So I'm close to building a PC, but I'm working on a budget of about $500-$700 with a hard cap at $700, especially if I'm going to act on any deals immediately. Therefore, I asked two of my close friends who have much more experience with these situations about what they would do. I have a mouse, keyboard and TV I can use as a monitor with plans to buy a monitor later after another paycheck or two.

First friend (A) gave me this PCPP list, noting that he prefers intel processors, I need 8 gigs of ram minimum, and what he believes is a solid graphics card.

My other friend (B) suggested buying one of these two grahpics cards with a preference for the 7870. Additionally, he has no issue with AMD processors and suggested I buy AMD instead. He also believes buying Radeon (AMD owned) with intel isn't ideal, and I should go with Nvidia.

F(A) responded saying the AMD card suggested is fine and if I wanted to spend the extra $40, go with an i5 processor.

So I wouldn't mind spending the extra $40 for the i5, but I have no idea what to do with the graphics card. I am open to pretty much anything, I just want it to work and to be able to play some games. Any advice is appreciated as I don't know what to do.

EDIT: Now with links

If you are up for getting an i5 then go for it absolutely, but if you would rather spend more on your gpu then the only non intel cpu that I think is any good is the amd fx 8350. As far as your GPU goes, I personally have a 7950 that I got for 150$ during a sale last year and so far it plays every game perfectly (except for gta 4 with mods, and on bf4 I can't keep a perfect 60, I get between 40 and 60 depending on how much shit is happening) but people bought up a ton of 7950's in the last 6 months because they apparently are really good for bit coin mining. So given the fact that they are now way more expensive and less common I can't recommend a 7950 to you, but I would definitely recommend either the r9 280x, or gtx 770 for the best bang for your buck, both are better then the 7950 and will max out pretty much every game that is out at the moment. If you decide to expand your budget to something higher,the gtx 780 or the r9 290x are your choice, but if you aren't super picky then you won't need anything on that level.

If you want this to be a good machine for quite a few years spend more on your cpu and less on your gpu. gpus change very quickly and prices are constantly dropping. CPU prices however stay mostly constant especially on the intel side. In the future if you want to upgrade your video card you can sell the old one and get a new one for however much you want to spend. They can be pricey but the rest of your computer stays the same. If you however want to upgrade your CPU it might be less cost but there will also be less benefit to gaming and you also will most likely have to get a new mobo and rewire your pc all over again. in the end you will still need to upgrade your gpu if you want to stay up with the newest games.

my 2 cents, get an i5 or comparable amd cpu. Spend less on a graphics card and then upgrade to something fancy when the prices go down or you have more $ coming in.

also the whole AMD card not working well with INTEL is not true in my personal experience. There are some reason to go with nvidia most notably they tend to have more solid drivers but they also tend to cost a little more for similar performance. Get the card that meets your budget the best with the right amount of performance and don't worry if its amd or nvdia.

I currently have a 7850 running in my machine and I am quite pleased with its performance. I do intend on upgrading but I am waiting until a new line of cards comes out so that prices will drop. For right now I cannot justify in upgrade because of the cost vs the performance increase.

http://slickdeals.net/f/7027510-amd-powercolor-7850-89-ar a very similar card to what I have for sub $100

Yes, definitely spend more on the cpu and go for a good i5. You can upgrade your gpu by just unplugging it at any time, but swapping out your cpu is much more difficult and you won't be able to switch from amd to intel on the cpu without getting a whole new motherboard.

Alright cool. Given everyone's advice, I'm definitely going for an i5 here's what I'm sitting on right now:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/24RjNG (EDITED)

I'd like to up my video card to the 280x and while I can afford it, money will be tight. How big of a deal is that?

(And thanks a ton for the help everyone, I appreciate it)

Did you consider an SSD for the OS and/or your favorite games? I honestly don't ever want to go back to regular harddrives.

Me either, I consider at least a small SSD to be a requirement unless doing a low end budget build.

I have thought about an SSD. I forgot to mention I'll be getting Windows 8.1 Pro (free from school). Is the SSD worth it if I have a smaller overall size? A terabyte would be ideal, but if these things are so great I'd be willing to try it. I'm thinking I'll have to go with a worse card since I should prioritize an SSD and the i5. How does that sound?

I'd say to go for this case:

I know it cuts 1/7th of your budget but a quality case is always essential. It allows for you to mod it in the future if you need to and allow for an easier build in general. If your PC is just for gaming you can go with an i5 and RAM is fairly cheap. I bought 16 gigs of really fast RAM for only £50 back in January. For the graphics card, you may want to cheap out now and buy something better down the line as games are using more RAM so I bought a GTX 770 with 4 gigs and was much cheaper than a 780 which only has minimal performance gains above it anyway.

You've probably considered an SSD but I still find them expensive for not much space. I opted to not put one in my current computer simply because I didn't want to exceed my budget. If you want higher performance, go for a hybrid drive but look for one that has more flash storage as a typical drive only has around 8 gigs of flash or buy an SSD that doesn't cut too much into your budget and pair it through raid with a traditional HDD.

Because SSDs are pricey compared to regular harddrives, people usually reserve that space for applications like the operating system (Windows 8.1 in your case) and whatever they use often/benefits from faster loading. If you decide to get an SSD, you'll probably still need to buy a normal harddrive for music and video files or games you don't use often. It'll cut into your budget, so you might decide to upgrade to an SSD later on, but the speed increase is absolutely worth it.

Please do not do this. When you pair two drives together in RAID, they will perform at the slowest speed of the two, thereby negating the benefits of an SSD altogether. Plus the total volume would be limited to twice the size of the smallest drive.

@mb: Meh. His budget maxes at $700, very little to work with and SSDs still cost a small fortune. For that price I'd simply go for the hybid like I said or a faster traditional drive.

@mrcraggle: Samsung EVO 250gb SSD's are like $120 now...prices are dropping practically weekly.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KTnkgs

Really pushing my budget at the moment, but this is possible. Trying to appeal to all parties (friend having the largest influence); may drop the SSD. Any thoughts?

I don't recommend an SSD at your price point. You can save that for later- they are great but not essential. While you do notice a difference in load times, this isn't actually important when on a budget and I consider it non essential. I usually recommend waiting (until later) on those kinds of hardware when you're building on a budget. The change, while significant, is not enough for me to say it's a must at all. You will enjoy it when you get it, but I recommend you wait for now.

I agree with the CPU being more important recommendation that you are set upon now (from what I can tell- just reading past replies here). If you were actually near me I could sell you (cheaply I mean) a decent GPU that would suffice for now until you could afford a better one. It's a GTX 560 ti- the model I have actually was an experimental card that had a short release (I only mention that because you'll notice they're expensive now if you buy a new one and that's due to them not being made anymore but it's actually a damn good card if you do want to look at a refurbished one). I will warn you if you look into finding that card that some of them were defective (the voltage can be off but at the time EVGA was super cool about replacing them- might be a risk now, I don't know), but if you get a good one they are really good cards for overclocking that made them almost- if not just- as good as a 660 (if that's even something you care about).

If you actually do look into a 660 I recommend considering a GTX 760 instead because they would only be a few dollars more and are actually better cards than a 660. But again you can also just wait and buy a cheaper GPU right now. Just trying to give you some options and let you know the pros and cons I can think of off the top of my head.

AMD is alright, but the reason people tend to dislike them (minus a lot of bias) is they lack a lot of support. It is still true of AMD- sometimes they just aren't well optimized for certain games. It happens all the time (read many gaming forums), and in my experience it is less likely to be a problem with Intel or NVidia. The plus side to AMD products (CPU and GPU) is that they can be (although sometimes for only a short time) just as good as the competition- for less. Monetarily this is attractive for a cheaper build. Something you should consider because of this is that AMD products can tend to be (again, in my experience) higher maintenance.

I will say in 25 years of using computers I have personally always gone with Intel for CPUs. They can be expensive, but they have always been reliable (and only errors were due to something I did- usually involving the bending of pins because I was dumb). I have never had a CPU fail, though, on it's own, or not meet expectation when looking into game purchases. The i5 recommended to you would be good for awhile and on the plus side you should be able to get a decent enough mobo that you could also potentially upgrade the chip to an i7 if that ever actually became necessary so I consider that a plus.

I personally prefer Nvidia GPUs. I suppose, though, this is brand loyalty a lot of the time, but I have heard of and seen some issues on Radeon cards that I've honestly never experienced on an NVidia card. This could also change, though, in the coming generation as AMD is in a position to do something about the market if they actually fix some things in their company. So, it's completely possible that my brand loyalties could change if AMD did get their act together (which, again, they could potentially do).

Honestly, often with GPUs it's not a big deal. Most of the time it's brand loyalty (as you've seen with your friends), but I just wanted to lay out my perspective.

Hope you find what you're looking for. Sorry I wrote so much- I cant help it when my brain gets going. Hopefully this is even slightly helpful.

Editted: Added some links.

Yes, I would definitely recommend dropping the SSD and putting that money towards other parts. At a budget like this, you really don't need an SSD as a primary drive and a HDD as a secondary drive for storage. You could be maximizing performance in other ways, like investing in a better GPU. SSDs, as far as I'm concerned, still seem like more of a luxury than a necessity. Having a separate SSD so that your PC boots up slightly faster or so maybe your games load a little quicker really isn't worth the cost, especially when the money could be going towards other things that will have a much more direct impact on performance. Another option is to simply remove the SSD and pocket the money. I didn't notice before that you exceeded your budget a bit. Putting that extra $70+ in the bank would, at the very least, soften the blow to your wallet a little, while not giving up performance in any area other than loading times.

Thanks a ton everyone, all of your advice is great. And yeah, my budget keeps increasing slightly as I am getting paid this friday so I could manage a little more than I thought. I'm not necessarily trying to do that, so dropping the SSD and finding a slightly cheaper GPU is what I'm looking into at the moment.

@cornbredx: Are you near central Ohio by any chance?

@shaka999: Hey, I just had another look at your list and it seems your intended RAM is clocked at 1866 MHz while your motherboard supports up to 1600 MHz. It should still work, but it'll run at your motherboard's maximum clock speed, so if you can find cheaper RAM at 1600, you could consider swapping those out.

@shaka999: Also if you're going to drop the SSD, try getting a WD Black for a speedy HDD.

@shaka999: sorry I didn't get a notification.

No, sorry, I'm in TX.

@benderunit22: Friend(A) pointed out my motherboard isn't being made any more and that I should go with something else, it'll be in a parts list below.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JmFJmG

So here's what I'm currently looking into. I couldn't find a cheap WD Black, so I went with Blue (are they the same company/brand or am I being an idiot?). Currently electing to go with a 760 over the 770 to keep the price down; how big of a visual difference will that actually be? I'm not really picky about my visuals, but I want it to look good. This is also my first PC and upgrading down the line wouldn't bother me at all. Also thinking about adding more RAM, but looking at games out now that doesn't seem necessary.

One other thing: the motherboard in my parts list above can be bundled with a different version of the i5 processor. It costs more, but everyone keeps saying to shell out for the processor. Here's the same list with the different processor:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/g8bsnQ

If it's worth the extra money, then I'll go with this processor. I believe I will make a purchase at the end of today, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

@gaspower: My question for you (from above, read full post if you want): Couldn't find a cheap WD Black, so I went with Blue (are they the same company/brand or am I being an idiot?)"

Looks like a fine build to me, especially on a budget. You'll certainly be able to play just about any game on its highest setting without problems. If you want to go over a last minute price/performance comparison, I always look at cpubenchmark.net and videocardbenchmark.net before I decide on what to buy (although I can't say how reliable these are, it's just the first one I found when I looked for one.) It's, however, always a great reminder of how completely whacky cpu and gpu numbering and pricing is.

Anyway, I want to also thank you. Thanks in part to your post, I pulled the trigger 2 days ago on a new setup I had been thinking to get for the past half year. Enjoy your new pc, if you get it.

I actually have an i5-3570K, a 7870 and 8 Gigs or RAM that I have been running for a while now and I have been quite pleased with the performance. I don't have an SSD right now and it hasn't been a big issue for me. It's really nice to have but if you want to keep cost down it's fine without it.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/CdWYQ7

I think this will be my final build unless someone points out a problem. Very happy with the price point, and thank you everyone who helped, and happy to help you @benderunit22 as well.

@shaka999: Seems fine, although you may want to consider a WD Caviar Black instead of a Blue. Better warranty and slightly better performance, although you probably wouldn't notice a difference.

@shaka999: I can help you bring it down a significant amount. Look at this deal. Same processor, slightly more expensive motherboard, but you save around... 50 or so dollars. This deal, I'm guessing, ends on 7/7.

@shaka999 yes! Take that $50 and a little bit more and upgrade to a GTX 770!

@sexytoad: @mb: Well with the money toad saved (Thanks a ton btw), I upped the hard drive:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7fWYQ7

but I found out the case/power supply combo I was going to use is not longer available as the power supply is out of stock. Currently looking into that; friend recommended at least 650W supply.

@shaka999: You currently don't have a aftermarket cooler in your build to use the overclocking capability of your CPU.

I know a lot of people think overclocking is the shit, but it's really a useless premium for what you are going to be doing (which is gaming). Save $90 or more dollars and put that towards a better GPU or SSD. A better GPU or SSD will give you a far better performance increase then the measly 2 or 4 FPS you might get in a game by overclocking a CPU.

I put together this system, which I think gets you a better deal for the same price. The big difference being that you'll get a 120GB SSD for you OS and a few games. You put about 150 more watts to your PSU than the GPU's recommended power requirement. That requirement is given for people that buy off-band PSUs. The 500W bronze certified PSU in this new build is more than enough. A lot of first time builders spend more on their PSU than needed. I also got cheaper RAM, since you don't really need to spend more money for red RAM whose extra speed really isn't helpful to your needs. DDR3-1600 is quick enough for what you need.

Imo overclocking,while "cool", is a waste. You should really check out r/buildapc on Reddit and ask for their advice too.

@a_deep_mushroom: I saw that, but I thought it was better to let him get the K variant now and then an aftermarket cooler later on if he wants to eventually try and OC. If he gets a locked chip, he'll never be able to...just a thought.

@a_deep_mushroom: Your build doesn't have RAM.

EDIT: I need to refresh my page faster, SexyToad covered what I said. Unfortunately with that last build, the power supply was out of stock, so now I'm trying to fix that issue and the price went back up. So something like deep mush's build is enticing.

Yeah MB pretty much answered your question to me. Hehe! Blue is actually fine, its a good thing that you didn't get Green. Also what I was supposed to say was Caviar Black which @mb already pointed out fortunately. :D

Let me counter with this build then.

Ill need to explain a few things, I kept the unlocked processor and motherboard. You can see I edited the price of the motherboard to represent the combo. I changed the ram, and I also altered the price of that. It's to represent this combo. You saved a little off the ram you chose before and some extra for the combo. I kept your choice of video card and case. But I did go with the PSU @a_deep_mushroom chose. This build costs a little more than Mushrooms after rebates. If you need to cut it down more, you will have to pick a different processor, but the i5-4690k is pretty solid and leaves doors open for the future.

EDIT: I should add that if you do go with mushrooms choice of motherboard and processor you can get the build 40 dollars cheaper. However, since the combo is going on, I say definitely go for the i5-4690k.

EDIT2: I just realized some of the parts were separated between stores, which of course doesn't work for the combos. I fixed the list and forced the merchants on some items. It makes the deals less impressive, but overall you do save some cash and you get to order them from Newegg. More reliable than the other merchants, in my opinion.

EDIT3: Last edit, I promise. This build I listed is a little more expensive that mushrooms, but he didn't add ram (probably my accident.) So this build will come out cheaper.

I made a modified list based on your list. The only change I made was the video card. It came out as a few dollars cheaper than the MSI card on your list but at least it doesn't have to be a rebate. Shaka would still have to pay the full price and mail-in the rebate after the fact. Hehehe! That's the part I've always hated about rebates since it takes AWHIIIIILE for you to get it back. Hahaha!

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/pMZxRB

@sexytoad: Well congrats, I went with your build. I wanted to stick with that deal once you pointed it out, then you made the rest fall into place I figure SSD will come in time. I'll have to figure out cooling stuff later, but for the time being I'm not going to over clock anything quite yet. Everything is on its way and maybe I'll post pictures of what the build finally looks like.

Thanks again everyone, y'all are amazing.

TANGENT: I love PC building recommendation threads. Gives me an excuse to go mess with other people's PCPP lists with my own recommendation to go along with theirs and then try to find the most optimal deals and prices from certain stores until we can come up with the best possible build. I have a lot of fun with that.

@shaka999: Ey sir! I actually made a modified list of SexyToad's list with the only change being the video card (its still a 760 btw but an ASUS and the price list is from Amazon). It's in the quote right above your reply to him if you want to check it out!

The Asus GTX cards are pretty amazing. I went with Asus after spending a bunch of time reading reviews looking for the quietest, best performing card out of the bunch.

I havn't looked that much into video cards or brands. I have far less experience in that category. So I just kept what he chose to begin with :P. So I can't say which is better or worse, I guess it's a preference really.

I have recently finally made a build of my own :P. So I've been really on top of all the sales and pc parts. So I've been having a lot of fun with that too lately. This is a good resource on NewEgg. You can look up any item and see if it's in a combo with anything. Some combos don't show up on the parts page. So its possible to miss some of the deals. Which is how I found that little combo with the processor and motherboard. I jumped on that deal as soon as I saw it.

@shaka999: before I forget - ninite.com. Select the packages you want and it will create a single batch executable for you and install everything in one shot. It will save you so much time. Just watch your media player installs, sometimes the codecs can interfere with one another. I usually just get VLC only.

Also - get Macrium Reflect. Create an image of your fresh but updated Windows installation and save it somewhere. This can save you so much time if you ever need to format and reinstall.

Finally, grab Advanced Tokens Manager to create a backup of your Windows activation key just in case.

@mb: ninite is amazing. I have all my computer parts coming Tuesday and this will be a big help. Thanks for posting the link.

@sexytoad: It really is amazing. I would be happy to pay for it, but it's completely free and doesn't even nag you to buy anything. I've used it on three different machines and it worked perfect, fully unattended, every time. Pretty slick.

@sexytoad: @mb: Oh thanks for the additional tips, duders! :D

I came here for the exact same reason. I want to build a PC, though I don't really have a budget or a time frame laid out, or really an idea of where to start. but this thread has already pointed me in the right direction. Thanks duders.

There may be issues with AMD video cards period. But pairing up with Intel processors is fine. If you're going to go multi-monitor with the intention of playing video on one monitor while gaming on the other, AMD's HW acceleration doesn't seem to play nice with GPU throttling and can cause slowdown. I bypass it by using VLC with no HW acceleration, but it's a pain in the butt. I've been having weird handshake issues too when I play flash content on the secondary monitor.

I'd spend more money on CPU right now than anything else. GPU tech advances much faster and those items, unless they're used for mining, depreciate in value quickly. It's an inevitable fact that a few years down the line, you'll upgrade your GPU. For example, in my latest PC, my i5 is from 2011. I'm still using that CPU. However, that computer has gone through 2 GPU swaps. If your CPU ever becomes a bottleneck, you're looking at replacing your CPU, motherboard at the minimum. Heatsink and memory too if fate hates you.

There's a considerable difference in performance between the WD Black and the WD Blue. If money's an issue, I would get a 1tb WD Black and a smaller 120 gig SSD. Put Windows and your game of the month on the SSD. Steam library and your "BBC Documentary" videos on the Black. It's easier to do this and migrate to a bigger SSD in the future than end up trying to trim the fat to make the contents of your 1tb drive fit on a 256 gig SSD.

And, once you are done installing and setting up Windows, make a backup with Reflect.

Building a PC is easy and rewarding. You can do this!