Good store-bought PC for FFXIV $500 rangeFollow

With prebought, you'd have less hassle in that if the rig dies in the 1st year, BB would service it. You're paying overhead for that though, so not as much value in the parts. It is definitely the easier route.

I built my current rig for $800 ish, 2 years ago. It's enough to play maxed out, but in choosing the parts I did (budget, high performance:cost ratio), I limited myself on the upgrade path. While you can build a high end gaming rig that is more upgradeable, you also pay for that potential. With the mobo choice I went with, I'm limited to 1 graphic card (so no SLI/xfire etc without replacing the mobo), can't overclock (not unlocked), and limited hdd sockets. That said, if you're planning a budget rig, you probably wouldn't be considering anything above that, so it's a good deal in the sense that you're not paying extra for unnecessary potential. you can also cut out costs like the OS which is factored into store-bought. Can pick up a case on CL or kijiji or whatever bbs, at reduced cost as well.

That said, the mirror match to the pc I built, taking parts which have replaced it at a similar performance:price point, while stronger, is still >$500.

corsair tx650 $70
various budget mobo (no upgrade potential - asrock/msi) $50-$55
gskill 4x2 $75-$93
gtx 660 $190-210
haswell cpu $190-200 (same range as the old i5s)
wd black hdd $60-76 (320-500gb)
case $20 (2nd hand) - $50 (new)

Still looking at around $650. Could probably scale back the gpu a bit, but the 660's at a pretty solid p:p point. Black Friday may well ease this a little.
I'm running on an i5-2500, but I didn't see any listed on newegg in the cursory glance I took.
Others would have probably better suggestions. This is just to give you an idea of power achievable vs price.

My worry about that prebought is where they're likely skimming: the psu. I don't think you'd be able to upgrade from a 7450 (which is decent at best) with whatever generic low-wattage psu they're probably shipping with that.


I'd agree with this, if the purpose is solely to play 14, but wouldn't carry forwards as well as a PC would if/when he loses interest in 14.

I have a question maybe someone can help with?

I've bought a new CPU and MB today which I will install (huzzah! no more capped frame rates). My W8 was the dlc upgrade from W7 I bought from the Microsoft website so I don't have a disc. I've never upgraded before without doing a complete fresh OS install, can I just install the new MB and CPU and then reboot? Presumably W8 will auto-load the new drivers required and I can then use the system reset to force a fresh install?

That's what I'm hoping, I've no fancy RAID setup, I just bought some SSDs and use my HDDs for movies, music and such, I'll only turn the counter up on the CPU from 3.6 → 4 which should be pretty safe with the hydro cooler I have.

Hmm, that's kind of the problem, I don't have a disc to do a full install as I bought it digitally, and I guess making a backup is pointless as I'll be installing the same config.

Reading up on it, there seems to be no problem with W8, I should just uninstall as many drivers as I can before making the switch.

Edited, Oct 25th 2013 7:17am by SolomonGrundy

It would still be an image though, wouldn't it? I'm not 100% sure on this - and what capacity USD stick would be needed?

I want to recommend toms hardware forums. I dream up computer builds more than I end up buying them and find they answer quickly and always know the best bang for the buck. I used to check on a couple forums, Hard and Xotic pc (I heart their laptops) but I found toms to have the best community for this sort of question. Toms also does a seasonally budget build. They don't test FF but you'll get to see benchmarks on a comparable $600 build.

When you settle on something please link us too it. I'm thinking about picking up a budget store bought myself. I have a ps4 pre-ordered but the game I wanted, Watch Dogs, was delayed till next year. It looks like they are going for about 600 on ebay so I could turn it into a budget gaming machine and pick up the ps4 next year.

Edited, Oct 25th 2013 9:39am by Squander

I did my research. I personally don't trust ebay for PC purchases but I've already stated the 2500k is a good processor. Not sure what you're trying to argue against here.

Well you said "you won't be finding a 2500k system ready made these days" and it turns out that wasn't true. I'm not really trying to argue, just pointing out that the OP has better options that are not only cheaper, but will perform better and allow for expansion in the future.