Budget, baseline, and performance PC builds!
What time is it? It's time to Build a PC with our Blueprints! This month, we've built three rigs at three approximate price points: Budget Gamer, Mid-Grade, and Turbo. Budget Gamer gets you respectable performance without bruising your wallet, Mid-Grade gets you something beefier and more adaptable, and Turbo is an investment-grade powerhouse.
Prices listed here reflect print time and may not match the ones you find elsewhere online. In addition, Newegg has jumped on board to offer packaged deals for each of the builds below in an attempt to offer a better overall value. To see these bundle prices, click the "Buy or get more info at Newegg" button at the bottom of each build. Feedback is welcome. Tell us what you think!
Note: Some of the prices/links listed below may not show up properly if this page is ad-blocked.
BUDGET GAMER
| Ingredients | ||
| Part | Component | Price |
| Case | NZXT Source 210 Elite | $50 |
| PSU | Corsair CX500, 500 watts | $30 |
| Mobo | Biostar TA970 | $60 |
| CPU | AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz | $120 |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo | $36 |
| GPU | Sapphire Dual-X Radeon R7 265 | $153 |
| RAM | 2x 4GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3/1600 | $86 |
| SSD | Crucial MX100 256GB | $110 |
| HDD | Seagate Barracuda 1TB | $65 |
| Total = $710 | Click here to see the live bundle price:  | |
You could drop the SSD and get a nicer video card. If that's your preference, we'd recommend a Radeon R9 285, or a GeForce GTX 760. We prefer having an SSD, because it makes booting Windows and loading programs super-fast. The huge data transfer speeds (up to 550MB/s in some scenarios) aren't bad either. We've bumped our SSD up from a 128GB Samsung 840 Evo to a 256GB Crucial MX100, because you double your capacity for about $30 dollars. Other than that, we think we have a pretty good balance of price and performance. Some people might scoff at a $50 case, but the Source 210 Elite is actually surprisingly sturdy and roomy for the price. We've changed our RAM due to price fluctuations.
MID-GRADE
| Ingredients | ||
| Part | Component | Price |
| Case | Corsair Vengeance C70 | $108 |
| PSU | EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 220-G2-0850-XR , 850 watts | $100 |
| Mobo | Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H | $175 |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-4690K | $240 |
| Cooler | Enermax Liqtech 240 | $95 |
| GPU | Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290 4GB | $400 |
| RAM | 2x 4GB G.SKILL Ares Series F3-1600C9D-8GAO | $72 |
| Optical Drive | Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD Burner | $20 |
| SSD | Crucial MX100 256GB | $110 |
| HDD | Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM003 | $65 |
| Total = $1385 | Click here to see the live bundle price: | |
We're shaking things up a bit and bumping this tier up from about $1,100 to $1,400. That allows us to squeeze in a nice closed-loop liquid cooler like the Enermax Liqtech 240 (scored a 9 in our August issue), upgrading from the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (which is still a very nice air cooler). We also upgraded from a Radeon R9 280X to a Sapphire Tri-X OC Radeon R9 290. The 280X is a refresh of the last generation, while our 290 GPU is based on all-new silicon. We've changed our power supply from Silverstone to EVGA to accommodate price fluctuations. Previous EVGA PSUs had split 12-volt rails, while its newer units are unified. The latter design makes it easier to deliver lots of power to high-end gear.
TURBO
| Ingredients | ||
| Part | Component | Price |
| Case | NZXT Phantom 530 | $130 |
| PSU | XFX P1-1050-BEFX, 1050 watts | $180 |
| Mobo | Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H | $175 |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4790K | $340 |
| Cooler | NZXT Kraken X61 | $140 |
| GPU | 2x SAPPHIRE TRI-X OC Radeon R9 290 | $800 |
| RAM | 4x 4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL | $150 |
| Optical Drive | LG WH14NS40 Blu-ray Burner | $70 |
| SSD | Samsung 840 Evo 500GB MZ-7TE500BW | $260 |
| HDD | Seagate Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001 | $110 |
| TOTAL = $2355 | Click here to see the live bundle price: | |
We are bumping this tier up from about $2,000 to $2,500, and we're doing away with the roughly $4,000 "Ultra" build for now. We're not changing very many things, though. The Intel Core i7-4790K is a muscular and well-rounded chip, and 16GB of RAM is for multi-taskers and virtual machines. One change is the CPU cooler. We want to use the NZXT Phantom 530 case's sheer size. That's where the NZXT Kraken X61 comes in. Its 280mm radiator can dissipate heat more quickly than the 240mm rad of the Corsair H100i that we're replacing. The X61's larger fans also move more air with less noise and its six-year warranty is also a nice bonus. The other big change is going from one Radeon R9 290X to two SAPPHIRE TRI-X OC Radeon R9 290s. AMD had issues with micro-stutter in the past when running multiple video cards, but that's mostly solved now. Since a 290 is roughly equal to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780, two 290s can scale all the way to 4K gaming.
