No. Instead it's time to focus on making sure you have $1000+ in disposable income.
I'm not sure how him putting his kids computer on a tight budget indicates that he someone is poor and can't afford to fix his car or plumbing if a problem arises. More than likely, he just thinks it's not something that his kids absolutely needs. Or maybe he's not sure his kid will keep playing on it after a month. If that's the case, $300 wouldn't sting as much to waste. Imagine if he spent double or triple that and it was collecting dust.
I wasn't saying he was poor. Actually, I would never accuse someone of that. I was talking about his budget.
But if he want a legitimate gaming machine for his kid, that $1000 is an important number for satisfying any PC gamer. It's possible to build for $500, but... not a gaming PC. They will be fighting with game settings and unable to play many mainstream games.
It's a gift. Maybe he should get a different gift for a child at this point. I like the empathy for him personally, but if the reality is that you can only afford a $300 PC, perhaps a gaming PC should be off the table?
Don't you think you might be assuming too much? You really don't know this person or their financial situation. For all you know they might be very well off but just very frugal. But let's just get back on topic. We've derailed this thread enough already.
I think that $300 is a retarded amount to expect to pay for a gaming PC. Look at what he wants to run now. Just imagine what he will want to run 2 years from now.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions! You helped me out here.
The thing with $300 gaming PC is that you will get something really average, low-end, and most likely out-dated after you build/buy it. It seems like it would be a money pit because of all those upgrades. But it all comes down to what the kid would like to play, what type of games, are they demanding or not. If it's for minecraft - then go ahead, a simple APU would do the trick. This is just my opinion.
No. Instead it's time to focus on making sure you have $1000+ in disposable income.
I'm not sure how him putting his kids computer on a tight budget indicates that he someone is poor and can't afford to fix his car or plumbing if a problem arises. More than likely, he just thinks it's not something that his kids absolutely needs. Or maybe he's not sure his kid will keep playing on it after a month. If that's the case, $300 wouldn't sting as much to waste. Imagine if he spent double or triple that and it was collecting dust.
I wasn't saying he was poor. Actually, I would never accuse someone of that. I was talking about his budget.
But if he want a legitimate gaming machine for his kid, that $1000 is an important number for satisfying any PC gamer. It's possible to build for $500, but... not a gaming PC. They will be fighting with game settings and unable to play many mainstream games.
It's a gift. Maybe he should get a different gift for a child at this point. I like the empathy for him personally, but if the reality is that you can only afford a $300 PC, perhaps a gaming PC should be off the table?
Don't you think you might be assuming too much? You really don't know this person or their financial situation. For all you know they might be very well off but just very frugal. But let's just get back on topic. We've derailed this thread enough already.
I think that $300 is a retarded amount to expect to pay for a gaming PC. Look at what he wants to run now. Just imagine what he will want to run 2 years from now.
Technically 300$ PC can play games so its gaming PC. Will it run the spectacularly? no
That's your CPU and GPU right there. Sure, the integrated graphics isn't great, but most games will be playable at suitably reduced settings, and that's the sort of sacrifice you have to make to fit an extremely small budget.
I think your best bet is to get a console. I know you said you have a lot of PC games already. But the truth is, most of those games(console) will go on sale by the time you get that PC. Not to mention you won't have to upgrade for at least a good while. A $300 new tower is going to struggle running higher end games like Battlefront. It will also struggle to run most newer games that come out in a year or two. So once again you will have to either buy a newer computer or upgrade. While a new PS4 or X1 will run it no problem.
My advice is consider this option. In the long run it will be cheaper. Good luck to you either way and do let us know what you plan on doing :-)
One important difference between console and PC is that the business model is totally different. If you get a PC, the hardware sellers are trying to make money off of selling the hardware. If you get a console, Microsoft and Sony aren't actually trying to make money by selling the console. Thus, you get the hardware for a cheaper price.
You pay for it on the other end, though, as Microsoft and Sony get a cut of all game sales for their consoles. Thus, games tend to be more expensive on consoles than on PC. The discounted console price is to get you to buy their console and then later they get money off of you when you buy games.
Well theres one option to consider and thats new PS4 Neo, which shouldnt be too expencive but will be considerably more powerful and will last good 3-4 years.
If you buy from a company like Dell, you need to be warned that a lot of parts will be the cheapest pieces of junk that they could find that technically meets their claimed specs. If you try to buy such a machine and upgrade it yourself, you'll probably have to replace everything or nearly everything in it to get a respectable system.
And that's quite the frankenrig you've found. AMD and Intel customarily sell the same CPU clocked at different speeds for different form factors. A laptop chip will be exactly the same as a desktop version, except that the laptop one will be clocked lower to save power. And that's a desktop with a laptop chip in it.
The laptop chips commonly need a different socket, and in the case of Carrizo, laptop vendors decided to only use one memory channel for a chip that has two--and needs both badly. Much of the point of an APU like that is to use the integrated graphics, which means you need a ton of memory bandwidth. A single channel cuts your bandwidth in half right out of the gate, and having it clocked low reduces it further. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there's only a single channel physically present on the motherboard so you can't fix it yourself, either.
And then Dell went off and added a discrete video card, which completely blows away any benefit you might have hoped to get from the low power APU. Trying to drive that from a 180 W power supply really isn't the best idea. It wouldn't be surprising at all of it's a weird form factor so that you can't replace it yourself. I'm not sure why that rig even exists in the first place, but I wouldn't be surprised if Dell just decided to mix and match parts that they wanted to get rid of.
You said something about this being a Christmas present. In that case, I'd advise you to wait until it's closer to Christmas rather than buying something right now. Depending on how it's priced, AMD's upcoming Bristol Ridge platform could be interesting for your needs. That would be an APU with DDR4, so the integrated graphics won't be as bottlenecked by system memory bandwidth, and you'd have the option to later upgrade it to a Zen CPU and a discrete video card to get a solid gaming rig if you need more performance down the road without having to start over and throw most of it away.
The simple answer is no. No you can't build a gaming PC that you will be happy with.
Yes, you can buy SOMETHING, but it will straight out suck, no matter what you try. Jump to around 500 Bucks and you are in a whole differend world and CAN be happy.
Think about it this way: Would you rather spend 300 bucks and cry about it every day you use it? Or 500 bucks you never think about again because you enjoy what you got?
Id go for the second option any time of the day. No matter how you do it, you will have major shortcomings with 300 bucks.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
You won't get a new PC within that budget and there are some deals out there that are good. You might even want to get a refurbished PC and add in a GPU if you find some PC with a half decent CPU for about $200.
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
Just for S&G's I went to Newegg to see what I could throw together.
With an AMD A8-7600 CPU, and going with the least expensive option for pretty much everything, I was able to cobble together an 8G RAM, 240GG SSD, 300W Seasonic PSU, and a generic midtower case that came it at $305 with tax and shipping.
That didn't include a Windows license, monitor, or any peripherals though. It wouldn't be terribly upgradeable either, as your stuck on a AM2+ with all DIMM slots full, although you could add a video card later.
So I stand by my first post - possible, but you wouldn't really want to if you can avoid it at all.
I think your best bet is to get a console. I know you said you have a lot of PC games already. But the truth is, most of those games(console) will go on sale by the time you get that PC. Not to mention you won't have to upgrade for at least a good while. A $300 new tower is going to struggle running higher end games like Battlefront. It will also struggle to run most newer games that come out in a year or two. So once again you will have to either buy a newer computer or upgrade. While a new PS4 or X1 will run it no problem.
My advice is consider this option. In the long run it will be cheaper. Good luck to you either way and do let us know what you plan on doing :-)
One important difference between console and PC is that the business model is totally different. If you get a PC, the hardware sellers are trying to make money off of selling the hardware. If you get a console, Microsoft and Sony aren't actually trying to make money by selling the console. Thus, you get the hardware for a cheaper price.
You pay for it on the other end, though, as Microsoft and Sony get a cut of all game sales for their consoles. Thus, games tend to be more expensive on consoles than on PC. The discounted console price is to get you to buy their console and then later they get money off of you when you buy games.
While you're right about the hardware priority. I have to disagree with you about expensive software/games. I really don't think you've considered how cheap used games are for consoles. Not to mention you can trade in your games for others. Something we cannot do on PC (at least in the US). The consoles also have digital games that go on sale all the time. In the end i doubt the console will end up costing more than the PC. Afterall, you won't be upgrading your console in two years.
If you are going to buy now then you really should consider a console. If you can be patient and hold off buying a PC until you have more money, you will be much happier next year. While $300 will get you a PC that will run most games at the lowest settings, in a year or two it wont run any of the new games at a reasonable frame-rate, and with all the low end parts, you wont be able to upgrade unless you upgrade almost everything.
Happy now and sad next year or be patient now and happy next year and the years after, your choice...
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
I think your best bet is to get a console. I know you said you have a lot of PC games already. But the truth is, most of those games(console) will go on sale by the time you get that PC. Not to mention you won't have to upgrade for at least a good while. A $300 new tower is going to struggle running higher end games like Battlefront. It will also struggle to run most newer games that come out in a year or two. So once again you will have to either buy a newer computer or upgrade. While a new PS4 or X1 will run it no problem.
My advice is consider this option. In the long run it will be cheaper. Good luck to you either way and do let us know what you plan on doing :-)
One important difference between console and PC is that the business model is totally different. If you get a PC, the hardware sellers are trying to make money off of selling the hardware. If you get a console, Microsoft and Sony aren't actually trying to make money by selling the console. Thus, you get the hardware for a cheaper price.
You pay for it on the other end, though, as Microsoft and Sony get a cut of all game sales for their consoles. Thus, games tend to be more expensive on consoles than on PC. The discounted console price is to get you to buy their console and then later they get money off of you when you buy games.
While you're right about the hardware priority. I have to disagree with you about expensive software/games. I really don't think you've considered how cheap used games are for consoles. Not to mention you can trade in your games for others. Something we cannot do on PC (at least in the US). The consoles also have digital games that go on sale all the time. In the end i doubt the console will end up costing more than the PC. Afterall, you won't be upgrading your console in two years.
Used games you are correct - they can be pretty affordable - if your willing to wait and pick it up used. Although the popular games, even used, you may save $5 over the retail price.
Most console games are $60 US, a few drop lower, but not many. And they don't go on sale terribly often.
Compare that to, say, Steam, which discounts all the time, and only a few AAA titles start out in the $60 range - and even those, if you are willing to wait, will drop significantly in price. And the heaps of F2P games on the PC, compared to the... maybe dozen or so? available on the console.
But, there isn't really a used market for the PC either.
As far as upgrading your console in 2 years.... really? Neo? Scorpio? NX? 3DS XL? The last generation of consoles didn't upgrade often, but I think that's very much an exception to the rule - consoles upgrade all the time.
Building a decent gaming tower will cost you around $400-450 about. That's for everything besides the video card and windows OS.
That's for a AMD FX8320 and going with a case like a Coolmaster haf XB Evo. I use that computer case and I really like it. You can mod the living hell out of out very easy if you are in to that sort of thing.
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
Not really. You can never upgrade the graphics card in it for starters because the PSU sucks so much. The CPU is underpowered and would have been bad 10 years ago. It wont run any of your game at any acceptable rate even at low settings.
At this price you really need to find a bargain, like a second hand or demo ex. I think $400 without the OS, keyboard, mouse and screen is the cheapest I could build anything that could run the games even at 30 FPS. We are talking about pretty demanding games here and for $300 I could barely build something to look on facebook with.
Overall if all you have is $300 for the PC hold off. The only thing you could do is build an archaic system that will not really run any of the games you listed very well. PC gaming is an expensive hobby to have. I build systems with the expectation of being able to run for at least 7-8 years with no issues usually. The last system I built was around $3k and is still going with only an update to the GPU and will probably go for couple more years. You don't have to buy the most expensive parts but you do want to buy the best part for the slots. Take your time, figure out the motherboard you want to start with and slowly buy parts that match as you can. Prices of parts have dropped ten fold over the last 10 years. It might take a year but you could build a decent system for around $1k that will last for years now and run most games really well.
I don't know what case is for that motherboard or what kind of cooling I will need. Could someone assist with this or if there is anything severely wrong with the compatability of my selection please let me know.
Comments
Thank you for your comments and suggestions! You helped me out here.
The thing with $300 gaming PC is that you will get something really average, low-end, and most likely out-dated after you build/buy it. It seems like it would be a money pit because of all those upgrades. But it all comes down to what the kid would like to play, what type of games, are they demanding or not. If it's for minecraft - then go ahead, a simple APU would do the trick. This is just my opinion.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N83U90726
That's your CPU and GPU right there. Sure, the integrated graphics isn't great, but most games will be playable at suitably reduced settings, and that's the sort of sacrifice you have to make to fit an extremely small budget.
You pay for it on the other end, though, as Microsoft and Sony get a cut of all game sales for their consoles. Thus, games tend to be more expensive on consoles than on PC. The discounted console price is to get you to buy their console and then later they get money off of you when you buy games.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883159540R
CPUs are the core of your computer. If you get one that low, it's always going to be a problem no matter how much you upgrade later.
And that's quite the frankenrig you've found. AMD and Intel customarily sell the same CPU clocked at different speeds for different form factors. A laptop chip will be exactly the same as a desktop version, except that the laptop one will be clocked lower to save power. And that's a desktop with a laptop chip in it.
The laptop chips commonly need a different socket, and in the case of Carrizo, laptop vendors decided to only use one memory channel for a chip that has two--and needs both badly. Much of the point of an APU like that is to use the integrated graphics, which means you need a ton of memory bandwidth. A single channel cuts your bandwidth in half right out of the gate, and having it clocked low reduces it further. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there's only a single channel physically present on the motherboard so you can't fix it yourself, either.
And then Dell went off and added a discrete video card, which completely blows away any benefit you might have hoped to get from the low power APU. Trying to drive that from a 180 W power supply really isn't the best idea. It wouldn't be surprising at all of it's a weird form factor so that you can't replace it yourself. I'm not sure why that rig even exists in the first place, but I wouldn't be surprised if Dell just decided to mix and match parts that they wanted to get rid of.
You said something about this being a Christmas present. In that case, I'd advise you to wait until it's closer to Christmas rather than buying something right now. Depending on how it's priced, AMD's upcoming Bristol Ridge platform could be interesting for your needs. That would be an APU with DDR4, so the integrated graphics won't be as bottlenecked by system memory bandwidth, and you'd have the option to later upgrade it to a Zen CPU and a discrete video card to get a solid gaming rig if you need more performance down the road without having to start over and throw most of it away.
Yes, you can buy SOMETHING, but it will straight out suck, no matter what you try. Jump to around 500 Bucks and you are in a whole differend world and CAN be happy.
Think about it this way:
Would you rather spend 300 bucks and cry about it every day you use it?
Or 500 bucks you never think about again because you enjoy what you got?
Id go for the second option any time of the day.
No matter how you do it, you will have major shortcomings with 300 bucks.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
You won't get a new PC within that budget and there are some deals out there that are good. You might even want to get a refurbished PC and add in a GPU if you find some PC with a half decent CPU for about $200.
With an AMD A8-7600 CPU, and going with the least expensive option for pretty much everything, I was able to cobble together an 8G RAM, 240GG SSD, 300W Seasonic PSU, and a generic midtower case that came it at $305 with tax and shipping.
That didn't include a Windows license, monitor, or any peripherals though. It wouldn't be terribly upgradeable either, as your stuck on a AM2+ with all DIMM slots full, although you could add a video card later.
So I stand by my first post - possible, but you wouldn't really want to if you can avoid it at all.
Happy now and sad next year or be patient now and happy next year and the years after, your choice...
Most console games are $60 US, a few drop lower, but not many. And they don't go on sale terribly often.
Compare that to, say, Steam, which discounts all the time, and only a few AAA titles start out in the $60 range - and even those, if you are willing to wait, will drop significantly in price. And the heaps of F2P games on the PC, compared to the... maybe dozen or so? available on the console.
But, there isn't really a used market for the PC either.
As far as upgrading your console in 2 years.... really? Neo? Scorpio? NX? 3DS XL? The last generation of consoles didn't upgrade often, but I think that's very much an exception to the rule - consoles upgrade all the time.
That's for a AMD FX8320 and going with a case like a Coolmaster haf XB Evo. I use that computer case and I really like it. You can mod the living hell out of out very easy if you are in to that sort of thing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133302&ignorebbr=1&cm_re=PPSSBGDRYLXVJN-_-11-133-302-_-Product
This one is $309
At this price you really need to find a bargain, like a second hand or demo ex. I think $400 without the OS, keyboard, mouse and screen is the cheapest I could build anything that could run the games even at 30 FPS. We are talking about pretty demanding games here and for $300 I could barely build something to look on facebook with.
CPU Athlon X4 845 $66.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N83Z86709
GFX Radeon R9 270X $99.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131532
MOBO $50.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128763
Power Supply 35$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438015
RAM 30$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231741
HDD 23$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1ZD49E3143
I don't know what case is for that motherboard or what kind of cooling I will need. Could someone assist with this or if there is anything severely wrong with the compatability of my selection please let me know.
Looking at this case
20$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353050