Over the past year or so, we have taken a look at a few budgetgaming builds here at PC Perspective. One of our objectives with these build guides was to show people that PC gaming can be cost competitive with console gaming, and at a much higher quality.
However, we haven't stopped pursuing our goal of the perfect inexpensive gaming PC, which is still capable of maxing out image quality settings on today's top games at 1080p.
Today we take a look at two new systems, featuring some parts which have been suggested to us after our previous articles.
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| AMD System | Intel System | |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Athlon X4 760K - $85 | Intel Pentium G3220 - $65 |
| Cores / Threads | 4 / 4 | 2 / 2 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte F2A55M-HD2 - $60 | ASUS H81M-E - $60 |
| Graphics | MSI R9 270 Gaming - $180 | MSI R9 270 Gaming - $180 |
| System Memory | Corsair 8GB DDR3-1600 (1x8GB) - $73 | Corsair 8GB DDR3-1600 (1x8GB) - $73 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital 1TB Caviar Green - $60 | Western Digital 1TB Caviar Green - $60 |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master GX 450W - $50 | Cooler Master GX 450W - $50 |
| Case | Cooler Master N200 MicroATX - $50 | Cooler Master N200 MicroATX - $50 |
| Price | $560 | $540 |
(Editor's note: If you don't already have a copy of Windows, and don't plan on using Linux or SteamOS, you'll need an OEM copy of Windows 8.1 - currently selling for $98.)
These are low prices for a gaming computer, and feature some parts which many of you might not know a lot about. Let's take a deeper look at the two different platforms which we built upon.
The Platforms
First up is the AMD Athlon X4 760K. While you may not have known the Athlon brand was still being used on current parts, they represent an interesting part of the market. On the FM2 socket, the 760K is essentially a high end Richland APU, with the graphics portion of the chip disabled.
What this means is that if you are going to pair your processor with a discrete GPU anyway, you can skip paying extra for the integrated GPU.
As for the motherboard, we went for an ultra inexpensive A55 option from Gigabyte, the GA-F2A55M-HD2. This board features the A55 chipset which launched with the Llano APUs in 2011. Because of this older chipset, the board does not feature USB 3.0 or SATA 6G capability, but since we are only concerned about gaming performance here, it makes a great bare bones option.
Continue reading our build guide for a gaming PC under $550!!!
