Build Advice Starting a new budget build

Needing an upgrade from my pc I built around 3 years ago .

Any advice or good/bad pics I've got would be brilliant if you know anything I dont about them.

budget - £400 +/- £50

PSU - http://www.ebuyer.com/429986-corsair-cx-series-cx500m-atx-power-supply-cp-9020059-uk

Low power but it's simply a gaming rig, therefore a need for more is not warranted.

Case - http://www.ebuyer.com/489694-casecom-cb-171-mid-atx-tower-case-cb-171

Not wanting a flashy case just a simple fitting case.

Memory - http://www.ebuyer.com/262580-corsair-8gb-ddr3-1600mhz-vengeance-memory-cmz8gx3m2a1600c9b

Very cheap set of 8GBs ram with a good speed and hundreds of perfect reviews. My only worry is that everyone seems to be building them for intel motherboards..? Would there be any trouble building for AMD?

Motherboard - http://www.ebuyer.com/269072-asus-m...annel-hd-audio-matx-motherboard-m5a78l-m-usb3

Low-mid range motherboard with more than enough space for my GPU, and a 1TB HDD.

CPU - http://www.ebuyer.com/287682-amd-fx...6-core-3-3ghz-socket-am3-8mb-l3-fd6100wmgusbx

Pricey for the build but im hoping it will do the job and more for the games I will be playing.

GPU - http://www.ebuyer.com/396969-gigaby...al-dvi-hdmi-pci-e-graphics-card-gv-n650oc-1gi

Not too pricey but I havent bought a GPU since back in 2011 with this build, which was £140 for a GTX 460 which is the only thing running well in this machine.

HDD - http://www.ebuyer.com/319639-seagate-1tb-barracuda-internal-hard-drive-oem-st1000dm003

Nice size for only £48, which is simply for some university files but mainly games.

Thanks for your time reading this, any suggestions or worries in the build would be appreicated. Price range +- £50 as monitors are not needed.

Regards Zak

 

Get the FX 6300.

http://www.ebuyer.com/409191-amd-fx...mb-cache-retail-boxed-processor-fd6300wmhkbox

Cheaper and faster.

 

I would seriously consider spending more on the case. The one you linked to only supports 2 80mm fans (and neither are included).

I would spend about £30 on something like the Cooler Master Elite 335U as it has support for 4 120mm fans with a rear exhaust fan included. The build quality would also be much better and it would also be roomier, making it easier to build in and keep tidy

 

QFT. In addition to that, the casecom case (if it is like any of their other offerings that I've built in) will slice your fingers to bits as soon as you so much as look at it. It hurts!

 

Don't go near the 6100 - the 6300 is miles better. You should go for a 970 board.

 

Thanks for the heads up and I've seen the 6300 has £20 off which is brilliant! Any advice on why to go for a 970 board?

 

Case looks brilliant, it's just I went for a cheap not bad looking but the £18 price increase shouldnt be too much more! Thanks for the link.

 

mATX AM3+ boards are based on a very old chipset now. The 900 series chipset supports native SATA III/SATA 6 and USB 3.0 so they are a bit more futureproof and the SATA III support would be useful if you plan to add a SSD later on.

If you plan on overclocking, I'd suggest this board as it has VRM cooling. If your not planning on overclocking, I think this board would be suitable, though its worth waiting for someone more knowledgeable to wade in with other recommendations.

 

You'll need to get a full ATX board for 970, and they support the 6300s properly. The best board under £100 is the Asus 970 EVO R2.0 but most of them are fine - just don't get any board that has no VRM heatsinks (that's the heatsink that runs alongside the socket, between it and the IO rear ports).

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97_EVO_R20/

You can clearly see the VRM heatsink there - the long one on the left.

 

The others have made good points, the only thing I'd say is you can get a GTX580 second hand for about £100 which would destroy the 650.

 

Thanks yeah, I'll take your word for it as I have been looking at those two boards as well under the 970 search on ebuyer. Both seem more than enough for this build.

Thanks, yeah the two options posted above will be the two I will be deciding between, thanks for your help.

Do you know anything about the vengeance ram being compatible with AMD boards?

Regards Zak

 

Any decent 1600MHz RAM will work fine. You can use 1866MHz too, but it's not really worth it.

The cheaper Gigabyte board listed above wouldn't be good. The other is all right, but the Asus will overclock better, and the 6300 really comes into its own if you get it to about 4.3-4.5GHz.

 

Teppic, theres about a £10 jump between the more expensive 970 Gigabyte board and this one which is based on the 990X chipset. Do you think that would be better for him or do you think it would be better to go for the more expensive 970 board and budget for a good aftermarket cooler?

 

Alright sounds good. Thanks for your time and effort.

 

The higher end Gigabyte boards are really good, but the Asus EVO ones are the best cheaper ones - they have excellent VRMs as well as good heatsinks. That Gigabyte one would be fine but I'd personally only go for the Asus under £100 - it's £80 at Amazon but out of stock right now.

The only difference between 970 and 990X/990FX is SLI and Crossfire support, but all the expensive boards are 990FX.

A CPU cooler is a must. The FX-6300 even with a £25 Coolermaster Hyper 212 or something can manage 4.5GHz stable, and the processor is superb at that speed.

 

The only trouble is price, would this card not do games any justice? As im hoping to play top tier games?

 

Im not going to be overlocking at all really? As long as it runs the games I want smoothly I'll be happy with the build.

 

You ought to - it's safe and it'll run games better. Even if it's just a 4GHz overclock

If you really don't want to then really any of the 970 boards with VRM heatsinks will do.

 

Ah fair enough then.

Zak, I've found teppic's recommended board for £81.56 at Scan and since you have over 25 posts, you qualify for free delivery.

As teppic said, if you could fit in the £24 Gelid Tranquillo (I chose this over the Hyper 212 as it'll fit the correct way on an AMD board), you'll be able to eek some free speed out of your CPU.

 

I've found that people say they don't want to overclock then at some point they try it and then want to tweak it to get the most out of it - for the sake of a few pounds I'd get a board good enough to allow for it £80 isn't bad for a solid modern motherboard including USB 3 and SATA 3.

See how this graph shows the 6300/6350 (same CPU) at 4.5GHz