https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qqKRnn After messing around with it. How does this build look? I got it right under $800 from Newegg which is my goal.
Why are you buying two hard drives and no SSD?
I'd advise against a Core i5-6400. The clock speed is low enough that you're still paying a big price premiumf or Intel, but not getting a big performance advantage.
If you want to fit the previous build under $800, the easy way to do it is to drop from 16 GB of memory to 8 GB. Get a kit with two 4 GB modules, not two 8 GB modules or one 8 GB module.
Sorry forgot I didn't change that from earlier. Ok I got it switched now.. Which processor would you suggest then? Ok I found a way around my problem. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mBPHpb How does this look?
If you want to save money on a CPU, the way to do it is to go with AMD. If you're going to go Intel, then you want the high clocked version, like this:
They're both quad cores and the AMD CPU is clocked a little higher, but do to better performance per clock cycle, the Intel CPU is much faster than the AMD. But as you can see, the Intel CPU is also much more expensive than the AMD one.
The problem with the Core i5-6400 is that you pay most of the price premium for going with Intel rather than AMD, but you don't get most of the performance benefit, as it's clocked 600 MHz lower. Yes, the Intel CPU still has better IPC (instructions per clock, basically a measure of how much it does per clock cycle), but the difference between 2.7 GHz and 3.7 GHz eats up a large chunk of those gains.
How much storage space do you need? You might be able to toss out the hard drive entirely and just go with an SSD. Check how much you're using on your current computer. If you're using under 200 GB today, then a 480 GB SSD will have plenty of space for years to come. If you're using over 500 GB today, then yeah, you need a hard drive, too.
An $800 budget isn't really enough to get everything you'd like in a gaming rig. My recommendation on a CPU is either go Intel and do it right with a Core i5-6600 or better, or else save money by going AMD. If you need to free up budget space to make room for the Core i5-6600, you could get a considerably cheaper video card. For example:
Games will still run well on that, but you'll have to turn graphical settings down further and more often in order to get that performance. I'd sooner save money on the GPU than the CPU, largely because it's easier to upgrade a video card later.
But let's back up a bit. What do you have in your current rig as a baseline (CPU, GPU, memory, etc.)? If you've already got a GeForce GTX 980 Ti, you're not going to be happy the GPUs you're looking at now. But if you've been gaming on a Radeon HD 6450 or a GeForce GT 520, even a relatively cheap GPU this time will be a huge upgrade.
Sorry forgot I didn't change that from earlier. Ok I got it switched now.. Which processor would you suggest then? Ok I found a way around my problem. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mBPHpb How does this look?
i5-6400 is enough, clock speed does not matter.
Get single 8GB RAM module so you can upgrade later if needed.
@Quizzical My first build was AMD right now I'm using a FX-6300 with a Radeon HD 7870. But as mentioned earlier I am giving this computer away. I just see everyone saying that I should look into Intel as it is better for gaming. That's why I was trying to go with it and see what I could afford. As of right now for memory I have 499GB out of 930 free. You are right about it being easier to replace the GPU instead of the CPU. However.. I don't know much about motherboards so not sure what would be compatible with AMD. Would a 8350 help future proof my machine?
@Quizzical My first build was AMD right now I'm using a FX-6300 with a Radeon HD 7870. But as mentioned earlier I am giving this computer away. I just see everyone saying that I should look into Intel as it is better for gaming. That's why I was trying to go with it and see what I could afford. As of right now for memory I have 499GB out of 930 free. You are right about it being easier to replace the GPU instead of the CPU. However.. I don't know much about motherboards so not sure what would be compatible with AMD. Would a 8350 help future proof my machine?
To give you some idea of relative performance, the Athlon X4 860 and Radeon RX 460 will tend to be a little faster than what you have now but not a lot, and will actually be slower than what you have now in some cases. A Radeon RX 470 is twice as fast as an RX 460, while a Radeon RX 480 or GeForce GTX 1060 is a little faster than an RX 470, but not a lot faster. The 6 GB version of a GTX 1060 is faster than the 3 GB version because the latter disables a compute unit and the former doesn't, so the 6 GB version is a faster card for reasons having nothing to do with memory capacity.
An FX-8350 is basically the 8-core version of the FX-6300 that you have now and clocked a little higher. I wouldn't see it as futureproofing, as while it's more cores, they're not very fast cores. Too many programs don't scale well to many CPU cores and a single threaded bottleneck can only be overcome by a fast core, not more slow cores. To get an FX-anything, you'd need a Socket AM3+ motherboard. For a modern Athlon X4 or AMD A-series APU, you'd want a Socket FM2+ motherboard. For an Intel Sky Lake CPU, you'd want an LGA 1151 motherboard. If the motherboard has the right socket for the CPU, it's compatible--but that doesn't guarantee that it's sensible.
@Quizzical I'm trying to keep up but I'm not really that much tech savvy. Is it possible for you to put me a AMD build together under $800? I don't need the case. I got that covered now.
@Quizzical I'm trying to keep up but I'm not really that much tech savvy. Is it possible for you to put me a AMD build together under $800? I don't need the case. I got that covered now.
Foreget AMD CPUs, they aren't competitive these days...
Saving on you GPU so you could get clocked i5 or bigger SSD would be plain stupid.
Games are less and less CPU dependent every year therefore lowest clocked i5 is all you need, then get the best GPU you can.
Motherboard's memory support (DDR3) refers only to what type of RAM its RAM slots support.
GPU's own graphic memory is integrated into the GPU.
You don't need to care whether your motherboard's RAM slots support your GPU's memory because there's no way to attach your GPU to a RAM slot.
Sorry another question.. Would a RX 470 be bottleneck by a FX 6300?
Likely. It varies from game to game, but overall FX 6300 is just a bit too slow and it would be better to get some bit faster CPU for gaming if you can afford it.
But on the other hand FX 6300 offers really good performance for it's value. For a PC on budget there are worse CPUs you could pick. Just make sure the system's price is a lot below $800 because for a $800 system you should be able to get better.
EDIT: If you're interested in overclocking, FX 6300 paired with a decent CPU cooler and overclocked wouldn't bottleneck RX 470 too much /EDIT
Pick AMD FX6300 or 8300 only if you want to "OC" them (tweak them) as only then you get most out of them.
IF you really only play WoW and LoL (and similar games) best bet for you is i3 6100. Those are single threaded games which means only one CPU core matters and that i3 will be much faster than i5 6400 and faster than i5 6500 as its clocked higher. But in new games that take advantage of multicore CPUs it will be slower than FX8300 (which costs less) and that FX8300 will be competitive with i5 6600/k.
Its generally not the best time to buy a PC now as new CPUs from both Intel and AMD are around the corner.
FYI you can download and install windows 10 and not "authenticate it" (i.e. buy it) and it still works perfectly. Only thing is there's a watermark on the desktop and you can't customize the wallpaper etc. Kind of annoying but you can save an easy 100 bucks by putting off paying for it for a bit.
Not looking into overclocking as I don't really know what I would be doing.. @holdenhamlet where would I go to do this? Would keeping the 6300 be a bad thing as supposed to going with a 8350? I've read some people say no built in wifi.. Will I need to buy a wifi card or could I just plug up my wifi adapter thing that I currently have now?
FYI you can download and install windows 10 and not "authenticate it" (i.e. buy it) and it still works perfectly. Only thing is there's a watermark on the desktop and you can't customize the wallpaper etc. Kind of annoying but you can save an easy 100 bucks by putting off paying for it for a bit.
And then you can allocate that 100$ to the cash shop, lolol..
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
Taking some of the insight from Vrika, Quizz, Ridelynn, etc. Here is an $805 build with an X4 845, RX480/8GB, 8GB RAM. The motherboard is Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H Micro ATX. I like the main board because it has onboard usb 3.0 headers, 8 sata 6 gb/s ports, and 4 memory slots. It has a dual mode UEFI bios as well.
Hard OCP gave the PSU a pass even though it's not the best rated amongst its peers, it is a very inexpensive decently rated unit.
The memory configuration isn't the best. The board has 4 channels so it can take 2 sets of dual channel ram. It was cheaper to put in 8GB at 2x4GB than it was 16GB at 2x8GB. The 8GB is about $48. The 16GB is about $75 - $85. Those are safe reliable, but not necessarily the fastest sticks. You could do some research and maybe get something you could push a little harder, but probably not as cheaply.
Also if you could up the CPU from an 845 to an 860 for a little more money if you wanted.
Look at my link above. The Athlon X4 860 that I linked is actually cheaper than the Athlon X4 845 you found.
The motherboard has four memory slots, but only two memory channels. There are two memory slots for each memory channel. It can have a 64-bit connection to one slot if you only use one, or if you use both, it will split it as a 32-bit connection to each of the two slots for the same channel. You get the same bandwidth either way, and the only reason to do the latter is to get more capacity.
On this budget, two 4 GB modules for 8 GB in total is what I'd get. On the off chance that he needs to upgrade later, he could buy two more 4 GB modules and put them in the other slots for 16 GB in total. Two 8 GB modules is slightly preferable to four 4 GB modules because it's a little less strain on the system, but it's not a big deal, and there's unlikely to be a need to upgrade to more than 8 GB during the useful lifetime of the system, anyway.
That said, there's no real need to spend $90 on a socket FM2+ motherboard, as the point of going with that platform is to save money and allocate it elsewhere. If you're going AMD, I'd also use the stock cooler to save some money there.
Not looking into overclocking as I don't really know what I would be doing.. @holdenhamlet where would I go to do this? Would keeping the 6300 be a bad thing as supposed to going with a 8350? I've read some people say no built in wifi.. Will I need to buy a wifi card or could I just plug up my wifi adapter thing that I currently have now?
He's basically saying that you could pirate Windows instead of paying for it. And while it is indisputably true that software can be pirated, that brings the usual drawbacks of software piracy, so it's not what I'd recommend.
Not looking into overclocking as I don't really know what I would be doing.. @holdenhamlet where would I go to do this? Would keeping the 6300 be a bad thing as supposed to going with a 8350? I've read some people say no built in wifi.. Will I need to buy a wifi card or could I just plug up my wifi adapter thing that I currently have now?
gigabyte 970A-UD3P and Biostar ones are similar, while Gigabyte 970A-DS3P is a bit worse. You will have to shop around for Gigabyte boards to shop around, these boards are ~70 $
and would highlky recommend 20-25$ CPU cooler (guideline is one with 120mm fan and 3-4 heatpipes) like this
I would try hard to get to an I-7 4790K chip,i can't see them being very expensive,i have one and i am happy with it. All around 300 bucks... I7 4790K I7 6700 I7 4790 That leaves you 500 bucks for the rest.Personally i would say don't be impatient,get one piece at a time,take a month or so and buy a little each week.Ask a lot of questions from a dealer,like how about a motherboard,it's ports capabilities,can it upgrade which also goes for your tower,make sure you can fit any size card in the tower.
Gpu i forget was just looking at them a week ago but my memory is terrible.A quick look tells me the RX 480 and if you simply can't wait or afford this one or a better gtx980,then a real cheap budget card would be of course dropping down to Rx 470...460. Me personally,as i said i would try to buy a little at a time and perhaps that means going over your 800 budget as i would aim more for a $1200 rig,that is what i am looking at personally.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
..."Personally i would say don't be impatient,get one piece at a time,take a month or so and buy a little each week. Me personally,as i said i would try to buy a little at a time and perhaps that means going over your 800 budget as i would aim more for a $1200 rig."
I fully agree with this statement. Just as most here have stated at one
point or another, spend a little extra money and get a better product.
But not just on one part of the rig, do it for the whole rig. While i
understand you have a $800 budget, you have also pigeon-holed yourself
into a compartment that is making you settle for an "inferior" product;
even making one portion (or more) of your rig suffer to get only one or
two better parts somewhere else in the rig.
This is an
investment. It's just like buying a car. Would you buy a cheap car
allowing only to get a really good engine, but the transmission is about
to fall out, the vehicle is completely rusted, the roof leaks, the
tires are bald, AND you are limited to the parts you can get to fix it.....etc (you get my point). The same holds true for a
computer. You open up a world of preferred options by simply going into
the $1000-$1200 range.
What's the difference between an $800 and
a $1200 rig you may ask? For
starters, not only are you getting a better product now, but you are
also, to some degree, "future-proofing" your system by gaining some
longevity out of it, coupled with the the fact that you are reaping the
benefits of current tech. Technology is always changing and getting
better.
While it would cost you a small fortune to stay on top of it, why not at
least put yourself in a place that allows you to upgrade in the
direction of the current tech.
For example, an 1150 socket
motherboard (going Intel for a moment here) is everywhere currently.
However, that generation of motherboards will/is slowly going to be
phased out and the new 1151 socket motherboards will become the new
"standard." This translates to an 1151 socket motherboard putting you
into the current tech in regards to CPU, RAM, etc. My point being, why
spend money on tech that is slowly being phased out when you can get
current tech that will allow you to upgrade further into the current
tech instead of 3 years from now having an $800 machine that you will
now need to upgrade again, but can't because your tech is now outdated.
Now your stuck with a machine that is rendered to a state where it can
no longer be upgraded and your forced into spending money to get into
the more current tech anyways. This is where that extra $200-$400 you
spend shines. You get a machine that has the ability to be upgraded, is now capable (for example) to reap the benefits of VR, better resolution monitors, 3D ready, video RAM intensive gaming....etc.; the direction of where newer games are seemingly heading anyways.
The
only thing it should cost you is the time to save/make the money. It
doesn't sound like you need to rush into a computer right this very
second because you are dead in the water. So why not wait, save yourself
$100 a month for the next 2-4 months, and voila... you're now in the $1000-$1200
range. That's only $25.00 a week. Heck you can probably do that by
simply changing your lifestyle for that short time.
Instead of settling and investing into something that will only get you into the next 3-5 years (without the ability of upgrading or being VR ready, 3D ready, etc) and forces you to spend that money again and sooner, why not spend the extra money now to get better product without settling and that will get you into the next 5-7 years (WITH the ability to upgrade beyond that to extend it's life expectancy and is already VR ready, 3D ready, etc). The
sacrifice/dividends for doing this will pay for itself ten-fold easily.
****** As an addendum, I have been building rigs since 1999. I have historically stayed within the $1000-$1200 range when I build myself/friends/customers a new rig. I have only ever had them come back to me around the 5-7 year mark of that rigs life cycle where they have told me they are unable to play current games at acceptable levels and the only thing they needed to upgrade was the GPU; gaining them another 2-4 years before their rig was struggling to play current games.
Not looking into overclocking as I don't really know what I would be doing.. @holdenhamlet where would I go to do this? Would keeping the 6300 be a bad thing as supposed to going with a 8350? I've read some people say no built in wifi.. Will I need to buy a wifi card or could I just plug up my wifi adapter thing that I currently have now?
You go to the main Windows website and download it. It's not pirating- you're getting it directly from Windows. Windows has an .exe to make a bootable usb with it or you can burn it to a dvd.
When installing, just click "I don't have a key", and it will install fine. The price you pay is there is a reminder watermark on your desktop to authenticate.
In Windows 7, there was an extremely annoying pop-up that would randomly pop-up that had all kinds of insulating things about you not being a good person- in windows 10 it's just the watermark. They're apparently trying something new with Windows 10 to make it more accessible (or they just realized that their OS was getting priated all the time so they decided to cut out the middleman and at least have a chance of getting some money for their product).
Also, there are links and stuff to other programs so I'm sure they're making money just advertising stuff through the OS.
There is a chance they could disable updates if you don't authenticate or something in the future, but I brought up this idea since it seems like saving $100 could allow you to get some better parts, and you could authenticate later on if you wanted to. $100 goes a long way in an $800 build, and as far as I can tell, it behaves exactly the same as the authenticated version (I just did this a couple weeks ago when I shorted my motherboard and had to reinstall windows). And it seems like a very nice OS- definitely slicker than 7 imo.
As for other questions, I'm not an expert builder- just finishing up my own first complete build so I don't want to give any bad info. I certainly don't know a thing about AMD CPUs as I've always used intel.
I would try hard to get to an I-7 4790K chip,i can't see them being very expensive,i have one and i am happy with it. All around 300 bucks... I7 4790K I7 6700 I7 4790 That leaves you 500 bucks for the rest.Personally i would say don't be impatient,get one piece at a time,take a month or so and buy a little each week.Ask a lot of questions from a dealer,like how about a motherboard,it's ports capabilities,can it upgrade which also goes for your tower,make sure you can fit any size card in the tower.
Gpu i forget was just looking at them a week ago but my memory is terrible.A quick look tells me the RX 480 and if you simply can't wait or afford this one or a better gtx980,then a real cheap budget card would be of course dropping down to Rx 470...460. Me personally,as i said i would try to buy a little at a time and perhaps that means going over your 800 budget as i would aim more for a $1200 rig,that is what i am looking at personally.
2 thoughts:
Unles your buying used, right now a 4790K is actually more expensive than a 6700K, and they are about the same speed in games. Plus it runs on older Z97 motherboards, with DDR3, that aren't as common anymore than the Z170 counterparts with DDR4. CPUs don't tend to get cheaper as they get older (barring fire sales from retailers who are just trying to clear inventory before tax season) - they tend to get more expensive because the people who are looking for them are looking specifically for them and are willing to pay a bit more.
As far as buying a little at a time, I'd also counter that. You don't have a way to test your components together until you make the last (or near final) purchase - so if you need to RMA the very first thing you bought, you're into it for a much longer warranty claim (assuming your even still under warranty and don't drag it out too long) than a simple retailer return/exchange. If you play it right and pick stuff up on sale, you can come out ahead on price, but then your basing your build around whatever the deal of the day is, not what you actually want or need in the computer. Lastly, if your still buying parts 3-6-9 months from now, what is available at the end of the road on that build may be a lot different than what's available today (Vega, Ryzen, Kaby, etc). If you had just saved your cash and built the entire thing 6 months from now, you would probably have a very different setup than if you piecemeal it, and probably be better off for it.
Now, don't confuse that advice for "Wait for XYZ to come out" - I think once you set your budget, and you have that money in hand - you buy the best you can for that budget at the time. Something better is ~always~ around the corner, but there's something to be said for the computer you can use today versus the one that may be better tomorrow. That's distinct from having a budget, but only having X% of that budget available.
Not looking into overclocking as I don't really know what I would be doing.. @holdenhamlet where would I go to do this? Would keeping the 6300 be a bad thing as supposed to going with a 8350? I've read some people say no built in wifi.. Will I need to buy a wifi card or could I just plug up my wifi adapter thing that I currently have now?
You go to the main Windows website and download it. It's not pirating- you're getting it directly from Windows. Windows has an .exe to make a bootable usb with it or you can burn it to a dvd.
When installing, just click "I don't have a key", and it will install fine. The price you pay is there is a reminder watermark on your desktop to authenticate.
In Windows 7, there was an extremely annoying pop-up that would randomly pop-up that had all kinds of insulating things about you not being a good person- in windows 10 it's just the watermark. They're apparently trying something new with Windows 10 to make it more accessible (or they just realized that their OS was getting priated all the time so they decided to cut out the middleman and at least have a chance of getting some money for their product).
Also, there are links and stuff to other programs so I'm sure they're making money just advertising stuff through the OS.
There is a chance they could disable updates if you don't authenticate or something in the future, but I brought up this idea since it seems like saving $100 could allow you to get some better parts, and you could authenticate later on if you wanted to. $100 goes a long way in an $800 build, and as far as I can tell, it behaves exactly the same as the authenticated version (I just did this a couple weeks ago when I shorted my motherboard and had to reinstall windows). And it seems like a very nice OS- definitely slicker than 7 imo.
As for other questions, I'm not an expert builder- just finishing up my own first complete build so I don't want to give any bad info. I certainly don't know a thing about AMD CPUs as I've always used intel.
Yes, technically that's not pirating, only using trial software. Pirating is when you forcefully "licensing" your windows with various cracks or hacks that you can get on internet.
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
When installing, just click "I don't have a key", and it will install fine. The price you pay is there is a reminder watermark on your desktop to authenticate.
That will work, but don't confuse that with getting a Windows license for free. Microsoft still expects that you will pay for it eventually (and legally obligates you to in the TOS/EULA) , and that is the legal answer.
The license still costs around $100, your just deferring that cost in this case. If you don't intend to pay, your pirating. Sure, this time around, as much as people love to dog on Windows 10, Microsoft has decided to not disable or deactivate your computer for failure to comply with licensing. But that could change at any time, they have done that in the past, and it doesn't change the legality of it.
The "correct" answer, if you can't afford Windows, is to not run it, and use something like Linux or FreeBSD. I understand that's possible in some cases, but certainly not with a lot of MMOs, which is why it's a pretty safe assumption to make that you will be wanting a Windows license.
When installing, just click "I don't have a key", and it will install fine. The price you pay is there is a reminder watermark on your desktop to authenticate.
That will work, but don't confuse that with getting a Windows license for free. Microsoft still expects that you will pay for it eventually (and legally obligates you to in the TOS/EULA) , and that is the legal answer.
The license still costs around $100, your just deferring that cost in this case. If you don't intend to pay, your pirating. Sure, this time around, as much as people love to dog on Windows 10, Microsoft has decided to not disable or deactivate your computer for failure to comply with licensing. But that could change at any time, they have done that in the past, and it doesn't change the legality of it.
The "correct" answer, if you can't afford Windows, is to not run it, and use something like Linux or FreeBSD. I understand that's possible in some cases, but certainly not with a lot of MMOs, which is why it's a pretty safe assumption to make that you will be wanting a Windows license.
How am I confusing anybody? I'm explaining exactly how it works. I said there's a risk they might limit accessibility at some point, but for the time being, it works completely fine.
Don't assume you know all the "right answers", and there's nothing illegal about it...
Like I said, $100 goes a long way in a $800 build. He can pay the $100 later and use it now to get a better CPU or something he won't have to upgrade later, which will likely be a much bigger expense and pain in the ass in the long run.
Worse case scenario is Windows shuts off all access to people who haven't authorized (which they never did with windows 7 trials, btw), which I don't foresee happening, but he could just use linux, which is free, until he gets an OS at that point. That is really unlikely to happen though.
Obviously Windows is fine with this or they wouldn't make it available. I'm sure they don't mind the free advertising money they make from people using it (it's bundled with a whole bunch of links to programs that a novice would be interested in) with the bonus that they'll probably get $100 out of them at some point in the future.
Here's a link to how to do it, although I already explained it an it is very simple, but this is a walkthrough:
Comments
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117562
For an AMD option, there's this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113410
They're both quad cores and the AMD CPU is clocked a little higher, but do to better performance per clock cycle, the Intel CPU is much faster than the AMD. But as you can see, the Intel CPU is also much more expensive than the AMD one.
The problem with the Core i5-6400 is that you pay most of the price premium for going with Intel rather than AMD, but you don't get most of the performance benefit, as it's clocked 600 MHz lower. Yes, the Intel CPU still has better IPC (instructions per clock, basically a measure of how much it does per clock cycle), but the difference between 2.7 GHz and 3.7 GHz eats up a large chunk of those gains.
How much storage space do you need? You might be able to toss out the hard drive entirely and just go with an SSD. Check how much you're using on your current computer. If you're using under 200 GB today, then a 480 GB SSD will have plenty of space for years to come. If you're using over 500 GB today, then yeah, you need a hard drive, too.
An $800 budget isn't really enough to get everything you'd like in a gaming rig. My recommendation on a CPU is either go Intel and do it right with a Core i5-6600 or better, or else save money by going AMD. If you need to free up budget space to make room for the Core i5-6600, you could get a considerably cheaper video card. For example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125897
Games will still run well on that, but you'll have to turn graphical settings down further and more often in order to get that performance. I'd sooner save money on the GPU than the CPU, largely because it's easier to upgrade a video card later.
But let's back up a bit. What do you have in your current rig as a baseline (CPU, GPU, memory, etc.)? If you've already got a GeForce GTX 980 Ti, you're not going to be happy the GPUs you're looking at now. But if you've been gaming on a Radeon HD 6450 or a GeForce GT 520, even a relatively cheap GPU this time will be a huge upgrade.
Get single 8GB RAM module so you can upgrade later if needed.
An FX-8350 is basically the 8-core version of the FX-6300 that you have now and clocked a little higher. I wouldn't see it as futureproofing, as while it's more cores, they're not very fast cores. Too many programs don't scale well to many CPU cores and a single threaded bottleneck can only be overcome by a fast core, not more slow cores. To get an FX-anything, you'd need a Socket AM3+ motherboard. For a modern Athlon X4 or AMD A-series APU, you'd want a Socket FM2+ motherboard. For an Intel Sky Lake CPU, you'd want an LGA 1151 motherboard. If the motherboard has the right socket for the CPU, it's compatible--but that doesn't guarantee that it's sensible.
Saving on you GPU so you could get clocked i5 or bigger SSD would be plain stupid.
Games are less and less CPU dependent every year therefore lowest clocked i5 is all you need, then get the best GPU you can.
Motherboard's memory support (DDR3) refers only to what type of RAM its RAM slots support.
GPU's own graphic memory is integrated into the GPU.
You don't need to care whether your motherboard's RAM slots support your GPU's memory because there's no way to attach your GPU to a RAM slot.
But on the other hand FX 6300 offers really good performance for it's value. For a PC on budget there are worse CPUs you could pick. Just make sure the system's price is a lot below $800 because for a $800 system you should be able to get better.
EDIT: If you're interested in overclocking, FX 6300 paired with a decent CPU cooler and overclocked wouldn't bottleneck RX 470 too much /EDIT
IF you really only play WoW and LoL (and similar games) best bet for you is i3 6100. Those are single threaded games which means only one CPU core matters and that i3 will be much faster than i5 6400 and faster than i5 6500 as its clocked higher. But in new games that take advantage of multicore CPUs it will be slower than FX8300 (which costs less) and that FX8300 will be competitive with i5 6600/k.
Its generally not the best time to buy a PC now as new CPUs from both Intel and AMD are around the corner.
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
The motherboard has four memory slots, but only two memory channels. There are two memory slots for each memory channel. It can have a 64-bit connection to one slot if you only use one, or if you use both, it will split it as a 32-bit connection to each of the two slots for the same channel. You get the same bandwidth either way, and the only reason to do the latter is to get more capacity.
On this budget, two 4 GB modules for 8 GB in total is what I'd get. On the off chance that he needs to upgrade later, he could buy two more 4 GB modules and put them in the other slots for 16 GB in total. Two 8 GB modules is slightly preferable to four 4 GB modules because it's a little less strain on the system, but it's not a big deal, and there's unlikely to be a need to upgrade to more than 8 GB during the useful lifetime of the system, anyway.
That said, there's no real need to spend $90 on a socket FM2+ motherboard, as the point of going with that platform is to save money and allocate it elsewhere. If you're going AMD, I'd also use the stock cooler to save some money there.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113399
Mobtherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138435
or
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5194#ov
or
http://www.gigabyte.com.hr/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5216#ov
gigabyte 970A-UD3P and Biostar ones are similar, while Gigabyte 970A-DS3P is a bit worse. You will have to shop around for Gigabyte boards to shop around, these boards are ~70 $
and would highlky recommend 20-25$ CPU cooler (guideline is one with 120mm fan and 3-4 heatpipes) like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835856005
With RX480
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137049
it would be a backbone of your PC and comes out to:
110+75+190+25= 400$
All around 300 bucks...
I7 4790K
I7 6700
I7 4790
That leaves you 500 bucks for the rest.Personally i would say don't be impatient,get one piece at a time,take a month or so and buy a little each week.Ask a lot of questions from a dealer,like how about a motherboard,it's ports capabilities,can it upgrade which also goes for your tower,make sure you can fit any size card in the tower.
Gpu i forget was just looking at them a week ago but my memory is terrible.A quick look tells me the RX 480 and if you simply can't wait or afford this one or a better gtx980,then a real cheap budget card would be of course dropping down to Rx 470...460.
Me personally,as i said i would try to buy a little at a time and perhaps that means going over your 800 budget as i would aim more for a $1200 rig,that is what i am looking at personally.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I fully agree with this statement. Just as most here have stated at one point or another, spend a little extra money and get a better product. But not just on one part of the rig, do it for the whole rig. While i understand you have a $800 budget, you have also pigeon-holed yourself into a compartment that is making you settle for an "inferior" product; even making one portion (or more) of your rig suffer to get only one or two better parts somewhere else in the rig.
This is an investment. It's just like buying a car. Would you buy a cheap car allowing only to get a really good engine, but the transmission is about to fall out, the vehicle is completely rusted, the roof leaks, the tires are bald, AND you are limited to the parts you can get to fix it.....etc (you get my point). The same holds true for a computer. You open up a world of preferred options by simply going into the $1000-$1200 range.
What's the difference between an $800 and a $1200 rig you may ask? For starters, not only are you getting a better product now, but you are also, to some degree, "future-proofing" your system by gaining some longevity out of it, coupled with the the fact that you are reaping the benefits of current tech. Technology is always changing and getting better. While it would cost you a small fortune to stay on top of it, why not at least put yourself in a place that allows you to upgrade in the direction of the current tech.
For example, an 1150 socket motherboard (going Intel for a moment here) is everywhere currently. However, that generation of motherboards will/is slowly going to be phased out and the new 1151 socket motherboards will become the new "standard." This translates to an 1151 socket motherboard putting you into the current tech in regards to CPU, RAM, etc. My point being, why spend money on tech that is slowly being phased out when you can get current tech that will allow you to upgrade further into the current tech instead of 3 years from now having an $800 machine that you will now need to upgrade again, but can't because your tech is now outdated. Now your stuck with a machine that is rendered to a state where it can no longer be upgraded and your forced into spending money to get into the more current tech anyways. This is where that extra $200-$400 you spend shines. You get a machine that has the ability to be upgraded, is now capable (for example) to reap the benefits of VR, better resolution monitors, 3D ready, video RAM intensive gaming....etc.; the direction of where newer games are seemingly heading anyways.
The only thing it should cost you is the time to save/make the money. It doesn't sound like you need to rush into a computer right this very second because you are dead in the water. So why not wait, save yourself $100 a month for the next 2-4 months, and voila... you're now in the $1000-$1200 range. That's only $25.00 a week. Heck you can probably do that by simply changing your lifestyle for that short time.
Instead of settling and investing into something that will only get you into the next 3-5 years (without the ability of upgrading or being VR ready, 3D ready, etc) and forces you to spend that money again and sooner, why not spend the extra money now to get better product without settling and that will get you into the next 5-7 years (WITH the ability to upgrade beyond that to extend it's life expectancy and is already VR ready, 3D ready, etc). The sacrifice/dividends for doing this will pay for itself ten-fold easily.
******
As an addendum, I have been building rigs since 1999. I have historically stayed within the $1000-$1200 range when I build myself/friends/customers a new rig. I have only ever had them come back to me around the 5-7 year mark of that rigs life cycle where they have told me they are unable to play current games at acceptable levels and the only thing they needed to upgrade was the GPU; gaining them another 2-4 years before their rig was struggling to play current games.
You go to the main Windows website and download it. It's not pirating- you're getting it directly from Windows. Windows has an .exe to make a bootable usb with it or you can burn it to a dvd.
When installing, just click "I don't have a key", and it will install fine. The price you pay is there is a reminder watermark on your desktop to authenticate.
In Windows 7, there was an extremely annoying pop-up that would randomly pop-up that had all kinds of insulating things about you not being a good person- in windows 10 it's just the watermark. They're apparently trying something new with Windows 10 to make it more accessible (or they just realized that their OS was getting priated all the time so they decided to cut out the middleman and at least have a chance of getting some money for their product).
Also, there are links and stuff to other programs so I'm sure they're making money just advertising stuff through the OS.
There is a chance they could disable updates if you don't authenticate or something in the future, but I brought up this idea since it seems like saving $100 could allow you to get some better parts, and you could authenticate later on if you wanted to. $100 goes a long way in an $800 build, and as far as I can tell, it behaves exactly the same as the authenticated version (I just did this a couple weeks ago when I shorted my motherboard and had to reinstall windows). And it seems like a very nice OS- definitely slicker than 7 imo.
As for other questions, I'm not an expert builder- just finishing up my own first complete build so I don't want to give any bad info. I certainly don't know a thing about AMD CPUs as I've always used intel.
Unles your buying used, right now a 4790K is actually more expensive than a 6700K, and they are about the same speed in games. Plus it runs on older Z97 motherboards, with DDR3, that aren't as common anymore than the Z170 counterparts with DDR4. CPUs don't tend to get cheaper as they get older (barring fire sales from retailers who are just trying to clear inventory before tax season) - they tend to get more expensive because the people who are looking for them are looking specifically for them and are willing to pay a bit more.
As far as buying a little at a time, I'd also counter that. You don't have a way to test your components together until you make the last (or near final) purchase - so if you need to RMA the very first thing you bought, you're into it for a much longer warranty claim (assuming your even still under warranty and don't drag it out too long) than a simple retailer return/exchange. If you play it right and pick stuff up on sale, you can come out ahead on price, but then your basing your build around whatever the deal of the day is, not what you actually want or need in the computer. Lastly, if your still buying parts 3-6-9 months from now, what is available at the end of the road on that build may be a lot different than what's available today (Vega, Ryzen, Kaby, etc). If you had just saved your cash and built the entire thing 6 months from now, you would probably have a very different setup than if you piecemeal it, and probably be better off for it.
Now, don't confuse that advice for "Wait for XYZ to come out" - I think once you set your budget, and you have that money in hand - you buy the best you can for that budget at the time. Something better is ~always~ around the corner, but there's something to be said for the computer you can use today versus the one that may be better tomorrow. That's distinct from having a budget, but only having X% of that budget available.
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
The license still costs around $100, your just deferring that cost in this case. If you don't intend to pay, your pirating. Sure, this time around, as much as people love to dog on Windows 10, Microsoft has decided to not disable or deactivate your computer for failure to comply with licensing. But that could change at any time, they have done that in the past, and it doesn't change the legality of it.
The "correct" answer, if you can't afford Windows, is to not run it, and use something like Linux or FreeBSD. I understand that's possible in some cases, but certainly not with a lot of MMOs, which is why it's a pretty safe assumption to make that you will be wanting a Windows license.
Don't assume you know all the "right answers", and there's nothing illegal about it...
Like I said, $100 goes a long way in a $800 build. He can pay the $100 later and use it now to get a better CPU or something he won't have to upgrade later, which will likely be a much bigger expense and pain in the ass in the long run.
Worse case scenario is Windows shuts off all access to people who haven't authorized (which they never did with windows 7 trials, btw), which I don't foresee happening, but he could just use linux, which is free, until he gets an OS at that point. That is really unlikely to happen though.
Obviously Windows is fine with this or they wouldn't make it available. I'm sure they don't mind the free advertising money they make from people using it (it's bundled with a whole bunch of links to programs that a novice would be interested in) with the bonus that they'll probably get $100 out of them at some point in the future.
Here's a link to how to do it, although I already explained it an it is very simple, but this is a walkthrough:
http://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-dont-need-a-product-key-to-install-and-use-windows-10/