Budget PC Build Help

One of my friends has been looking to buy a gaming PC that'll allow him to run games like Total War 2, Arma 3, and Day Z. However, his budget is 500$.

So I tried my best to find the best possible PC he could build with that budget that'll allow him to run those games.

And this is what I found:
http://pcpartpicker.com/list/L7gkLD

But you guys would know way more than me, so I figured why not make a thread here. You guys will help me convert him to the master race right?

Don't get a 1060 3GB, it is a cut down version of the 6GB GPU version and does not offer any value compared to its constituents. Best bet on the budget is a RX 470 because of its higher amount of VRAM (longer lasting) and is still competitive with the 1060. You wouldn't want to go down to the next cards, 1050 Ti or RX 460 because they are at best entry level cards which won't offer the performance you're looking for.

You could easily save a few bucks by switching to an i3 or older generation i5 because the performance gains are negligible at best. I would however recommend waiting until early March before buying anything CPU related as AMD is coming out with their Ryzen processor line which is supposed to be rather competitive (= price drops from Intel).

I'll echo the RX 470 idea because they're the best thing to come out of AMD in a while. On Amazon right now they're cheaper than the 950 on your partpicker list and they perform about as well as 970s (i.e. competitive with 1060, as Splintert said). I would trust ASUS, XFX, and MSI most among AMD GPU manufacturers. ASUS will likely be the most expensive of the three, they're proud of their brand.

I think you're looking in about the right place for CPUs. If you're getting an entry or mid-level GPU then the most or second-most expensive thing on your list will probably be the CPU, and contenders for i5s are pretty limited. It is what it is, and your choice is right in the middle.

Concerned about the motherboard. I have a Gigabyte board, it's flawless. Kherven had heaps of trouble with one (3 or 4 RMAs, a couple DOAs, all the fun stuff), I'm sure he'd tell you if you asked. He's also pretty knowledgeable about building PCs in general, he kills time helping people on reddit with their builds. Hit him up if you've got more questions.

It's my personal opinion that Seagate drives are poop. You can get a WD Caviar Blue of the same size for cheaper and they last longer.

RAM looks fine (8 GB is enough for most things, and upgrading is cheap & easy). Case is fine. PSU is good. The build hasn't made huge sacrifices, and if you swap the 950 to an RX 470 and perhaps the HDD from Seagate to Western Digital then you'll shave off another $20-25 perhaps and get a bit of an upgrade.

Orion said:

I would trust ASUS, XFX, and MSI most among AMD GPU manufacturers.

Click to expand...

I tend to trust Sapphire the most out of the lot. They seem to focus most on cooling.

Make sure to buy a PC which has the RAM of at least 8GB or greater. or you can buy 2 pc. Personally, I am also a two-monitor user so I recommend you also. But it takes bigger space to set all of the 2 PCs. In my case to adjust them I bought a desk from FlexiSpot Coupons. the desk is too roomy, that I peacefully managed to place all the setup.

I have recently bought a laptop with an nVidia dedicated graphics card. Whenever I ran the TotalWar launcher, it told me that I need to check if my drivers are up to date. I did a little search, and it looks like the driver provided by my manufacturer is way outdated. Now, here comes the question: is it safe to use the drivers provided by nVidia, or should I stick with the manufacturer drivers?

A bit beside that point but, that ****ing Total War launcher, man. It's always *****ing or warning about something. A few weeks ago it was going ape**** that I dared to have mods installed. I'm guessing they changed that to be less obnoxious, but I still don't like the thing.

The Bowman said:

I have recently bought a laptop with an nVidia dedicated graphics card. Whenever I ran the TotalWar launcher, it told me that I need to check if my drivers are up to date. I did a little search, and it looks like the driver provided by my manufacturer is way outdated. Now, here comes the question: is it safe to use the drivers provided by nVidia, or should I stick with the manufacturer drivers?

Click to expand...

Manufacturers never update the drivers available on their website. Use the updated Nvidia drivers unless you run into problems after installing them.

Yep, the new driver seems to be gentler on my fans. It works well, so far.

Just got the RAM in my NAS. )))))))

What's this NAS thing then? I googled it but only found Network-Attached Storage, which doesn't sound like something you could add RAM to. I've never heard of it until now. Do you need it to store all your mad GIFs?

DanAngleland said:

What's this NAS thing then? I googled it but only found Network-Attached Storage, which doesn't sound like something you could add RAM to. I've never heard of it until now. Do you need it to store all your mad GIFs?

Click to expand...

NAS can mean either a full server or a minimal network-attached computer with drives. In the server case if you're handling huge throughput with a distributed file system and/or RAID configuration having lots of memory can speed things up significantly (in-flight data + drive management overhead can become significant).