Hi Trying to build a dirt cheap entry level gaming rig for a friend. She is not a hardcore gamer or enthusiast but wants something fairly fast and up to date for playing stuff like total war, minecraft and portal 2. Only has around £200 to spend. These are the parts i've selected for the rest of the build and old bits going spare. Corsair 430W V2 CX Series PSU......................................£34.97 Coolermaster Elite 335 Case...........................................£28.08 120mm PWM Fan.............................................................£4.85 Logitech B110 Black Optical Mouse..................................£4.65 Trust Soundforce 2.1 Pro Speakers - 24W RMS................£11.06 Dell keyboard Seagate 160gb SATA II Hard Drive Dell DVD Drive PATA IDE Nvidia 7950 GTX 512mb TOTAL................................................................................£83.61 I'm torn between going for a newer Intel 1155 H10 mATX motherboard or AMD AM3 870 ATX. The intel combo features SATA 3 and USB 3 on board video and has better cpu upgrade choices but is hindered with 2 ram slots only supporting 1333mhz maximum and would also require me to buy a new dvd drive as it lacks PATA IDE connectors to re use the old one. 1- Intel Pentium G620 2.6GHz Socket 1155............................£51.32 Asus P8H61-M LE/USB3 Intel H61 Socket 1155..................£48.99 http://www.ebuyer.com/266605-asus-p...-8-channel-hd-audio-matx-p8h61-m-le-usb3-r3-0 Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz..................................£19.04 DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive................................£13.98 TOTAL...........................................................................................£133.33 The AMD combo is older with a less future proof cpu upgrade path, but it has 4 ram slots that support all DDR3 speeds making memory upgrading easier plus i can re-use the old DVD drive aswell allowing a few quid more to be spent on a faster 1600mhz memory kit. 2- AMD Athlon II X3 450 3.2GHz AM3 95w.........................................£56.66 MSI 870-G45 AM3 Motherboard....................................................£49.99 http://www.ebuyer.com/241003-msi-870-c45-amd-770-socket-am3-gb-lan-8-channel-audio-atx-870-c45 Corsair XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz Dual Channel.............£24.48 TOTAL......................................................................................................£131.13 or next model up sata 3 and usb 3 capable motherboard for £10 extra. 3- MSI 870A-G46 AM3 Motherboard....................................................£59.99 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-870a-g46-amd-870-s-am3-ddr3-sata-iii-6gb-s-raid-sata-pcie-%28x16%29-atx TOTAL......................................................................................................£141.13 These solutions are the best i can come up with for the tight budget. Which one do you reckon would be better for gaming, upgradeabilty and future proofing? Is Sata 3 and USB 3 worth the extra £10? Would the AMD's better memory support make alot of performance difference? Any ideas, opinions or alternative suggestions would be greatly appreciated
I believe a recent issue of Custom PC reccomended the G620 for the £50 price point. I assume your friend won't be attempting any overclocking?
I'd say the third option is your best bet, nice total war games will need all the processing power you have, especially the newer ones.
Thats good to know, i read tom's hardware and they recommend the Amd for the £60 price point. I'm not sure how much difference is in it, whether the amd would out perform the intel with faster memory. No, doubt it'll be overclocked unless i do it but would rather run it stock to avoid possible hitches. I think its empire she wants to play which is fairly new i think.
Thats good, it should have enough processing power to run empire very well then, I used to play it a lot on 2.1ghz single core
