Budget Gaming build advice

M

minerva

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I am in the process of putting together a budget gaming build for a friend's wife. The budget is +- R10K. I went with the Bitfenix Prodigy as the case because one of her requirements are "cuteness" LOL!

So here's the question: Taking the R10K budget in to consideration, I can either go with an i3 4130 paired with a R9-280X for maximum 3D performance, or I can pair an i5 4440 with an R9-270X. Seeing as this build will be primarily used for gaming, ACBF and BF4 etc at 1080p, I am leaning towards the i3 with the R9-280X setup. I am a little worried that the i3 will pose a bottleneck...

See here for the complete build:

Capture.jpg

What do you think?
 
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Chevron

Chevron

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minerva said:
I am in the process of putting together a budget gaming build for a friend's wife. The budget is +- R10K. I went with the Bitfenix Prodigy as the case because one of her requirements are "cuteness" LOL!

So here's the question: Taking the R10K budget in to consideration, I can either go with an i3 4130 paired with a R9-280X for maximum 3D performance, or I can pair an i5 4440 with an R9-270X. Seeing as this build will be primarily used for gaming, ACBF and BF4 etc at 1080p, I am leaning towards the i3 with the R9-280X setup. I am a little worried that the i3 will pose a bottleneck...

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Thought you said it was a budget build?

No idea how much that case is but:

Hard drive:
Crucial CT240M500SSD1 M500 240GB 2.5" SATA III 6Gb/s Solid State Drive R1999

AMD FX-6300 Vishera Black Edition 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ Desktop CPU R1741

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD 970/SB950 Socket AM3+ ATX Desktop Motherboard R1431

PowerColor AX7950 3GBD5-2DHPPE RADEON HD7950 PCS+ Edition 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x 16 Desktop Graphics Card - Includes 3 Free Games R3199

Corsair CP-9020051-WW VS650 650W Desktop Power Supply R757

G.Skill F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR (2x4GB) DDR3-1866MHz 1.5V CL9 Dual Channel Sniper Desktop Memory R1099
 
M

minerva

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No not necessarily but, I could not find a Mini-ITX board for an AMD processor to go in to the Prodigy... That and the A10-5800K, that is more or less the same price as the i3, under performs against the i3 in gaming benchmarks.

Any suggestion?
 
M

minerva

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Chevron said:
Thought you said it was a budget build?

No idea how much that case is but:

Hard drive:
Crucial CT240M500SSD1 M500 240GB 2.5" SATA III 6Gb/s Solid State Drive R1999

AMD FX-6300 Vishera Black Edition 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ Desktop CPU R1741

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD 970/SB950 Socket AM3+ ATX Desktop Motherboard R1431

PowerColor AX7950 3GBD5-2DHPPE RADEON HD7950 PCS+ Edition 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x 16 Desktop Graphics Card - Includes 3 Free Games R3199

Corsair CP-9020051-WW VS650 650W Desktop Power Supply R757

G.Skill F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR (2x4GB) DDR3-1866MHz 1.5V CL9 Dual Channel Sniper Desktop Memory R1099
Click to expand...

It is a budget build LOL... The budget is R10K

The case is around R950, so it throws it out a little bit. Also the required case takes a Mini-ITX board.
 
F

FuLL_MeT4L

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Nothing wrong with the specs of your initial build.

For BF4 and other upcoming games you'd definitely need to pick the i5 over the i3 though. i3 doesn't pack the punch it used to.
 
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R

Rudimental

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The issue I would have here is the PSU. You would want at least a semi-modular PSU for a case like that, and really a 150mm or shorter one.

Unfortunately, a vast majority of PSUs these days are 160mm long.
 
K

KalMaverick

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Apr 7, 2010
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Would rather go for 270x with i5.

I'm pretty sure the dual core will bottleneck the rest.

PowerColor AXR9 270X 2GBD5-DH/OC Radeon R9 270X - R2700

Intel Core i5-4670, 3.4GHz, LGA1150 - R2700

Intel Core i5-4570, 3.2GHz, LGA1150, Quad Core - R2450

Intel Core i5-4440, 3.1GHz, LGA1150, Quad Core - R2250

Don't know about your prices but Rebeltech is quite good for most things except GFX cards, use Wootware for that.

EDIT: I think that the with the saving from using a 270x you should be able to get a i5-4670, obviously depends on where you're buying and the prices you get.
 
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AfricanTech

AfricanTech

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Um, hijack here :eek:

Realised that it's time to upgrade my setup a bit :)cry: regrets buying those Sennheisers on impulse now)

Due to budget constraints, the only candidates that I can upgrade are:

mobo + CPU + RAM (these three obviously have to be done together)

Going to reuse the rest for the time being

What do the experts recommend for a mid-level gaming rig?

All input much appreciated.
 
Chevron

Chevron

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Oct 2, 2007
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AfricanTech said:
Um, hijack here :eek:

Realised that it's time to upgrade my setup a bit :)cry: regrets buying those Sennheisers on impulse now)

Due to budget constraints, the only candidates that I can upgrade are:

mobo + CPU + RAM (these three obviously have to be done together)

Going to reuse the rest for the time being

What do the experts recommend for a mid-level gaming rig?

All input much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Basically look at my first post in this thread.
 
Electric

Electric

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14,228
What gfx card African Tech?
No point in upgrading your system if your gpu ends up bottlenecking the system.
 
AfricanTech

AfricanTech

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Electric said:
What gfx card African Tech?
No point in upgrading your system if your gpu ends up bottlenecking the system.
Click to expand...

Grr, sorry, it's an

Nvidia GeGorce GTX 550 Ti

'taint the fastest in the world but it's ok for the type of / level of gaming I do.

I also use the PC as a Plex Server host

@Chevron, prefer Intel and Nvidia
 
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