Battlefront has undoubtedly been one of the most anticipated titles of 2015. With Black Friday quickly approaching, many console gamers have found themselves wanting to switch over to the PC side of things. With amazing deals rolling out on an hourly basis, there is no better time to build your new PC than right now! This particular build will be focused around being able to run Battlefront smoothly for around the price as a new console. It should be noted that I will not be including peripherals or an operating system within this build; however, if you stick around til the end of the build, I will provide links where you can pick up all of that stuff for under $100!
On with the build:
CPU: AMD FX-6350
It should be noted that EA’s official requirements for Battlefront state that the game needs a Skylake or equivalent processor to run. With that being said, this CPU should have no problem keeping up with the requirements of the game. Sporting six cores and clocking in at 3.9GHz, AMD cranked out a workhorse of a processor here that is friendly on the wallet but a behemoth under the hood.
The CPU has been marked down from $139.99 to $122.99 at NCIX until November 27th.
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
For budget builds, I normally recommend the stock CPU coolers. However, the more I work with AMD’s CPUs, the more I realize just how loud their stock coolers can be. That being said, Cooler Master has been praised on the Hyper 212 EVO being effective in the system and on the budget. With Outlet PC currently offering a $10 rebate on the cooler, it would be a real shame not to pick it up.
You can find it at Outlet PC for only $24.99 after the rebate.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P
If there is anywhere to save some money in a build that is focused on price point, motherboards are usually the best places to go cheap. Even at low prices, Gigabyte boards have always served me well and Newegg is currently running a deal on one of their Ultra Durable boards with an AM3+ socket. This mobo is built tough, full ATX, and does not have a gaudy blue color.
You can find it for $64.99 after a $10 rebate on Newegg.
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB 1600 Mhz
The price of memory is crazy sometimes. Sometimes crazy good and sometimes crazy bad. Thankfully DDR3 memory is crazy good, with two 4GB dimms of G.Skill Sniper memory coming in at $34.99 on Newegg. Two sticks of this memory can populate two slots on our motherboard, taking full advantage of the dual channel memory our mobo has. In addition, two more slots will be open, meaning dropping two more sticks in the system’s future will be an easy, cheap upgrade.
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200rpm
Seagate drives might not be the best but they definitely are not the worst. Seagates drives serve a perfect purpose with a budget build in mind. They are reliable and cheap, making the 1TB iteration of their Barracuda series a no-brainer for this build. The drive is 7200rpm, offering slightly faster read and write speeds over the 5400rpm drives that may be found in pre built “gaming” PCs. This single drive will be plenty to store Battlefront, an OS, and any other games or media you may want to throw on there. Once again, another drive would be a cheap and easy upgrade to this system in the future.
You can find the drive for only $44.99 at Outlet PC.
GPU: MSI GTX 960 2GB
This component may be slightly overkill for the minimum requirements for Battlefront. The game only requires GTX 660 to run, but the newer GeForce architecture gives ample room to grow into the system. The extra investment may lead to better framerate in Battlefront and provide plenty of power for upcoming releases as well. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory on the GPU is starting to become standard, so this card won’t max out any modern game at 4k, or even at 1440p but it will be able to run most games smoothly at 1080p.
Furthermore, SuperBiiz currently has this card for only $179.99, making it an excellent choice for this machine.
Power Supply: Corsair CX500 500W Power Supply.
Corsair has always been known to deliver consistent parts and their power supplies fit perfectly into that category. Many pre built machines skip out on a quality power supply which can not only hurt the machine, but also pose as a potential fire hazard. The CX500 is 80+ Bronze certified meaning it won’t kill your electric bill and is built to Corsair’s standard, meaning it won’t explode.
500 watts should be plenty to run this machine and the semi-modular design should come in handy while assembling the machine. Newegg is running multiple deals on this power supply right now, getting the final price of it down to a reasonable $35.
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White)
The color really isn’t important but I figured we had better be playing on a rig that looked like a stormtrooper if Battlefront is the goal. Ascetics aside, NZXT is known for making amazing cases and even their cheaper options live up to the name. The Source 210 is a straightforward, no-frills case that offers excellent airflow and amazing build quality.
The case is just a box, not a design from space or sporting a fancy side panel window but it does get the job done and it does it well. If you are looking for something a little different, feel free to change this case out but for only $38.99 on SuperBiiz, this is a hard one to beat.
And that will do it! Including Battlefront, the whole rig comes out to $579.72. If you have a calculator handy or just happen to be a lot better at math than me, you probably noticed that doesn’t add up with Battlefront’s $59.99 price tag. That’s because you can head over to Green Man Gaming right now to pick up Battlefront for 20% off from a code provided on their homepage, in addition to the $10 they already took off the game!
This build will serve not only for Battlefront, but also for many current and upcoming titles, promising smooth gameplay at 1080p running on medium settings. Happy building and check below if you need peripheral and OS suggestions. If you have any suggestions for builds in the future, be sure to leave a comment below!
For Windows keys:
Keyboard and mouse combo:
eSPORTS Cmmndr Red Light Combo
Mouse:
Keyboard:
