# My Budget Gaming Pc Setup



## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Hi everyone :smile:

Im planing to build my own budget gaming pc in a few days, these are my setting, and feel free to comments if there any suggestions, advices and so on :smile:

- MSI Z77A-G41
- Intel Core i3-3225 3M 3.30GHz
- 3x4GB Kingston KVR1600 DDR3 RAM
- 500GB Western Digital HDD 16M SATA-6
- Sapphire HD6670 1GB GDDR5 128Bit 
- Asus DVD-RW Drive
- Asus Blu-ray Drive
- Cooler Master Extreme 2 625W PSU
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Cpu Cooler
- Cooler Master Elite 430 Mid Tower

i dont think i need any sound card because it comes with the motherboard itself :smile:

so i really need advices, comments so the project will run smoothly without any disappointment :grin:

these thing really cost me around MYR2400 so i do really need the full guide.

thanks all :flowers:


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

A lot of things need to change with your build.

You have a some lower quality parts and some parts that are not good for gaming.

I *highly* recommend you pick a build from our recommended build guide here:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/for...ams-recommended-new-builds-2012-a-668661.html

The $800 will do just fine.


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> A lot of things need to change with your build.
> 
> You have a some lower quality parts and some parts that are not good for gaming.
> 
> ...


Okay, ill read the site you shared and see any improvement that i can made :grin:

this is my first time, really blur and lack of information :facepalm:


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Just pick the same items in the build guide and you'll have a much better build!


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> A lot of things need to change with your build.
> 
> You have a some lower quality parts and some parts that are not good for gaming.
> 
> ...


shall i discuss the $800 gaming pc specs?
sir, what do you mean by 'some parts that are not good for gaming'?
is that because of my GPU? 
it is kind of difficult for me to find EVGA GPU here, and if i do, it really will cost me.

No doubt about the performance of NVidia system runs in that EVGA..me myself want to have it, but the budget is the limit :grin:


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

My comments for your build in blue.

- MSI Z77A-G41

Asus and Gigabyte offer a much higher end motherboard and are top for quality.

- Intel Core i3-3225 3M 3.30GHz

i3 CPUs are not the best for gaming. i5 are what you should be looking for.

- 3x4GB Kingston KVR1600 DDR3 RAM

G.Skill and Corsair make the best RAM available. You should stick with 2 x 4GB sticks.

- 500GB Western Digital HDD 16M SATA-6

This is fine.

- Sapphire HD6670 1GB GDDR5 128Bit 

I like to use NVidia GPUs when using a Intel build. Stick with Asus, EVGA or Sapphire branded.

Using a Radeon GPU with a Intel CPU may cause problems.

- Asus DVD-RW Drive

This is fine.

- Asus Blu-ray Drive

Why buy the Blu-Ray and a DVD drive?

- Cooler Master Extreme 2 625W PSU

This PSU is basically junk. You'll want to use XFX or Seasonic PSUs only! A 650W will would just fine.

- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Cpu Cooler

No need to use a external CPU cooler unless your overclocking which will VOID warranty and is pointless for new CPUs

- Cooler Master Elite 430 Mid Tower

This is fine.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Same advice as Masterchiefxx17 with one small exception. 
Using a AMD chipped GPU with an Intel chipped Mobo will not cause any issues.


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> My comments for your build in blue.
> 
> - MSI Z77A-G41
> 
> ...


i see it clearly now..

about the mainboard, i will try my best to find another brand, most probably Asus..i just excited on the Military Class II on the MSI mainboard box :grin: it is kind of cool :grin:

for the CPU, i dont think that i can spend more for the i5, but ill try my best to re-check the budget. 

about the RAM, yes, i will stick to the recommendation.

about the GPU. again, my limitation is the budget..it seems like i only can have a GPU with Radeon system inside at this time..but yeah, ill play this by ear, if i can make the budget a bit higher, ill try to find Nvdia system for the GPU.

bacause the DVD drive cant play blu-ray disc  that why in my list there is some budget for blu-ray drive  can the dvd player play blu-ray dics, movies? :ermm:

i thought that the extreme 2 by c/master just fine :grin:

the hyper 212 evo looks cool inside the casing..and ive read that, the i3 3225 has something ivy inside, so this cpu can easily get hotter when running games, videos, so that is why hyper 212 been chosen :grin:

btw, thanks a lot for the advices, and i do hope they are still coming comments to acknowledge me, thanks sir! :wink:


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

You really will want that i5 CPU. It will help a lot.

Use the money from removing the CPU cooler to get the i5.

ASUS BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS Black Blu-ray Burner - Newegg.com

The Asus drive will read CDs and DVDs.


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Tyree said:


> Same advice as Masterchiefxx17 with one small exception.
> Using a AMD chipped GPU with an Intel chipped Mobo will not cause any issues.


ok sir, thanks for the views :wink:

ive read too, using amd gpu in intel mainboard will not cause any effect, but ill take all of the views positively, its a learning process for me :grin:


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> You really will want that i5 CPU. It will help a lot.
> 
> Use the money from removing the CPU cooler to get the i5.
> 
> ...


yes, finally, blu-ray driver that can play dvd and blu-ray dics, shame on me :grin::grin::grin::rofl: thanks for this product's guide :thumb:


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Muhamad Nazrin said:


> yes, finally, blu-ray driver that can play dvd and blu-ray dics, shame on me :grin::grin::grin::rofl: thanks for this product's guide :thumb:


sir, in case that i can make a budget for i5, which series that still in the affordable range. 

the reason why i chose i3-3225 is that, this CPU itself has 3.3GHz clock speed without any OCing process while the cheapest i5 series has not reach this i3 clock speed and only does by OCing. (i just mention the cheapest i5 not the a bit higher series of i5). i do know the difference between the i3 and i5 are their Mb cache, and their number of cores. 3225 series also has the ivy system for the gaming process, while the quite lower series of i5 doesnt have that.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

You can do as you wish but for gaming you'll really want the i5 CPU.

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K - Newegg.com


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> You can do as you wish but for gaming you'll really want the i5 CPU.
> 
> Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K - Newegg.com


Thanks again sir for the product's recommendation 
Can a stock cpu cooler handle 3.4GHz and even after turbo boost?


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

Sorry to directly contradict Masterchief, but getting an i5 in a _budget_ build is poor balance. A top-end CPU like the i5-3570k will only deliver gaming performance as good as your video card can support. The HD 6670 is a mediocre video card, so it will bottleneck the i5, making the extra money you spent a waste. An i3 would give you identical performance in this build.

Essentially, there are three tiers of gaming CPUs:

tier 1: overclocked i5/i7
tier 2: i5/i7, overclocked Phenom II or FX
tier 3: i3, Phenom II or FX

Tier 3 is perfectly fine for budget gaming computers. This is because you're going to use video cards like a 650 Ti or HD 7770, which game very well for the price. A combination like this:

Phenom II x4 965 BE
GTX 650 Ti
ASUS AM3+ Motherboard
XFX 550w PSU

will be able to play even the most demanding games on high settings smoothly, while fitting into your budget easily. I've played a lot of games, including Skyrim and Crysis, on a similar system and was very satisfied. Otherwise, I'm in agreement with Masterchief.


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## Muhamad Nazrin (Jun 23, 2012)

toothman said:


> Sorry to directly contradict Masterchief, but getting an i5 in a _budget_ build is poor balance. A top-end CPU like the i5-3570k will only deliver gaming performance as good as your video card can support. The HD 6670 is a mediocre video card, so it will bottleneck the i5, making the extra money you spent a waste. An i3 would give you identical performance in this build.
> 
> Essentially, there are three tiers of gaming CPUs:
> 
> ...


thanks for the ideas 

for the first time planning the budget and the items, AMD CPU was in my list, but after did some reading on the benchmark, videos, i decided to choose Intel CPU 

but the best thing is, AMD in the tiers 3 just now you list, AMD can be OC right? but i3 cannot


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

Muhamad Nazrin said:


> but the best thing is, AMD in the tiers 3 just now you list, AMD can be OC right? but i3 cannot


Yes and it does make them a little more upgrade-friendly, but it won't matter unless you install a highly expensive video card. Also, overclocking can be dangerous to your components if you're not careful.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Muhamad Nazrin said:


> Thanks again sir for the product's recommendation
> Can a stock cpu cooler handle 3.4GHz and even after turbo boost?


If you wanted to overclock your CPU then you would need to buy a 3rd party CPU cooler.

Overclocking new CPUs will only VOID the warranty and you won't see much of an improvement.


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## tanveerahmed2k (Jan 25, 2011)

For your budget I recommened AMD FX 6300 which has 6 cores, 4 more cores over the intel i3!! trust me get it


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

6 cores will offer no advantages for gaming.


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## tanveerahmed2k (Jan 25, 2011)

Tyree said:


> 6 cores will offer no advantages for gaming.


Intel Core i3 3220 vs AMD FX 6300
^ The AMD Fx 6300 practically beats it in everything and 
look at Battle field 3 online on a i3 you can't even play the game!

Much more value for your money and is more future proof considering this christmas all if not most games will start taking advantage of more cores due to the next generation on console raising the levels (ps4/720 are 8 core systems)

AM3+ motherboard supports Steamroller which will be better than i5 stock


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Tyree said:


> 6 cores will offer no advantages for gaming.





tanveerahmed2k said:


> this christmas all if not most games will start taking advantage of more cores due to the next generation on console raising the levels (ps4/720 are 8 core systems)


Where are you getting that information? Games can barely take advantage of 3 cores at this time so I would have to seriously question any game coming anywhere near using more than 4 cores by Dec.


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## tanveerahmed2k (Jan 25, 2011)

I got this information from many websites like Tomshardware

"Also, keep in mind the next *Xbox* (not confirmed but rumored) and PS4 are running AMD X86 architecture with 8 cores and more and more pc games are ports from consoles. It only makes sense that more cores will become more important over time as the 8th generation console games start getting ported to PC"

We are going to finally get better PC games.

+ AMD mobo's are cheaper

I tried to play BF3 online on a i3 not sure which one but it was soo laggy, I would have got better results with a APU A10.

and anandtech


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

> "Also, keep in mind the next *Xbox* (not confirmed but rumored) and PS4 are running AMD X86 architecture with 8 cores and more and more pc games are ports from consoles. It only makes sense that more cores will become more important over time as the 8th generation console games start getting ported to PC"


Console specs vs. PC specs are a huge difference.

Microsoft and Sony both need to future proof their consoles to handle games 10+ years from now.

So using your console knowledge on a PC isn't the best idea.


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## tanveerahmed2k (Jan 25, 2011)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> Console specs vs. PC specs are a huge difference.
> 
> Microsoft and Sony both need to future proof their consoles to handle games 10+ years from now.
> 
> So using your console knowledge on a PC isn't the best idea.


but it will eventually happen, you cannot argue that PC games will not take a similar route when hardware is very identical at this point.
I am trying to save this guy another 4 years at best, with an i3 he is screwed by 2014 if the world doesn't end


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

> but it will eventually happen


Sure sooner or later games will require more CPU cores just like they do in the amount of memory they need on a hard drive.

Currently however and most likely when the OP's build is ready for an upgrade the games will require more money.



> I am trying to save this guy another 4 years at best


It's his money so if after reading all of this he wishes to spend the money then he can.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

When "eventually" comes to confirmed reality, we can confidently advise accordingly. 
At this time, we can continue to advise with what we know to be factual.


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

There's a basic problem with multithreaded gaming that I don't expect to be solved anytime soon - it doesn't improve minimum framerates or stuttering. Look at the CPU scaling on Crysis 3:










Since the game is multithreaded, the FX-8350's average FPS is even slightly higher than the i5-3550, but that minimum FPS is far behind. This is due to the cores bottlenecking each other. Multithreaded programming is performed with tasks being assigned, and confined, to separate cores/threads, and in the case of gaming your overall performance is limited to the thread that gets its job done last. They didn't test the FX-4300, but I bet that if they ran it at 4Ghz like the 8350 its minimum FPS would be the exact same *21*.

This is true for all "multithreaded" programs since it's not an exact process. If you've ever encoded video, you'll know each rendering comes out a little different. Even if the video quality is perfect, the file sizes will be slightly different.

Some games, like BF3, can justify an FX-6300 just because the cost difference is so small. But a solid quad-core is still going to be the overall most cost-effective gaming CPU.


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## tanveerahmed2k (Jan 25, 2011)

toothman said:


> There's a basic problem with multithreaded gaming that I don't expect to be solved anytime soon - it doesn't improve minimum framerates or stuttering. Look at the CPU scaling on Crysis 3:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So it's best to buy a good quad core then BF3 on i3 is just so bad though


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

tanveerahmed2k said:


> So it's best to buy a good quad core then BF3 on i3 is just so bad though


It has been repeatedly pointed out that a Q-Core CPU is more than sufficient for now and some time to come.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

We'll let the OP decide then from our comments. Like I said above, his money his choice.

He has yet to replied so lets not hijack the thread.


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

tanveerahmed2k said:


> So it's best to buy a good quad core then BF3 on i3 is just so bad though


Well i3s are not true quad-cores, they're just duals with hyperthreading. One of the two main reasons people like myself recommend AMD quads over i3s (the other is overclocking).


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> We'll let the OP decide then from our comments. Like I said above, his money his choice.
> 
> He has yet to replied so lets not hijack the thread.


^^^^^^^^
Any more posting before the P replies will be deleted!


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