re: I need an affordable gaming PC.

For a gaming PC at your budget, it's actually better for a novice to build rather than buy. Because with an off-the-shelf PC, what you'll end up doing is buying something labeled as a "gaming" PC but is in reality a dumpster fire.

I'll use iBuyPower as an example, since those are generally the cheapo gaming PCs you'll see online. Let's say your budget is somewhere between $500 and $600, and you come across this fine piece of hot garbage:



So, cool it has an overclocked pentium. Not a bad CPU for a budget gaming build actually. And 8GB of RAM is perfect, and the hard drive is meh but pretty standard.

Oh, but what's this? This here dedicated graphics card, the R7-250. Wow it has 2GB of vram. I wonder how it performs at decent settings??

Oh, it gets 20 FPS in Assassin's Creed IV? About 30 in Battlefield 4? It can't even ht 60FPS in BF4 at low quality? 30FPS in Metro Last Light at LOW quality? Well shite.


Here's what you get if you build it yourself and pirate Windows like the rest of us:

PCPartPicker part list: LINK
Price breakdown by merchant: LINK /

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($69.97 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.65 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($74.70 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: HIS Radeon R9 280 3GB IceQ OC Video Card ($184.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $557.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-23 13:03 EDT-0400


The graphics card in the build above performs maybe 3 times as fast.