Well, I'm getting a bit impatient about building a new PC, cuz I've been waiting for too long.
Here's some key factors on building it:
-It has to be fairly budget-friendly.
-It has to be fairly budget-friendly.
-The rig's max recommended PSU wattage has to be 400W (when calculated via a PSU calculator)
-Monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers are from my current PC (native monitor resolution is 1366x768 so it's expected to be able to use highest settings, even if the GPU is an entry-level GTX 960 2GB).
And here are the two rigs that's probably gonna be decent enough for me:
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2G
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x4GB (16GB is needed since I also use a VM, to sandbox some stuff. Also, soon 8GB won't be enough due to increasing requirements)
PSU: Zumax Power ZU400
HDD: Galax Gamer SSD L 240GB and WD Black WD2003FZEX 2TB
M/B: MSI H170A Gaming Pro (Z170 motherboards are useless for this CPU, since it can't be OC'd)
OR...
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 3.4GHz (I'm aware that Xeon E3 were meant for workstations or servers, but some gaming test on YouTube shows that it's also perfect for gaming)
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2G
RAM: G.Skill DDR3 RipjawsX PC12800 2x8GB
PSU: Zumax Power ZU400
HDD: Galax Gamer SSD L 240GB and WD Black WD2003FZEX 2TB
M/B: MSI H97 PC Mate (Z97 is rendered useless since Xeon can't be overclocked)
Some gaming test using Xeon E3-1231v3. These are to prove that it's also decent enough for gaming.
The Xeon E3 seems to be a decent alternative to the costlier i7 processors (Xeon E3, including this one, are sometimes cheaper than an i7, but still delivers a great performance). It also performs pretty well in gaming too, according to a few tests, since the Xeon E3 usually only has 4 cores and 8 threads, just like most of the regular i7 processors.
The reason why people thinks that the Xeon E3 isn't good for gaming is because they've never tried it. Xeons are less known than the Core series, and the packaging only says "Server/Workstation" without mentioning any "Desktop" in it.
Also, the only Xeon processors that are bad for gaming are the E5 and E7, since those processors have a lot of cores, and usually low CPU speed (below 3GHz). Most modern games currently can't utilize cores that much yet, so the rest of the cores are rendered useless. Those individual cores have a very low clock speed, and modern games usually use up to 4 cores at best, thus leading to the reason why they can't be used for gaming. The Xeon E5 and E7 were intended only for servers.
The Xeon E3-1231v3 scored 9600 in Passmark and it has a normal clockspeed of 3.4GHz and turbo speed of 3.8GHz. i5 processors can't seem to compete with Xeon E3, since they only manage to hit 7000+ at best, probably due to the i5 not supporting hyperthreading.
It's pretty much the Core i7-4770, only without the integrated GPU (which is unnecessary anyway), and a 100MHz lower turbo clock speed (the i7-4770 has 3.9GHz while the E3-1231v3 has 3.8GHz). Even the cache size of both processors is 8MB. Passmark score of i7-4770 is 9832, only 232 points higher than the E3-1231v3. This is to be expected due to its lower turbo speed. However, it's still better than the i5-6500, which scored only 7043. That's 2557 points lower than the E3-1231v3.
In terms of price, the Xeon E3-1231v3 costs around $240, while the i7-4770 costs around $310 (at the time this was written). That pretty much saves $70, which could be used for doing things like getting a better GPU (GTX 970 for example), or getting a better capacity HDD or SSD. The i5-6500 costs around $205, but it has a way worse performance than the E3-1231v3.
That's pretty much it. I basically prefer the second option though, since the Xeon E3-1231v3 scored 2557 points higher than the i5-6500, making things like replacing CPUs unnecessary for a few more years.
If you have any other opinions, just leave a comment below. Be sure to post only budget-friendly rigs, since I won't be able to afford those shiny i7 processors, nor a GTX 980 or better.
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