My friends have been telling me to do it for years… ditch that laptop and build a sweet gaming desktop.

I finally listened!

I always put off building my own computer because it seemed like an intimidating and daunting task. However, that ended up not being the case at all.

For my build, I didn’t have a huge budget, so I used a “cheap” computer build from this site.

Here is my part list:

CPU: FX-6300
Motherboard: ASUS M5A78L-MX Plus
Video Card: ASUS Radeon R9 280
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB
Hard Drive: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue
Case: Antec One Mid Tower
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W
Operating System: Windows 8.1

While this build is considered a lower budget build, it definitely doesn’t produce like one. I can play any game out there on max settings with very high FPS.

Now, I do have a 1920×1080 monitor and not some super crazy 4K monitor. If you are looking for something that will play today’s top games on higher resolutions then you might want to take a look at some of the higher-end builds from the site I got my build from (check here).

My Process of Choosing Components

As I mentioned, I used a build from a website called Elite Gaming Computers to help me build my first gaming PC.

However, I didn’t stick strictly to their build, but rather used it as a guide.

Some changes I made were going with a different power supply–the Corsair CX 500W–because it was on sale and had good reviews.

I also ditched the optical drive altogether and installed my operating system with a USB stick. That saved me about $20, which allowed me to jump from an R9 270X video card to an R9 280.

Two other things I switched were the case and the memory. I got a good deal on Corsair’s Vengeance memory and I really liked the look of the Antec One case.

How My Computer Performs

I don’t really play a lot of demanding games, mostly MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2.

However, my old laptop wasn’t cutting it on GW2 and I needed an upgrade. This new build handles GW2 on max settings with no problems.

I also play League of Legends quite a bit and with this build I can turn all the settings up as high as possible and I still get ridiculously high framerates.

So, all-in-all, I’m glad I finally decided to build my own PC. It’s been a long time coming and it definitely beats spending ~$1,000 on a laptop that can’t max out my favorite games.