Feb. 2014
An exercise in budget computing is to build a computer that will give acceptable gaming performance for under $1000. In the past year we have seen hard drive prices skyrocket, then come back down to near normal pricing, SSD drives have steadily dropped in price and increased in capacity, and DDR3 RAM has taken a sharp spike upwards in price compared to early 2013. Continued weakness in the Canadian dollar has made everything 8 – 10% more expensive.
The component that has the largest impact on performance in a gaming computer is the video card, so compromises will have to me made in the area of CPU and hard drives. The best bang for the buck on CPUs will be with an entry level Intel Core i5 CPU or a 6-core or 8-core AMD FX series CPU. For the cheapest possible machine, an AMD FM2 A8 or A10 APU could be used, but that sacrifices CPU power and affects gameplay. Here are suggested configurations at about the $1000 price point (before tax, Canadian dollars, current to Feb 22 2014) In all of the configurations, we have gone with motherboards that have:
- two PCI-e video card slots compatible with Crossfire (or SLI) for future acceleration
- USB 3.0 on board
- SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) on board
- Gigabit Ethernet (1000BT)
- 4 RAM sockets with overclocked DDR3 capability
AMD FX 8-Core system. In brute computing performance using all cores, the 3.5 GHz AMD 8 core FX-8320 outperforms the Intel i5-4440
| Case | Coolermaster Force 500 | CSE-FOR500KR500 | 83 | |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte | GA-970A-DS3P | 91 | |
| Power supply | 500W included with case | |||
| Hard drive | Seagate 500 GB 7200 RPM | ST500DM002 | 60 | |
| Memory | DDR3-1600 CL9 8 GB (2x4GB DIMM) | BLS2KIT4G3D1609DS1S00 | 108 | |
| CPU | AMD FX-8320 8 core 3.5 GHz / 4.0 GHz boost | FD8320FRHKBOX | 194 | |
| Optical drive | Asus | DRW-24F1ST/BLK/B/AS | 20 | |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Coolermaster CMStorm Devastator combo | SGB-3010-KKMF1-US | 33 | |
| Additional Fan | 120mm (one included with case) | 11 | ||
| Video card | Asus R7 260X 2GB OC | R7260X-DC2OC-2GD5 Overclocked, with 2 GB of video memory | 168 | |
| OS | Windows 8.1 OEM | WN7-00615 | 116 | |
| Cooler | Stock cooler | Included with CPU | ||
| TOTAL | before tax, shipping and assembly | $884 | ||
| Options | ||||
| Cooler for overclocking | Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO | RR-212E-20PK-R1 | 32 | |
| SSD drive | Samsung 840EVO 120 GB | MZ-7TE120BW | 122 | |
Intel 4 core system
| Case | Coolermaster Force 500 | CSE-FOR500KR500 | 83 |
| Motherboard | ASI 4*DDR VGA DVI HDMI Main Board | ASUS B85M-E/CSM | 96 |
| Power supply | 500W included with case | ||
| Hard drive | Seagate 500 GB Barracuda 7200 RPM | ST500DM002 | 60 |
| Memory | DDR3-1600 CL9 8 GB (2x4GB DIMM) | BLS2KIT4G3D1609DS1S00 | 108 |
| CPU | Intel i5-4440 3.1 GHz 4 core / 3.3 GHz boost | BX80646I54440 | 227 |
| Optical drive | Asus DVD-RW | DRW-24F1ST/BLK/B/AS | 20 |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Coolermaster CMStorm Devastator combo | SGB-3010-KKMF1-US | 33 |
| Additional Fan | 120mm (one included with case) | 11 | |
| Video card | Asus Radeon R260X 2GB Overclock | R7260X-DC2OC-2GD5 | 168 |
| OS | Windows 8.1 OEM | WN7-00615 | 116 |
| Cooler | Stock cooler | ||
| TOTAL | before tax, shipping and assembly | $922 |
| Options | ||||
| Cooler for overclocking | Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO | RR-212E-20PK-R1 | 32 | |
| SSD drive | Samsung 840EVO 120 GB | MZ-7TE120BW | 122 |
The video card is the obvious first step to upgrade beyond the basic level, the next step up from the R7 260 is the GeForce GTX660. Although these are getting scarcer with the GTX760 on the market, the GTX660 is almost $100 lower and gives a healthy gain in performance over the R7 260X
Gigabyte Video Card GTX660 Overclock 2GB DDR5 192Bit PCI Express DVI-I/DVI-D/HDMI/DisplayPort $236.00
– making the AMD system $952.00 and the i5 system $990.00
The GTX 650TI is also a consideration if the pennies have to be pinched
Asus Geforce GTX 650TI 980Mhz 2G 2DVI/HDMI/DP $179
These systems rely on the stock cooling fans – if you are intending to overclock, then you may be wise to look into third party CPU coolers, and the Intel Core I5 i5-4670K, 3.4GHz Unlocked “K” for about $67 more than the stock i5, which will push the Intel system just over $1100
The next speed upgrade would be to add a SSD drive as the boot drive, which makes booting and loading programs and game files a snap.
Other upgrades:
Mouse: Logitech Gaming Mouse G500 USB $79
(note that you don’t want a wireless mouse or keyboard for gaming)
Keyboard: Logitech Gaming Keyboard G110 12 programmable keys, backlighting, USB audio $96
You would actually build a gaming computer for future potential, rather than immediate potential. So, you may end up spending quite a bit of money on a top of the line motherboard, but you’ll save money in the long run by buying compatible hardware for that motherboard three to sin months down the road – when prices of today’s high end components comes down to mid-rage prices.
Your point is correct, if you have the budget to get better core components. The exercise of the article though is to see if a machine can be built on a restricted budget.
One thing about upgrading components, is that while it is generally true for memory and storage, today’s motherboard (even a higher end one) will not necessarily support tomorrow’s CPU (or USB or SSD). With the release of AMD Zen2 third generation Ryzen 3×00 CPUs, none of the older motherboards will support PCI-e 4.0, and only some of the most recent motherboards will support the Ryzen 3rd gen CPUs. If the upgraded components you crave in the future use a different standard, then your high end investment in a motherboard is all for naught.