Please don't use the words "ultimate" or "gaming" or "PC" in the same sentence as $500.

It has nothing to do with consoles being optimized and much to do with the PC version being a bad port (just as the consoles get bad ports here and there.) The argument that was made was consoles don't have to deal with API's and the optimization could be made with the specific hardware in mind as opposed with general hardware. The argument wasn't made that ports are bad and that PC games are not being optimized at all, even considering that they can be optimized for general performance gains. By the end of the generation all of those games you mentioned will show performance gains, while if a game runs poorly on a console it will always run poorly on a console, with possibly minute advantages with patches. Case in point: Witcher 3 and Fallout 4. There are just as many poorly performing console games as there are poorly performing PC ones. At least with PC you aren't at the whims of the developer to fix it. 

By the way

^ Better than on consoles with the r9 380. 

Yeah that's a good point.  The titles click bait with that because you can obviously get better than that. 

I've ever been a fan of cheap PC s but I think this build is great for games that are better played on PC like MMOs and bethesda's games.

An XB1 and Wii U are also required to become a god gamer :)

$600 if you don't have an OS. They always cut corners like this to make it seem like a better deal than it is. It's still a good build, but it's not really a $500 build.

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I was considering getting a new PC for Fallout 4 but I decided to try it on my current PC (a tad below minimum recommendations) first to see how it worked. Honestly, I'm mostly satisfied with the results and don't feel the need to buy a new PC yet.

I've got an AMD Phenom II X4 940 with a Radeon HD 7850. The graphics card was upgraded a few years ago when my old one burned up. It set me up on medium and it's performed well except a few particular instances where it flatlined to "0 fps". Searchlights, for some reason, seem to be the biggest problem, and possibly waves on large bodies of water. I turned some unneeded effects off and it helped tremendously. I am satisfied.

I'm sure I'll get another PC within the next couple of years, though, or maybe even the next time I see a great deal. Right now, I'm struggling between processors. AMD 8300 series or should I pay the extra for an i5? Do I need an i5? I don't care at all about Ultra settings, by the way. I just want stable frames per second.

I would wait until next year to see what AMD has to offer CPU-wise. There is a large IPC advantage with Intel right now, but more and more games are using multithreading. AMD is supposed to have a large IPC gain with its Zen chips and you'll have a future-proof motherboard (AM4)  with DDR4 support compared to AM3+,and I am sure their prices will be very competitive. It seems to me as if you are satisfied with what you have now, and your GPU is still a relevant one and should play games for quite a while. You might even be able to last until the end of the generation with your PC, considering how you don't care too much about ultra settings. 

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