My partner's gaming PC puked finally recently and I have been out of the hardware circuit for years (just buying laptops instead of actually building anything that isn't a server).

Any suggestions on components for a decent gaming PC for about 700ish USD?

Something that could handle Guild Wars 2 would be good.

700ish include cost of OS? Also know the specs of your partner's dead system? I'd hate to recommend something worse.

I don't know anything about Guild Wars 2, so most of my recommendations are based off the benchmarking they did here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268.html

On the Intel side, I think an i5-3350p is a good choice. It's a quad core @ 3.1ghz (3.3 turbo) non-overclockable with no integrated graphics. I really hesitate to recommend anything less than an i5 for a gaming rig. Given how poorly Bulldozer did in that article, I'm hesitant to recommend even the newer AMD cpu's. My guess would be that the FX-6300 might be on par with an Intel i3 in Guild Wars 2.

For videocard it looks like you want something at the 7870 or GTX660 performance level. Might be tough to make that all fit at $700.

Yeah, Dor, can you let us know what exactly you need, or rather, what you can reuse? Anything you can take from the old PC will help.

Monitor? PSU? Hard drives? DVD Drives? Reusable case?

The old system is about 5 or 6 years old at this point so it is hardly worth salvaging beyond the optical drive probably. Mostly looking for mobo, PSU, CPU, and GPU. The RAM and case and drives I can probably figure out on my own.

I know you're looking to build one, not a prefiged but this is what I bought back in 2010 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229181 and remains quite an excellent gaming PC (it can run pretty much anything on high settings still).

Granted I've been having some hardware issues with the memory but that's neither here nor there. Moral of the story is that I got it for about 750 and that was a few years ago. So I would imagine building your own using similar parts would be even cheaper.

I like building Phenom II X4 systems because they are cheap and overclockable. I have one I just finished that I nicknamed 'El Bruto' because it's a strong system in all the wrong ways - Phenom II paired with GTX295, and OS is installed on a refurbished OCZ Vertex 2.

Also as a side note, you can get 9800GT's for $24.36 FS - see my deal thread at Overclock.net if interested.

I would probably aim a little higher that a PhenomII + 9800GT if she want's it to handle gaming for the next few years. The videocard requirements for many modern games are listing 8800gt/9800gt as the minimum.

Since Dormous is used to playing Guild Wars 2 on an older system, she could probably get a less power videocard and maybe build a more well rounded system like include a SSD for example. On the other hand, the more you sink into CPU/Videocard the longer it remains capable of playing newer games.

What would you say for something to last a few years? Money is tight so it wouldn't work to have to upgrade in a year or two all over again.

If you can wait a few weeks, see if Intel's New Haswell CPU's are a significant price or performance improvement. The reviews based on engineering samples are showing a 5-10% improvement over the current generation. If you can't wait I stick with my original suggestion. Get an Intel i5.

I would probably build it like this: Pick and Price all components other than videocard. Then with your remaining budget buy the best videocard you can afford. If it's less than $120 then you might want to consider making some other changes like settling for a weaker CPU.

I'm just slightly over budget on this, at ~$737 after shipping, but cutting anymore corners would kinda suck.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130826
GF GTX 660 Video Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151096
Seasonic 620W PSU (best warranty and gets the best reviews, could probably pick another manufacturer if you really needed to save a few bucks)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231636
1 stick of 8GB DDR3-1600. Ironically cheaper than 2 sticks of 4GB. Not ideal but we're on a budget, ya? :p

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157303
ASRock Intel H77 chipset mobo. Just fine if you're not overclocking.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116782
Core i5 Ivy Bridge. Note that it lacks the video portion, so make sure your video card is working.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339
WD Blue 1TB drive. About as cheap as you're gonna get without buying the awful WD Green.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416550
Windows 8 64-bit. Not a huge fan of Win8, but buying Win7 now is like shooting yourself in the foot. Not to mention, Microsoft will be releasing a free update for it this year that adds back much of the missing Windows 7 stuff (like the START BUTTON). They're also the same price.


This build obviously assumes you'd be bringing your DVD drive and case over to be reused. You probably can't reuse the RAM because everything runs on DDR3 now, and back then almost everything was DDR2.

Comments on this build:

A. It's going to last a while, it's not bargin-basement parts.
B. The video card especially is the cheapest you can get without going into budget territory. It'll play everything on high settings right now.
C. You can save some cash with a Core i3 CPU as well if you want, quad-core still isn't THAT important. But the price difference is so marginal you might as well get an i5.
D. The biggest thing missing is an SSD, but at $700 it's just not realistic. SSDs are amazing though, so it should be considered as the next upgrade for this PC. It just makes the whole system far more responsive.

CM's build looks pretty good.

Just two comments:

-The link to the videocard is incorrect, it's a duplicate of the motherboard link but the GTX660 is solid choice.

-I'm not sure I'd go with that ram even to stay within budget, its CL11 and with using only 1 stick you will be running single channel and take an ~1% performance hit compared to dual channel. Hopefully Dormouse can find a deal when she is prepared to make her purchase- like today I would get this deal: http://www.tigerdirect.com/sectors/category/deal-of-the-day.asp?cm_re=Homepage-_-Spot%2002a-_-n 2x4gb Crucial DDR3-1600 CL9 for $40 FS.

Whoops, fixed the video card URL.

I didn't bother looking for faster RAM/dual-channel config because it's very unlikely that playing games will have much impact at that level.

Thanks CM and Triscuit! This should give me a strong start.

1%? Who cares?

This way he can throw in another 8GB stick in a month or two.

Ug, it only really bothered me that the ram was both poor latency and going to be used in single channel configuration. I'm pretty sure you could find 2x4gb CL9 for within $1-2 of that price anyway. I wasnt going to bother defending my point except now it's been re-addressed. 1% was just a number I pulled out of my ass but here's some charts if you want to look:

Full Article: http://www.behardware.com/articles/814-1/ddr3-impact-of-channels-timings.html

Single vs dual vs triple vs quad on semi-modern platforms:



Some latency and speed benchmarks: (No CAS11 tested)

620W on the PSU seems a bit overkill? I've got 600W on mine, but it seems like ~400W from a quality PSU would do fine.

Looks like your right. Most of the GTX660 reviews show it using ~180w under load, with the total system power usage being ~300w under load.

I'd agree if it wasn't for the fact that the 620W was honestly cheaper than the 400-500W ones.