I agree on the verdict about the N3530. DON'T BUY IT.
That processor is intended for tablets and low end laptops. It's fine for desktop appliances and programs like word and excel or browsing the web. And if Angry Birds or Candycrush is your kind of gaming, it'll do fine. But don't expect a good performance beyond that.
The integrated graphics again are intended for desktop use. 2D appliances only. It will severely limit what games you can run.
If you are looking for a good BUDGET CPU, I can recommend the Intel Pentium G3258.
It's a dualcore, no hyperthreading. This CPU has outstanding single thread performance though. And single thread performance is what you need for gaming.
I recently built a budget gaming PC for my 12yo nephew with this CPU, and it runs Elite with ease.
This CPU is only €70, and it runs Elite just as good as my €225 i5 3570k quadcore does.
The G3258 has an integrated gpu, which is fine for anything 2D and some light gaming. That particular integrated GPU is good enough to play minecraft at a solid 25~35fps at 1080p with full detail. So it's not useless.
But for Elite it is inadequate. You need a dedicated GPU.
Don't you need a hyperthreaded quadcore or something?
No, you don't need it. If you want to spend more on a CPU higher up the food chain, by all means do it. But you don't need it to play Elite.
I don't know if Elite supports multithreading. If it does, I have never seen it use more than 1 core on my i5 3570K. So again, I'd say single thread performance is more important for gaming than having a larger number of cores.
Hyperthreading and multiple cores come into their own when you're running server applications, or doing cpu intensive scaleable things like video rendering or graphic design.
Games are mostly singlethreaded applications. Some games do support multithreading, in which case 'multi' usually means 2 threads maximum. There are only very few games that are capable of utilising more than 2 threads. Though that will change in the future.
So you may want more cores for other things, but for gaming it doesn't really do much.
I've recently had some trouble with my own PC. While troubleshooting I've been running my PC with only a single stick of 4GB RAM.
Elite does not care. Elite runs fine with only 4 GB. Even still while running a minecraft server simultaniously, taking up 1 of those 4 GB.
Back when I used my 23" 1080p screen I still had my old AMD HD6850 (MSI factory overclock) graphics card, which performed fine with settings on medium. No idea how many fps, I never checked. The only time I could notice low fps was at the very beginning of a hyperjump. And that doesn't affect gameplay.
For a new graphics card on a budget, for a 1080p screen, I can recommend the nVidia GTX 750Ti. It's a fair bit more powerfull than my old HD6850 was (according to Passmark), and it's available for only €130. A great budget GPU, adequate for 1080p.
That is what I put in my nephews PC, and he's having a blast with it.
Though, if you have a 1440p or perhaps Ultra-HD or 4K screen, then the GTX750Ti will be inadequate. It's fine on 1080p.
If you're budget is a bit larger:
Right now I'm running a 27" 1440p screen with a GTX970 (the overclocked FTW model from EVGA), and all the graphics settings at maximum, except for the AA, which is at a medium setting. The visual effect of AA is lowered anyway on such a high resolution. (AA is intended to improve detail on lower resolutions)
I've done some testing with my new cards performance at 1440p, and I've now set the in game fps limiter at 45fps.
MSI Afterburner reports it's actually doing a constant 47fps, and pretty much never drops below 40fps.
In space the GPU runs at around 35~45% power. Inside a starport however there's so much detail that it's at 95~100% of it's capabilities to produce that 47fps. (even when in the hanger and/or in the starport services. The entire stations inside are still being rendering)
So I must conclude that the GTX970 is quite adequate at 1440p, if you don't want to pay €200 extra to get the GTX980.
I MUST give a warning about the GTX970 and GTX980 graphics cards. Pretty much ALL of them have coil whine. Not all in equal measure though. But don't expect them to be coil-whine free, because they're not. The graphics card makes ticking, rattling and whinig noises. Especially when the workload goes up. That is the reason why I limited my fps to 45. To cut down on the noise.
Another warning on these cards: Do not combine them with that Intel Pentium G3258 I just recommended. A more powerfull GPU demands a more powerfull CPU as well. The G3258 is fine combined with a medium graphics card like the GTX 750Ti. But combined with a GTX980 it will be a mismatch, and it'll start throttling the GPU. In other words, you've spent €550 on a top of the line GPU, yet it can't stretch it's legs because the CPU is holding it back. If you're choosing a GTX970 or GTX980, combine it with a more powerfull cpu.
