Greetings Peasants,

I am in search of a little advice upon what decisions to be making when buying a gaming PC, so that my empire can expand to the realm of "Main" (creative name, by the way).

The main problem is that I'm looking to spend the smallest possible amount of money ($500/£350 is my absolute limit) and would like to be able to play games such as Minecraft, Skyrim, GTA V, Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield 1 (when it releases) 'comfortably' on Medium to High settings. A lot to ask, right?

I've been browsing various PC components as constructing the PC myself is an option. (I'm not necessarily looking to buy a pre-built PC unless it's of exceptional value).

It seems the AMD FX-6300 is a decent CPU with good value for money, though I'm unsure how it would compare to an Intel equivalent (something like an i3).

In addition, I've been told NVIDIA's GTX 750 is a good mid-range GPU but don't know how it stacks up against AMD's GPUs and where my money is best put. I don't really understand the 'ranking' of AMD GPUs.

I don't have a clue how one can tell which motherboard is the best; I've just been picking any that is cheap and compatible on PCPartPicker.

Thinking about getting 8GB of RAM.

I'm basically looking for any advice or recommendations on these products or their close substitutes and where my money will be best placed (I might be upgrading an existing PC so parts don't necessarily have to be 'bundled)! Any explanations on how one can compare the performance of components would be gratefully appreciated also.

If anyone does have the time and generosity to answer my plea, my thanks in advance.

Farquaad out.

I made a quick build that would prob work for you, It goes a tiny amount over but not by much and if you desired you could cut back on a part, or find a old case to cut the price by a bit. Price also does not include Windows but that can be picked up fairly cheep.

CPU: AMD FX-6300 or AMD FX-8300

I would recommend the 8300 as it will give you a visible performance boost for only $20 more

$140 / $160

MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-USB3

Good motherboard and it has the price going for it as well.

$75

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB)

I would recommend going with 16GB vs 8GB with the current prices of RAM as well as Minecraft being a ram whore.

$75

PSU: SPARKLE ATX-350PN-B204 350W

Decent PSU and with this setup you should need a potential maximum of around 300W.

$60

Video Card: EVGA 02G-P4-3753-KR G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 750 Ti Superclocked 2GB

Decent card, if you want to cut back the price a bit you can go with the 750 vs the 750Ti

$190

Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 1TB 64MB Cache

While when building a system I would almost always recommend going with a ssd at your price I would just get a 1TB HDD

$65

Case: Corsair Carbide Series 200R Black Steel / Plastic compact ATX Mid Tower Case

Basic case that works, If you can find a used case that's cheep or free I would go with that option though and save the $80

$80

The total cost of this build is:

$685 / $705 - Depending on which video card you go with

$680 / $625 - If you can get a used case

With your max price being $645 if you go with the lower end video card and get a used case you can hit your mark, though I would still recommend going with the slightly better video card.

Also remembering that this does not include a copy of windows, though I will assume that you have a copy that you are using on your current system and have the key for it.

Thanks very much! Been looking over the list and looking up the parts a little, looks great. I have a few questions though?

I may be wrong but from what I read it seems the GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-USB3 only supports DDR3-1333MHz RAM? The RAM you listed is DDR4-2400MHz... Does this mean I would be buying RAM that would be restricted to a speed of 1333MHz? Also, if it supports DDR3 I assume that means it will support DDR4?

Aswell, the motherboard also only seems to support up to SATA II, would you recommend going for a SATA II HDD rather than SATA III? Would I be buying a higher-quality hard drive only for it to work as well as a lower-cost one?

Also, kinda important this one... I've read that the motherboard only supports 32-bit Windows, is this going to be a problem seeing as I might be buying 8/16 GB of RAM?

Really grateful that this is still within a tight budget though, I'm surprised.

If anyone else wanted to give their input that'd be great too, give Sayomie a break. <object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/1f642.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":)">:)</object>

My bad on the RAM, I ment to link the DDR3 version but linked the wrong one, below is a link to the correct one.

- http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231489

As for the the MOBO I went with that one due to the price, If you want to go SATA III then it will be a little bit more expensive, but personally I would say worth it overall.

For SATA III boards I would go with one of the ones linked below.

- http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA7BB3T72658

$80

- http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128627

$100

The first one is a little bit less expensive and will give you 2 SATA III and 6 SATA II ports

While the second is more expensive but offers 6 SATA III ports

You will prob only need the 2 SATA III ports for your build but if you are looking at upgrading and or adding more hard drives in the future I would look at the second one

As for the issue of 32bit vs 64bit that is usually not decided by the MOBO but the CPU.

The board that I linked originally supports up to 32GB if ram and would be able to support 64bit windows.

As for the new ones linked above the less expensive one supports 16GB, and the more expensive one 32GB. Both of would work for your build.

Both the AMD FX-6300 and the AMD FX-8300 will support a 64bit OS so you will be able to run windows 64 bit

Ah, okay. Thank you.

The original motherboard remains my favourite for price/reputation etc., though I still do not fully understand the 64-bit Windows compatibility.

On the bottom of this page, it says the following:

Doesn't this mean the motherboard will only support 32-bit Windows?

Many thanks again for your help, and apologies for my lack of expertise.

That is a general warning not a limitation of the board. It is saying that if you where to install a 32 bit of then you would only be able to see up to 4GB of RAM.

The board will support 64 bit windows so you will be fine to install 8-16GB and be able to use it. I have double checked as well and it should support windows 7, 8 or 10 so you can use which ever rendition of windows you desire.

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/2d9t6X

Check this one out... it is almost 600$ but you may be able to tweak some parts to your liking to take down the price. If you are gonna change it make sure that the CPU doesn't have the ability to overclock due to how hard it is to overclock. 8 gigs of RAM will be just right for Medium-High settings and as for the Video Card, if you are will to pay much more and wait a month for the GTX 1070 then do it, it will be supreme to any other Video Card as it has the best bang for the buck.

Ahh right, thanks for the clarification on that.

One last thing. I was pretty set on the AMD FX-6300 but have come to understand that the Intel i3 4150 and Intel i3 6100 are of similar spec and price.

I've read mixed reviews about them. Some say Intel is better because per-core performance is better and gaming doesn't use more than 2 cores, but on all benchmark videos I've watched the hexa core always comes out on top (for framerate).

Anyone got any opinions on that?

These would be their set ups:

FX-6300 - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/F2xxr7

i3 4150/6100 - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/m7RwPs

@dinocraftermax, that is a little too expensive for me but am considering some of the parts. Thank you!