Feel free to suggest different parts out of the ones that I'm currently planning on buying.

The parts I currently have picked out are:

Case: COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119196

Mobo: BIOSTAR TP67B+ LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138298

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115072

Heatsink: Tuniq CR-T120-EX-SV 120mm Magnetic Fluid Dynamic Bearing Tower Extreme CPU Cooler Rev1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835154014

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBXL

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231426

 

[mnewsham]

Cheaper HSF.
Cheaper case.

Your GPU isnt really a gaming GPU. And your HDD's are probably older and not very good, if you have the budget pick up a SAMSUNG F3 1TB


I cant tell you how much improvement you will see because i dont know what you are currently running.

 

[jluksetich]

Sorry about that--

I'm currently running a POS Dell Intel Celeron 440 @ 2.00 GHz

 

[mnewsham]

Well you should see a very large improvment your GPU and HDD's are going to be your bottlenecks however.

 

[jluksetich]

I'm currently using a stock HDD and

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148395

I'll just putting my OS and any games on that HDD.

 

[mnewsham]

Anything but a Solid State Drive will be a bottle neck when it comes to storage.

And the GPU should be replaced within the year for continued gaming at 1920x1080

 

[mfenn]

Cheaper HSF.
Cheaper case.

Your GPU isnt really a gaming GPU. And your HDD's are probably older and not very good, if you have the budget pick up a SAMSUNG F3 1TB


I cant tell you how much improvement you will see because i dont know what you are currently running.

Well you should see a very large improvment your GPU and HDD's are going to be your bottlenecks however.

Anything but a Solid State Drive will be a bottle neck when it comes to storage.

And the GPU should be replaced within the year for continued gaming at 1920x1080

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: Great advice, as always.

 

[bigbubba3]

For gaming alone your CPU is going to far outpower your GPU, which means you should plan on buying a new GPU. Since this is a cheap gaming pc i would suggest you change a few parts. A different CPU to start with

For example a core i3 2120 ($150)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115077

The i3 is still fast on single threaded games (most games) and also still has the potential to overclock like all the other sandy bridge, because it sucks less juice its also far more thermally efficient, which means you don't need to buy a $50 cpu cooler.

I would suggest an arctic cooling freeze http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...c%20freeze which is $20 cheaper.

Also if its a simple gaming computer I would buy a smaller and less expensive mobo.
Gibabyte GA H61M http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128482 this is $85 which is currently $45 cheaper.
An asus p8h67 is also a great option. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131713 This is assuming you won't be doing any Crossfire or SLI set up.

Newegg right now has a combo deal with the i3 2120 and Sapphire 6850 which would be perfect for 1920x1080

So if you did a build with the i3 2120, arctic freeze cooler, gigabyte mobo and 6850 plus the RAM and case you would be looking at $600 before tax and shipping

However if you stuck with your build it would be $589 before tax and shipping. The main difference between the two is that that your build would struggle to play any recent games.