Best video card for gaming on a $800 budget?

[serialthrilla]

Hi y'all

I'm looking to build my very first gaming pc from scratch. With a budget of $800, what do you guys think would be some of the best video cards to build around? Furthermore, what is the most central component of the pc? (i.e. the part that you build around so to speak). Which component should I be deciding on first? I always assumed the video card was the most important and should be decided on first, but my knowledge of computers is very elementary at the moment.

Thanks for your help

 

[turbobooster]

what ever you do, also look for a good psu.

 

[Geoff]

You want a good all-around PC, you don't want a top of the line video card with the cheapest processor, motherboard, RAM, PSU, etc. to make it fit in your budget.

Typically what I do is decide if I want to go AMD or Intel, as that decides what type of CPU and motherboard you need, and also in a lesser extent determines the amount of memory you can have, the number of video cards, number of SATA devices, etc.

What I would recommend is build your ideal gaming rig, and then look at the components one by one and see what you can knock down a bit to save money.

 

[beers]

^ there's your answer for best approach.

Once you have a good base platform decided upon you can shift the budget among different component areas to what suits you best personally.

 

[spirit]

If you got the AMD FX-8320, 8GB of RAM, and a decent board, hard drive/SSD and case and power supply you might be able to squeeze a GTX 770 or an R9 280X into your budget, but more likely GTX 760 or R9 270X. You'd have a very nice rig, still. :good:

 

[serialthrilla]

You want a good all-around PC, you don't want a top of the line video card with the cheapest processor, motherboard, RAM, PSU, etc. to make it fit in your budget.

Typically what I do is decide if I want to go AMD or Intel, as that decides what type of CPU and motherboard you need, and also in a lesser extent determines the amount of memory you can have, the number of video cards, number of SATA devices, etc.

What I would recommend is build your ideal gaming rig, and then look at the components one by one and see what you can knock down a bit to save money.

Great advice, thanks

 

[ninjabubbles3]

I am personally a fan of amds processors, they give you more bang for your buck. The processor is probably the most important part of the computer. What kind of games are you playing, if your playing pretty high up there games at high resolitions, then you want an am3+ board, if you are just doing some medium stuff, go with an fm2+ board with integrated graphics. I recommend the a10 7700k, I heard that it's really nice and can do some pretty great stuff. This way u won't have to buy a dedicated graphics card. If u do this, u want high speed ram, at least 8 gigs of 2133, so check that your motherboard supports this

 

[spirit]

I am personally a fan of amds processors, they give you more bang for your buck. The processor is probably the most important part of the computer. What kind of games are you playing, if your playing pretty high up there games at high resolitions, then you want an am3+ board, if you are just doing some medium stuff, go with an fm2+ board with integrated graphics. I recommend the a10 7700k, I heard that it's really nice and can do some pretty great stuff. This way u won't have to buy a dedicated graphics card. If u do this, u want high speed ram, at least 8 gigs of 2133, so check that your motherboard supports this

For an 800 buck build the 7700K isn't really a good choice. You want AM3+ and a good GPU if you are spending that kind of money. These APU systems are not really ideal for high end builds at all.

 

[CheckeredStuff]

If you got the AMD FX-8320, 8GB of RAM, and a decent board, hard drive/SSD and case and power supply you might be able to squeeze a GTX 770 or an R9 280X into your budget, but more likely GTX 760 or R9 270X. You'd have a very nice rig, still. :good:

Just saying that for gaming you wont probably need anything more than 280, just got mine and so far running all games at least 60fps @ max/high settings

 

[Geoff]

Just built this rig, which I think is pretty good for ~$800.

Antec 300 Case
DVD Burner
1TB 7200RPM SATA HD
GTX 760 Video Card
Corsair 600W PSU
8GB DDR3-1600
Gigabyte Z97 LGA 1150 Motherboard
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz CPU

$808 shipped on Newegg

 

[Cisco001]

For $800, you could probably looking at FX 8320 + R9 280

 

[spirit]

Just built this rig, which I think is pretty good for ~$800.

Antec 300 Case
DVD Burner
1TB 7200RPM SATA HD
GTX 760 Video Card
Corsair 600W PSU
8GB DDR3-1600
Gigabyte Z97 LGA 1150 Motherboard
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz CPU

$808 shipped on Newegg

Yeah something like that is ideal. Or as others have said, FX-8320 and GTX 770 or R9 280.