To find out where you can get a part for the lowest price, and find out if all the parts you have in mind are actually compatible, I'd recommend checking out a site called pcpartpicker. It's pretty darn handy

Agreed. It also can show what part is compatible with what part. I use this all the time to build my own servers.

Rukas. Make sure you get at least a 300w power supply. If it's too underpowered, you can literally damage the system over time, and I believe a high-powered video card can pull some serious power. Just check it with the site.

If I remember correctly, nVidia specifically recommends a 650w PSU for that graphics card. No wait, it's 600w.

That card has a TDP of 250w, and it can pull more than that under load... It does double as a handy room heater though!

Jezz...I'll definitely have to remember to check this if I build a really high powered system. Thanks for the alert.

Yeah, that's the one "big downside" of any of the frontrunners of each generation... They can handle insane graphics demands for the time, but they also usually have some pretty hefty power requirements. Thankfully, 250w has been the top tier TDP for a while now, even on the 1080 Ti's, and the GTX 2080 Ti's... But it's still something to keep in mind.

^ what they said. pcpartpicker shows you all compatible parts, and then lists the places with the cheapest sales for them.

PCPartsPicker is very good. I use it to explore different components sets.

Couldn't agree more: PCPartpicker is the site I used to put together MY rig. Got the parts for a really good price back then, too. In total, I didn't even wind up spending more than $1300 on just the completed tower alone...which is a fairly reasonable price for the specs that I had designed it with, btw! :D

I get computer parts from NewEgg.

The only things left you need are the boring ones anyway :p
I'm never able to keep up with what the best stuff this second, but I do know RAM is rather expensive right now, so might want to do some deal hunting there.
And I bet whomever else answers will certainly say the same thing, but I'd highly recommend getting an SSD over the ol' spinny disks. Definitely the biggest bang for the buck you can do :)

Good luck, that's super awesome of you to be doing that!

What is your budget for everything else?

I could help you with it in just a few minutes. If memory serves me right, you're from the United States, right? The website PCPartPicker comes in handy. It will only search for prices of stuff bought new, but maybe that's for the better in case a component fails...

(He already has a screen he says, I hope it's at least a good 1080p one ;p)

Yeah, give me a budget and a PCpartspicker and i can MAKE some decent setups, ive got a full rig setup under $600 i think last time that would run 98% of most games today in high

$500? Is that reasonable?

Very much so!

You're going to be hard pressed to do anything "decent."
It generally comes down to "do you want older games (greater than 2 years)" or "do you want current and up-and-coming games?"
Even going with "older is fine" you can't really get away with spending less than about $800. Fortunately you already have a video card, which is one of the more expensive pieces, but that still only cuts your expenses down about $150. CPUs are expensive as balls.

I'd say to run over to PortaTech and spec things out, if nothing else. Their markup on building it (instead of just sending you pieces) is pretty small. I priced it out once and it was something like $50 to $75 cheaper to buy parts and build it myself vs. buying it prebuilt from PortaTech (including installing Windows).

I did link you to the "barebones" page, which lets you opt-out of parts (complete systems does not), so you can do things like "I have a video card, I don't need this" or "I've already got a hard drive, don't bother." (of course, they can't install Windows if you aren't buying a hard drive). The only things you can't opt-out of are the mother board, CPU (for obvious reasons), and a case (a cheap case is like $20).

One of the advantages is that they show you the Passmark ratings of the CPUs and GPUs to give you a rough estimate of how "fast" things are, along with the prices of each part.

A few notes:
- SSD are super fast, pretty cheap, and decently sized these days. I picked up a 250GB one for $70 just yesterday. I'd have gone smaller if they had smaller (windows only needs about 20GB).
- M.2 SSDs are a thing. Be aware of this form-factor design and that some motherboards support it and some do not. Instead of looking like tiny hard (platter) drives out of a laptop, they look more like ram sticks with the pins on the short side instead of the long side.
- smaller is fine if you also get/have a large capacity platter drive. 1TB and 2TB drives are super cheap. I use one for all my steam games (and a separate 500gb older platter drive for all my other programs and a third for user data)
- 8GB of ram is usually sufficient these days (and not too expensive). 1 stick, 2 sticks, and 4 sticks are all pretty much equivalent. Best would be 2 sticks, due to the load balancing the system can do. Its less important than it used to be, but its still slightly better to have an even number of sticks (and having slots free gives you upgrade space).
- power supply, you'll probably need on the order of 650 watts. Check if the video card needs supplemental power, if so, what kind of connector. Make sure the PSU has that connector.

She doesn't need a GPU nor a case, so for 500$ (and even 400 if hard pressed) you could do some really decent things. And 650 Watt?! :p

It's a 250w TDP graphics card as a note. The 980 Ti is a power hog. Pushes most games rather well, but it definitely is a power hog.

...Works great as a room heater in the winter though. Yes, I'm serious, you'd be amazed how quickly it can add several degrees Celcius to the room temperature with even just a few hours of gaming... Even more so if you're running a constant load on it (like Folding@Home, or one of the BOINC GPU projects).

Yeah. With video cards being power hogs (and having more than one hard drive) 650 is kind of the "new normal" on power consumption.

Thankfully, 650w PSU's are fairly inexpensive, even the Gold rated ones.

hah I used to have an older computer that would warm up the room. eventually got a new one and it didn't warm up as much

Sadly, top of each generation's tier (from Nvidia) has been 250w TDP for graphics card, so assuming you're putting an equivalent load on it (aka one suitable to each graphics card), they're still putting out a similar amount of heat. CPUs on the other hand, have become more efficient with their power use, and usually will only become power hogs when fully loaded (something that doesn't happen much in gaming scenarios).

Obvious thing though, is depending on how old one's rig is, upgrading from what once used to be a top tier graphics card (let's say, GTX 780 Ti) you'll see lower power consumption (and therefore less heat in the room) but have a more powerful setup with something like a GTX 1060 6GB.

EDIT: This was posted as a reply to THEbigcat, but for some reason keeps being put under NN-Blackrider. Weird.

oh I guess it wasn't just me. I came back and thought I had just accidentally posted an amendum under the wrong comment(tired, things happen). weird site stuff

As said in the other comment, it should still be okay, considering that overclock is completely out of the question, it seems. As far as we are concerned, that's also a reputable and sufficiently well built PSU. I understand that most enthusiasts and overclockers (I have a 1040 watt PSU myself) prefer to have a MASSIVE headroom, just in case, but most of the time budget is not a large concern for us :p

EVGA does make reputable power supplies, although some of their budget entry ones aren't as good as their OEMs take more shortcuts on those ones. I'm just worried about piggybacking the PCIe connectors and if that PSU can cope or not.

As for budgets, I freeze LGA 775 for a reason - parts are cheap and plentiful, so if you break them, well... Doesn't hurt the wallet anywhere near as much ^_^;;; (Hurts your pride when you short out the VCA's on your new board before it goes cold though. Ooops. I accidentally put the metal backplate first, instead of my usual paper towel-insulation-backplate sandwich... Didn't even get magic smoke or bad smell, just OCP single tick of death from the PSU)

775 in a budget is fine, but as soon as you have anything over 150€, it's worth to make the jump to a modern platform :p

About the PCIE connectors... in theory with an adapter it should work.

I am aware she doesn't need those things. You didn't read my comments very well at all.

Do you know what case you have? otherwise ill just bundle a regular ATX board with it

Also..do you have an operating system you can install? i think most forget that...and thats like $120 alone if your buying windows

If you're going pricewise, I'd recommend looking at AMD CPUs. The new Ryzen chips are very powerful and they cost much less than comparable Intel CPUs.

RAM-wise you probably only need 8-16GB for most games. More than 16 is usually a waste: that's more for editing and other computationally intensive tasks.

Definitely go for a solid state drive: much faster than spinning platters and gives you a highly noticeable speedboost. You don't need to go crazy: usually 256gb to 512 is enough for the operating system and the game software: data and stuff can be stored on external (or secondary internal) hard drives. NVMe is very fast interface, but SATA is probably good and much cheaper.

PM me if you wanna chat some more. I work in IT professionally (for now) and I'd be happy to help for all of your awesome storytelling over the years (you're the reason I still follow furry art :) ).

This.
A decent AMD FX cpu which is the previous generation will get you a cheap processor with plenty of power.
8GB is certainly enough for just about any game I've come across. the only reason I have 16 in my workstation is because I need to run virtual machines for work ;)

I do recommend you get a platter drive for game data, Get a WD Black if you can -- they perform magnificently also as a system drive. If you have to choose between a 256GB SSD and a 1TB platter WD, go for the platter drive. Games are space hungry.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GwhW6s
This does assume 16gb RAM, and you might be able to get by with 8gb, but I'd still personally recommend the 16.

I'd not consider a computer without an SSD nowadays, but luckily that's like 20-30 extra for a low 128GB tier SSD, which will work in this case and still speed things up massively. That should keep it under 500 at the end of the day, too.

I actually had an SSD on the original, but I cut it strictly for the extra 30 savings :P

I'd also ask why you went for an i3 instead of for a Ryzen 3 or even 5 for that price; considering the extra power and future upgradeability or replaceability, but I think I can guess the answer. :p

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compa.....00X/3935vs3915
At that price, there isn't a ton of difference (I plugged in a few different Ryzen to check)

I was thinking either the 2400G or the 2600, specially since the i3's is sadly a dead socket.

My bad; I meant the 2200G instead of the 2400G.

do you think that's a good build overall, other than the SSD? A bunch of people seem to be suggesting that.

Adding an SSD and it's not bad, quite solid actually... but an SSD is just so mindblowingly huge of an improvement that not picking one is simply a no; it's actually the only part I'd pick if I could only pick one, able to make a mid tier laptop that's 5 years old feel snappy and fast when you put one in it.

That Intel is also not a bad CPU, but it's motherboard may no longer be supported; it's not clear that future CPUs that Intel makes will be compatible with it. It's also considerably pricier than other options from the competition with similar performance (Ryzen 2200G), or considerably less powerful than similar priced options (Ryzen 2600), both of which use motherboards that will be supported until 2020 at least. The Intel, anyway, is not a bad buy at all, but it's not personally the one I'd pick.

These are the parts I was talking about:

Ryzen 2200G (Similar performance, but 70$ less)
Ryzen 2600 (Similar price, but much higher performance)

And a motherboard for them

The other parts could stay the same; this would merely be the "AMD alternative" to the Intel list up there. I personally would pick the 2600 one, for similar price, and much better futureproofing.

Could I be a HUUUUUGE jerk?

Could you just make me a list of everything you suggested, all in one? I'm trying to make sense of it all and I'm getting a bit lost :P

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GWmYhy

No problem :p

I took some liberties there: changed to motherboard to a slightly better and more feature rich one for 2$ more, and changed the RAM to a cheaper brand with the exact same size, speed and latency.
Power supply, CPU cooler and hard disk are the same ones.

If you wanted to save some money, you could remove the CPU cooler, as the Ryzen already comes with one in the box. However, for the 28$ is costs, it's MUCH better than the one bundled with the CPU... so that means the CPU can run at faster speeds without overheating. I'd keep it.

you're the best! thank you!

That's a really nice and well rounded build! The only potential issue I see with that build is the power supply - most GTX 980 Ti's are 8+8 PCIe power pins (there are two that use more than that, but unless it's an MSI Lightning or EVGA Kingpin one doesn't have to worry about that), and typically you want each one to have a separate cable in order to prevent any issues. Will it work for a gaming rig? More than likely.

I'm just a paranoid subzero bencher though, who before he got into subzero benching, still did separate cabling for each of the PCIe power plugins. Some PSUs throw a fit about it due to current draw, others usually don't.

I agree that the PSU seems a bit weak with only 500W.

I checked the build with a 980, it only comes up at 300W. That's still a 200W buffer, I'm not quite as concerned. (Though, around 200 is my minimum preferred buffer)

GTX 980 is a 165w TDP card... GTX 980 Ti is a 250W card. Rukis has the Ti as a spare part.

There's a huge difference in power requirements between those two cards, doubly so if you look at the reference card power connectors - Non-Ti is 2x6 pin, while the Ti is an 8-pin and a 6-pin, although most aftermarket boards were 2x8-pin connectors.

EDIT: So annoying that it keeps putting replies to various people at the bottom of it all >.>;;; This was a reply to Legandaryhon.

I thought of that as well, but since the system in the list is sub 150-watt, even if the CPU managed to pull 150W (and 200W) for the whole platform under boost moments, I don't think a GTX980Ti would exceed it at the same time with a full-TDP load. I agree with you on that it will not have a very large headroom, but considering that it's a simple system and overclock seems out of the question, it should suffice.

NN-Blackrider

True enough. I'm just worried that if one were to play high detail GTA V or other game that has a reasonably high demands that that single line going to both 8-pin plugs on the graphics card might become an issue if the graphics card were put under full 100% load.

And I almost forgot!

The SSD :p

35$ for 240GB. Low tier, but should do the trick, while being much faster than an HDD still.

The i3 is on the older side, not sure I'd consider it for a "gaming machine."
Also, ditto other comments on the SSD.

Suggested alterations:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ppDB9J

How long are you hoping the system can go? Do they have any preference when it comes to AMD versus Intel? Also, do you know the size of the GTX 980 Ti at all? If it's a 6GB one, then I'd recommend 12GB of RAM and a either an Intel Core i5 8600 6-core 3.1GHz or an AMD Ryzen R5 1600. Both of those should last at least two years from today at near enough 60fps, but if you'd prefer something on a budget, you've got the option of an Intel Core i5-2380P 3.1GHz or AMD Phenom II X6 1055T v2. The latter of those is what I'm aiming at personally, as I run a GTX 1050 Ti currently. An Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 motherboard should be under $150, though I've heard some folks got it on rebate at $120. It's the one I'm aiming for at least. If you go down the budget route, then aim for 8GB of RAM. Sadly I'm not too well-versed on sound cards, so I couldn't advise on that, but the gaming headset I use is a SADES model SA-901. It's a Chinese brand, so the instruction manual is illegible to me, but it's USB and has a heavy-duty cable and good quality mic. I've also had it over two years without issue.

Sound cards are not necessary nowadays. On-board sound has come quite a ways and those are enough for the majority of users.

Ah, fair. I know some audiophiles prefer to have it anyway, so wasn't sure. Still, thanks for chipping in! Helps me sort out my budget parts! =p

Okay, I can help ya out here!

You can get a system similar to mine, depending on your budget. Cheapest CPU would be AMD's Ryzen. There are a lot of Ryzen varieties available, and typically the one with the highest number is 'better.' I have a Ryzen 5 1600 CPU, which is sufficient enough to not cause any bottlenecking with the GTX 980 Ti.

Now, with the Ryzen, you'd need a motherboard that supports that type of CPU and socket. The AMD Ryzen is labeled as using the AM4 socket ( https://www.amd.com/en/products/chipsets-am4 ), so you can look up socket information on which is good for your budget and needs - any should be fine.

Next up, RAM. DDR4 RAM is required for the Ryzen CPUs. RAM these days are sorta pricy. Get at the VERY MINIMUM 8GB of RAM. 16GB is sufficient and enough for most users. RAM speeds will be labeled in Mhz. The higher, the better, but again, go with your budget. (I have 3000Mhz RGB RAM)

Power Supply. Get a name-branded power supply. Don't skimp out on this as you may experience some issues like the computer suddenly shutting down due to the 980 Ti sucking up all the power. Semi-modular or Modular are fine. Modular basically means it has detachable cables, making it much easier to do cable management while setting things up. A 750-watt PSU is good for what you need.

Operating system. Windows 10, at minimum. Windows 7 is being phased out and newer games are starting to only support on Windows 10. If he already has Windows 10, he can download it for free off Microsoft's web site and transfer his license over to the new computer.

This is all the basics! If you need help or unsure about ANYTHING, feel free to comment or note me and I can walk you through more things in detail.

Here's a rundown:

CPU: AMD Ryzen is cheap and good.
RAM: DDR3 is cheap, but only compatible for older CPUs; DDR4 is required for Ryzen.
PSU: 750-watt; name-branded. Some are labeled as 'Certified,' those are more reliable.
OS: Windows 10

I'm not sure if I am missing anything else

EDIT: Forgot harddrive

SSDs are cheap now. GET IT.
Also have a backup secondary traditional (mechanical) hard drive of at least 1TB.

For funsies, here're the remaining parts I have in my current system

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wCdsWD

750w for the PSU is way overkill in my opinion, you're running <50% load on that. My rule of thumb is anywhere between 50 and 67% is where your PSU should be, and this rig likely runs 350ish watts with an R7-1700. A 550w PSU still remains in that happy zone without wasting money on capacity you're not going to use.

For starters you'll need at least a 600 Watt Power Supply. source ( https://www.geforce.com/hardware/de.....specifications )

The basic items you'll need.
-Mother board
-CPU
-RAM
-Hard Drives (SDD and/or HDD)
-Power supply (min 600watts)

One pointer i got from a friend, is to start out by finding a CPU that can handle the games you like to play and then finding a mother board that fits it.

For the RAM you'll need anywhere between 8-16gb worth.

Another good idea is to have a two drive setup, a SDD (solid drive for boot up and operating software) and a HDD (regular hard drive to store programs, etc.)

I'm not a computer expert, but i am also looking to build one myself so I've been researching what i can. Sorry that i can't help you much more than that. x3

I'm running an AMD Ryzen 5 1600+ and it can handle everything.

Sounds like i should be asking you for some assistance sometime. c:

I am a computer dude. Been building and working on computers for over 20 years now. Been using computers my whole life.

Nice, I'm looking to build my first custom soon, so i've been reaching out to people i know for help. If i had any questions later on, mind if ask you? c:

sure.

what type of case do you have? ATX? Micro ATX? Something else? Form factor matters. I assume your GTX 960 is a PCIEx16 card? If not then that'll be something that needs to be addressed.

Also, if you insist on using Windows as an OS you need to include buying a copy of windows 10 in your budget.

Too bad I don't know shit about setting up a computer.

AMD Ryzen 7 1700X - https://amzn.to/2Dmnef1 - $184.55
Arctic Freezer 13 CO - 200 Watt Multi-compatible Low Noise CPU Cooler - https://amzn.to/2T7Wrst - $31.99
Arctic Silver 5 AS5-3.5G Thermal Paste - https://amzn.to/2FnI6W0 - $6.64
MSI X370 Gaming Plus ATX Motherboard - https://amzn.to/2zbWb3n - $98.78
Corsair Memory Kit 16GB DDR4 2400MHz - https://amzn.to/2PTSGIn - $119.74
Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD - https://amzn.to/2qKPVL8 - $82.95
Monoprice 18-inch SATA III Cable - https://amzn.to/2K5POCK - $4.99 - not sure if motherboard already has it, but these are inexpensive and it's always nice to have them around in case you need them. Nothing worse than having a hard-drive but not being able to plug it in.
EVGA Supernova 650W Fully Modular Power Supply - https://amzn.to/2OLg9Xl - $79.83

[Optional, might need for convenience depending on case] Corsair Dual SSD Mounting Bracket 3.5" - https://amzn.to/2DEDGbn - $7.77
Converts 3.5" (normal mechanical hard-drive size) drive bay to 2.5", which is how big the SSD is.

$617.24 for everything.

The CPU is a very high-performing and is good value for the money. It comes with no cooler, so I picked out a compatible cooler. (Compatibility based on the socket of the CPU, which is socket AM4). I also picked out thermal paste, which is required to be applied between the CPU and the cooler to aid in heat transfer by filling all gaps.

The Motherboard is an ATX form-factor board, which most cases should fit assuming they are not quite small. It is compatible with the CPU, and has all the lovely bells and whistles you desire, while being from a high quality brand. Important to spend at least a little on this, since all other components plug into the motherboard. If it fails, it can take other components with it.

The memory is just good brand 16gb of memory. Spending more for higher speed memory is not worth it, because it does not translate into very noticeable performance increases. 8GB of memory these days really just feels too restrictive, especially if you like browsing with lots of tabs or just having a lot of stuff going on in general.

The hard drive is just a high quality 500gb SSD. SSDs are just much more reliable and much, much faster than mechanical hard drives nowadays. 500GB is enough for the ever-growing windows installation, and for a wide variety of Steam games and downloads. Additional storage can easily be added later. The SATA cable will just facilitate connecting it to the motherboard.

The power supply is 650W, which is more than sufficient for this build. If your friend plans on doing SLI (multiple graphics cards) they might need something beefier. Otherwise not. More importantly it's fully modular, which makes managing the tangle of cables in the case MUCH easier. Only attach the power cables you need! Do not use any power supply that was included in a case, as a rule, in case you do already have one in the case. They are generally much, much lower quality.

The adapter might be useful if your case does not have any 2.5" bays built in to fit the smaller SSDs. It's not mandatory, but it is nice to have something they lock onto. Worst case though you can just have it loose in the case and it will still work. SSDs do not case very much about being jostled a tiny bit, so long as their cables stay in.

That's my take. Take it as you will, or not!

Assuming she wants the other person to be able to use it out of the box you need an OS. Windows costs almost $200 for a copy of 10. I'd recommend linux personally though. I run Ubuntu 18.04 on my computers.

This is true. It's possible to still get a free copy of Windows 10 if you have Windows 7 though, if you search hard enough. That assuming they don't have Windows 10. If they do, it's not hard to extract the license key using freely available programs, and then use it for a clean install.

She already said the main intended use for the PC is gaming, which leaves Linux out of the question (If she or the receiver were knowledgeable enough to run Windows games on Linux, they wouldn't be asking in FA about how to build it).

Also: https://www.hrkgame.com/en/games/pr.....-oem-pc-cd-key

I game on linux. There is enough support these days.

Defentelly. WINE+DXVK can run all the latest games but for a few with horrible DRM that even causes problems on Win10 boxes. Been playing ESO for the past few months on WINE with no issues. Even got the addon manager to work under linux.

I'll need to get that installed soonish. I'd love to try out eso again. I've been playing wow a lot lately. :3 Lutris is amazing.

A good site to help you with finding compatible parts is https://pcpartpicker.com/ not only does it help you find parts that work together with what you have but it helps find them for a deal.

For a community dedicated to helping people do exactly this: https//reddit.com/r/buildapc

The entire place is full of advice, recommendations, example builds, guides and links to different retailers with price comparisons.

Well worth giving it a look!

Geez I wish I had this kind of eager teaching for tech stuff...

What I'd recommend as a starting point is the following build. https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/CmvTD2

You can probably play more with memory and motherboard to bring the cost down, but as it stands, that build is configured with a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU on an Asus B450 motherboard with 16GB of ram. 8 is fine, 16 is very nice to have. It has a very solid 970 Evo 250 GB SSD and a 1TB WD Black HDD, and both those parts can still be played with for cost, but are very solid performers. The PSU is a more budget-oriented one, but has more than enough power to run near its efficiency peak under load and have some overhead.

OK. Here is my advice offering based on your description of the project.

A shopping list of parts you need that you do not already have
- one motherboard
- one CPU with heat sink and fan (e.g. AMD or Intel)
- one power supply with enough wattage & cables for the motherboard, drives, and graphic card
note: the case you have may have a power supply already.
- memory. This depends on the motherboard you buy
- one hard drive. 500GB or 1TB SATA should be adequate
- one operating system (e.g. Windows 10 [$140] or Linux [free but may have game compatibility issues] )
- one DVD drive (many games come on DVD disks)
note: all these must be comparable with your case

The choose of these components cover such a range, depending on features, that I can not give general advice.
Here are some articles that may help give you some ideas about component choose:

Gaming PC build on a budget: the best parts for an affordable gaming PC
October 11, 2018
https://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-gu.....get-gaming-pc/

The Best Budget $500 Gaming PC – Good & Cheap Build (UPDATED 2018)
November 13, 2018
https://www.wepc.com/builds/best-ga.....der-500-guide/

The Best $1000 Gaming PC That Will Own 2018
October 25, 2018
https://www.wepc.com/builds/best-ga.....er-1000-guide/

How to Build a Kick-Ass Gaming PC for Less Than $1,000
September 17, 2018
https://www.pcmag.com/article/36341.....ess-than-1-000

Easy Builder
https://www.ibuypower.com/Config/EasyBuilder

I hope you enjoy the journey.
TG

p.s. I would also check the specific game you want the rig to run. Many components can not run the newer games.

Can it run my game?
https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Can you Run It?
https://www.game-debate.com/can-I-run/

I hope you enjoy the journey.
TG

There's so much overwhelming info here already. Me, I suggest you go for a year or two dated tech. Everyone will hype the other parts, but you already have the graphics card. CPU is secondary. Get a good quad or eight core. Ryzen is preferable right now, for price-performance. Get 8GB of RAM as that'll work for gaming with that card having more than enough itself. And a solid state hard drive sounds nice. Don't worry about the pricier SSD variety like Samsung. Crucial has really good offerings for far, far cheaper. No one but a benchmarking app will be able to tell the difference.

Integrated sound is more than good enough these days. It used to be a big deal to have a standalone sound card. No more. I'm not sure what I can provide that others haven't already brought up.

There is one thing I'm curious about. What kind of monitor does your friend have? That's pretty important as well, and often overlooked. The nicer ones don't come cheap, but you can find some deals this time of the year.

Best of luck with your endeavor. You're quite a good friend to do this. I admire you for it. Then you always come across as a very kind person to me. It shines through in everything you do.

I would recommend something like this for $450
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2R46LJ

This doesn't include the price of windows 10 which is ~$100. If you have an old computer around you could always reuse the license from that. If not, this is with windows 10 included:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mw3q9J
if it is super critical that you stay close to $500 and you need to buy windows you can reduce the amount of RAM to 8GB, like this:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/h446LJ

The processor is last years model instead of one of the newest ones since the graphics card you have is a bit older; a more powerful processor won't make any difference in games. I also wouldn't go with a cheap power supply since this will be a fairly high end computer.

Start with your budget.

I recommend newegg for most parts. They not only have great prices usually (shop around to be sure) but their reviews and rating system are good, and they have this 'newegg recommends' thing which is usually a sign of quality.

Make sure you get a beefy power supply. I recommend 800w or more. These days that really matters. And make sure it's 80 gold certified or better, in my humble opinion. Absolutely don't buy any power supply that doesn't have an 80% certification.

Don't spend a lot on the case unless you're buying a fancy Lian-Li or similar. And if you want a fancy case, buy a Lian-Li. I've been using the same Lian-Li case since 2000 and it's still one of the best I've ever seen.

Ohh, was going to suggest some sites, but I see folks already gots it. Glad to see folks jumping on helping out so fast. I've built...well...all my computers past my first one, so I've done it a few times, but I'm not as early of a responder. :p

I prefer the term kangaroo computer overlord over geek, tyvm.

Best of luck.

lol, I'll try to keep that in mind in the future ; )

I had to throw in something silly to break up the monotony of genuine advice.

On a serious note I think if you saw my infrastructure you'd agree its a title I've earned.

I agree with Wolfbeast on the AMD - I have a Ryzen 7 2700X and it performs admirably - most games use far more GPU than CPU, and even playing the most resource-intensive games out on the market right now it doesn't get more than 30% usage, so you could get a much lower-end one and still do just fine.

But...I have had constant issues with the FX series. For me at least, they've consistently caused horrific stuttering. 1-2 second lockups every 10-30 seconds. That's death in any online game. It's not much more in cost to avoid the FX series altogether honestly, even the most barebones Ryzen would be better. Maybe the newer generations are better, but I've been burned pretty badly. I had the 8370E and it was a trainwreck. ( http://www.tomshardware.com/answers.....cpus-cpus.html )

WD blacks are outstanding - I can also recommend a firecuda, it's a hybrid drive and it's a nice inbetween performance-wise for HDD and SSDs. I've got my OS on a 250gb SSD and everything else on a 2tb firecuda and it works great.

8GB is an acceptable amount of RAM as long as you're not going to play any particularly new games - especially if you intend to do multitasking such as running a game and running, say, a browser, especially if you fancy chrome, as it's a RAMwhore. Even just instant messaging apps like discord, telegram, skype and the like add up surprisingly fast. I had 8 on my old build and it was with one exception a struggle to have a game going with anything else, even if it was just telegram and discord.

I agree with others that you'd want a minimum of 800w for a power supply, pcpartpicker will let you make a 'build' and tell you how much wattage it will use, you'll want a power supply that's between 150-200% more than predicted usage - because wattage is fluid and if you get too low wattage a power supply, you'll just have it randomly lose power. I had a bronze certified on my old build, and never had a single issue - BUT higher ratings such as silver, gold, platinum will have progressively more safety measures as you go up in tier. If you're not willing to be sure to turn off and unplug your rig during high winds or thunderstorms, you'd be better off getting a higher-rated one to lessen the chances of things getting fried (or find a PROPER surge protector, the ones with fuses, the fuse will burn out as a sacrificial part instead of the surge getting to your pc and frying parts of IT).

Also, you can get a legitimate key for win10 on ebay for like. $5. They salvage keys from no longer functioning units, it's a great way to get a legitimate key - and microsoft will happily get you a digital download for free if you provide the code!

I believe the microstuttering issues you're mentioning about the FX series is related to architecture.

I think they are still based off the bulldozer architecture which was notorious for this.

All the more reason to avoid them like the plague lol. I had issues with screen tearing as well, but I'm not sure that's down to just the CPU.

4 core CPU if pure gaming.

more than 4 if doing video creation and/or streaming.

Intel Core i3-8100 just for gaming. It has 4 cores, just enough for that. Price is around $120.
Intel Core i5-8400 for gaming, streaming and video edition. A little slower than the i3, but has 2 more cores (6 cores). Price is around $180.

Comparable AMD alternatives are Ryzen 3 1300X (4 cores, $120) and Ryzen 5 2600X (6 cores, 12 threads, $200 aprox.) respectively.

I have an R5 2600 paired with a GTX 980 Ti in my system and it works great, EVERYTHING stays well above 60fps at 1080p. I believe the R5 2600 is around $150 right now, its a 6 core with 12 threads. My motherboard is an MSI B450-A Pro with 16gb Geil Potenza 2133mhz DDR4, pretty cheap decent system to go with the 980 Ti, I never have any problems with it :) I have stuck a Cooler Master Hyper 212 cooler on the CPU but the stock cooler with the newer Ryzen CPUs is more than enough. As for powersupply, the best bang for buck PSUs on the market right now are from EVGA, good quality, good power efficiency and not over priced.

If you want to have a decent build you could build one like I have but it's not a cheap build. (This one I'm using is close to 2 grand)

But it can be cheapened down.

I also own a 980TI but it's the MSI brand one and I love this thing! (Good card but she's really dated now compared to the newer cards out there)
But if you want him to have a amazing experience and avoid paying a lot of money in the future you might want to think a bit more outside of the budget. (Trust me, don't go cheap with PC's they tend to age very fast as time goes on)

First off I'd recommend either a I5 or I7 CPU. They're expensive but worth every penny.
I'd recommend currently to get a used Intel I7 4790K (The one I'm currently using and LOVE it. Plenty enough power on this old CPU)
Get a proper Motherboard with her because you'll want a good set of RAM. That part you'll need to do a bit of research because trust me it's complex with RAM compatibility with any CPU now and days.

Power Supply try to get a 650W with Gold certified if you can, mine is a bit to much for my build. I have a 750W one and it's a bit to much power for this build but it works out.

Now for Hard drives and SSD's go towards what you can afford..... or what might be the best bang for buck.
I'm using a SSHD and it runs just fine. Actually if you want go that route since it's actually the best of both worlds and it will load up quicker than a HDD and also make playing games and searching your PC that much faster. Also the OS is quick but not as fast as an SSD setup is.
The best part of the SSHD, no fiddling around with RAIDs or any of that other complex jargon. Just format the Hybrid Hard Drive, put in a Fresh install of the OS of your choice and Boom you're basically done.

Now if you want to give him some extra storage just get a regular Hard Drive installed. But my best option would be get a 2TB SSHD because if you try to use the 4TB one like I have Windows 10 will just use only 2TB instead of using all of it. (I think anyways, I had Windows 7 before and converted it to Windows 10 when it was given a free upgrade OS in the day. Windows 7 had a hard drive limit to only 2TB then.)


Hope this helps and makes the build less complicated and somewhat future proof for him. Trust me, he'll love the build.