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Budget gaming pc advice.

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I'd really try and get a R9 270X for an extra $35. In fact I'd ditch the cpu cooler and just use the stock one and put that money saved there towards an R9 270X. The stock intel cooler is ok really, it cools my work PC's cpu just fine and it pretty quiet when it isn't doing text recognition in Finereader 11.
Link here is for the BF4 performance for the 750Ti (the R9 270X is also on the chart for comparison)
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_750_Ti_OC/10.html
 
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Video Card(s) MSI R9 270X Gaming 2GB
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Case NZXT Phantom 410 (Gunmetal Edition)
Power Supply XFX Pro 650W
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I would also suggest looking for at least an 80+ Bronze (80+ Gold is perhaps outside this budget) power supply for better efficiency - will save you money on your electricity bills. Seasonic, XFX and Corsair units are usually the best.

Layton
 
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I second ditching the cpu cooler. The i3 is locked and can't be overclocked and it's also only a 54w part so it runs cool enough even with the stock cooler.

Very importantly, you need 2 sticks of RAM, otherwise your memory controller will be stuck in single channel mode and you will loose a lot of performance. The speed and the CAS latency aren't very important on modern platforms.
 
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System Name Daedalus
Processor AMD FX 6300
Motherboard ASUS M5A97 EVO R2.0
Cooling Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO
Memory 8GB Kingston HyperX Genesis (2x4GB)
Video Card(s) MSI R9 270X Gaming 2GB
Storage 1TB Seagate Barracuda
Display(s) LG Flatron E2442 (main - 24in 1080p)
Case NZXT Phantom 410 (Gunmetal Edition)
Power Supply XFX Pro 650W
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http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/bfP7pg
here, this is in your budget and it will still be able to play games fairly well. The psu will suffice for the parts in it.

I would disagree with you about that PSU as its very basic, and cheap, so is more likely to cause problems if it breaks. My philosophy is never cheap out on a power supply, and buy a solid one made by a reputable manufacturer to last multiple builds. 350W is pushing it, especially when it's a cheap power supply.

Layton
 
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I agree with your statement Layton but with the predicament he is in considering the availability of "budget" parts it's a strain to get anything at 600. Even with that build it's still 2 over. He could always up the psu and downgrade the cpu to amd. There are really no price points that are satisfactory. If he went with this he would not suffer performance and he could easily upgrade his psu as well as any of the other parts in the future.
edit: if he were to get this build that psu wouldn't be ment to last multiple builds. Only used as a buffer to get him through till he is able to upgrade.
 
Joined
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Location
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System Name Daedalus
Processor AMD FX 6300
Motherboard ASUS M5A97 EVO R2.0
Cooling Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO
Memory 8GB Kingston HyperX Genesis (2x4GB)
Video Card(s) MSI R9 270X Gaming 2GB
Storage 1TB Seagate Barracuda
Display(s) LG Flatron E2442 (main - 24in 1080p)
Case NZXT Phantom 410 (Gunmetal Edition)
Power Supply XFX Pro 650W
Mouse Steelseries Siberia [RAW]
I agree with your statement Layton but with the predicament he is in considering the availability of "budget" parts it's a strain to get anything at 600. Even with that build it's still 2 over. He could always up the psu and downgrade the cpu to amd. There are really no price points that are satisfactory. If he went with this he would not suffer performance and he could easily upgrade his psu as well as any of the other parts in the future.
edit: if he were to get this build that psu wouldn't be ment to last multiple builds. Only used as a buffer to get him through till he is able to upgrade.

I think the budget has changed now since the original post, as the OP realised that for a decent 1080p gaming rig, they would definitely need to spend more money. At the moment, I think the current suggested budget is around $700-$750AU, so perhaps you'll have more to play with in your suggestions. The concerns I have with very cheap PSUs is that they have a higher likelihood of breaking (i.e. setting on fire), and when cheap PSUs break, they drag the entire system with it. So in this respect, spending more on your PSU means you are less likely to have to pay even more in the future for an entire new system. There also comes a point if you're spending more on a PSU, you might as well buy a great PSU rather than an acceptable PSU. Whether you plan to upgrade it or not, cheap PSUs are a fire hazard.

Layton
 
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Well I thought I would give you a couple of options to help based on your budget, it will all depend on what your willing to do in the future and last-ability.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/RkZPgs

This is a straight APU build, it relies on the on board graphics and comes with high speed ram to take advantage of the APU power. Doing this would give you a decent CPU, decent GPU for 1080p (For instance BF4 with Mantle enabled on this chip gets above 30FPS at 1080p medium settings) and allow you to upgrade in the future should you want to. It will use the stock cooler but you can grab a hyper 212 down the line or now and overclock both the CPU and GPU. Not a bad rig, built a similar one for a friend and hes very happy with it but he mostly plays steam games and League of Legends.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

This one is a little further over budget but offers a good value in terms of a basic gaming machine. It will outperform the above one but offers a limited margin of expansion for the future other than slapping in another video card down the line.

Just a few thoughts for ya.
 

TheWorldForgotten

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First I thought how in God's name you managed to make the computer that cheap with such specifications, then I noticed there was no graphics card. The integrated AMD GPU will NOT, under any circumstances, give you decent FPS at BF4 with proper settings at that resolution. For that, it is way too weak.

The other build is perfect for a hybrid build between professional entry-grade rendering and premium gaming, but overkill for just the latter, in the sense you can spend less and get the same performance. :)
 
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First I thought how in God's name you managed to make the computer that cheap with such specifications, then I noticed there was no graphics card. The integrated AMD GPU will NOT, under any circumstances, give you decent FPS at BF4 with proper settings at that resolution. For that, it is way too weak.

The other build is perfect for a hybrid build between professional entry-grade rendering and premium gaming, but overkill for just the latter, in the sense you can spend less and get the same performance. :)
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2014/01/30/amd-a10-7850k-and-a10-7700k-kaveri-review/7

Thats also on DirectX 11 and lower memory then I selected.
 

TheWorldForgotten

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How do you intend to overclock the glowing hot AMD APU to 4.4GHz without a hefty CPU cooler? They used a Corsair H80i in this test. Futhermore, this is a medium preset run through a random scene, with a minimum 19 FPS rating at stock 3.7 GHz. Imagine how it will score in the tougher scenarios. Distracting from this main point completely however, the strongest argument is that you can get a Core i3 + R9 270X for six dollars more. Pocket change to get to decent 1080p high/ultra-settings performance. :)

 
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