Battlefield 3 is a first-person shooter game.
Battlefield 3 is a first-person shooter game.
Outside my financial limits, the setup came close to 400USD (adjusted). Upgrades added more, reaching about 550USD. Including software it quickly surpassed 600USD. In our area, price changes for components are steep, and quality parts are scarce—even a small difference in cost matters a lot.
I understand what you're going through. I used my last paycheck on that motherboard/cpu upgrade (got fired over some nonsense), so I could afford a decent machine to study on. It really paid off. Now when I open many tabs in Firefox—like fifteen or more—I actually close them instead of letting Firefox crash, which meant I had to restart it through the control panel. I’d suggest saving up as much as possible. An SSD is definitely worth it, especially for intense games; loading times have dropped from a couple of minutes to just a few seconds depending on your connection. Apart from that, try to avoid APU setups—they’re not built for high performance (dual graphics only works with R7 250 cards if I recall right). It’s mainly budget-friendly. It feels like the economy is tough for most people these days, no matter where we are.
The best components I plan to use next will go into my upcoming build. This likely includes an i5 (unlocked if possible), Business Class motherboard, GTX X60 or X80 graphics card, 16GB of RAM... But this won’t happen for a while—about three years away. I prioritized budget first and reliability second when I bought it. It hasn’t caused any regrets because it would outperform my P4 Prescott system or my Pentium D laptop.
If you're referring to a non-ZXEBA chipset (like H97 instead of Z97), you won't require an unlocked CPU because these boards don't allow overclocking.
However, the latest MSI, Asus, and even Gigabyte products allow for multiplier and base clock adjustments, as well as memory timing tweaks (just a light overclock, nothing extreme). The goal is a reliable setup for casual gaming and using multiple monitors that should last 7 to 10 years with only minor upgrades.