Hey guys, I was looking for some advice as I am looking to build a half decent pc with the main purpose being gaming, and also a bit of general use. I have a budget of around £650 which has to include everything pc, monitor, keyboard and mouse, I know this is relatively low compared to others but it would be good to get the most out of my money and will be keeping an eye on scan today deals so I can buy the components over a week or two period. I have very limited knowledge of monitors but thought that I could pick up a half decent one for around £80, with a further £20 for mouse and keyboard. That leaves me £550, and as I am a student I can get the OS for £40... so £510 for the pc. I have had a look at various forums and it seems that a sandy bridge build is probably out of my reach with the budget. I can possibly push the budget up about £40, but the performance would have to merit this. Thanks for any help given
Hey. I can't claim to be an expert but I've been looking at builds around the same price. Using a bit of Today Only magic (Marked with *s) on SCAN I reckon you could stretch to an i5 2500K + 5850 if you push the budget. LN26734 500 GB Samsung HD502HI EcoGreen F2, SATA 3Gb/s, 5400rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ £26.15 £31.38 LN28632 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2 - S1366/1155/1156/775/AM3/AM2+/AM2/939 Up to 130 Watts £12.98 £15.58 LN37506 Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, 1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.3GHz, GPU 850Mhz, 6MB Cache, 95W, OEM £124.15 £148.98 LN37493 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V £33.12 £39.74 LN29630 Xigmatek Asgard Black, Mid Tower, ATX Case with 4x5.25" 6x3.5" Bays inc 120mm Fan, No PSU £23.79 £28.55 LN29445 Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±R, 12x DVD±R, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black, OEM £12.39 £14.87 *430W Corsair CMPSU-430CX Builder Series, 80% Eff', 120mm Fan, Single 12V Rail, ATX, PSU LN35694 430W Corsair CMPSU-430CX Builder Series, 80% Eff', 120mm Fan, Single 12V Rail, ATX, PSU £24.99 £29.99 *1GB XFX HD 5850, PCI-E 2.1 (x16), 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 725MHz, 1440Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ HDMI/ DP LN34641 1GB XFX HD 5850, PCI-E 2.1 (x16), 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 725MHz, 1440Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ HDMI/ DP £113.99 £136.79 LN38035 Asus P8P67-M Rev3, Intel P67 Express, S1155, PCI-E, 2.0 x16, DDR3 2133 / 2200, SATA 6Gb/s, RAID MATX £78.67 £94.40 That lot comes in at £543.08 with the free delivery offer. I'm not sure about the mobo or the PSU. Just went for the cheapest by decent brands so it would be worth asking about those. Also there have been 5870s at that price recently but they may have run out of stock. Hope that helps. Also what are you looking for in a monitor? If you want 1080p I'm not sure how many good ones will be floating about for £80 though you may get one on offer. EDIT: Sugar me plums I put in an F2 not an F3 by mistake. The F3 is slightly cheaper though so doesn't change the total much.
Now is a great time to build a budget rig. If it was 6 months ago people would have laughed at you. I walk you through this rig a speced up for you. -If you have a need you can go for 8gb of ram but 4gb should be fine unless you are doing something like video editing. -I picked the 955 as its pretty good value atm. More and more games are taking advantage of 4 cores now. If you want to save money you could get the 555 and try unlocking it to get 4 cores. -500 Watts of a psu should be plenty and its a good price. -I picked the HSF as its alot quieter than the stock one and it will give you room to overclock. It's a powerful cooler and can out preform coolers twice its size. -I always use Samsung disks and the F3 is one of the best. you could go to the 1tb for only 10 pounds more if you wish. -I have the c45 board and it's great never had any problems with it. If you wish you could upgrade to something like the GA-870 Here: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...pci-e-20-(x16)-ddr3-sata-6gb-s-raid-atx-rev30 -I picked the 100 case just as an example really. Others to look at are the 300/Coolermaster 912/Coolermaster 690II lite. All depends on what you like really. -I Picked the 560 GTX as its a great card for the money really. if you want to save some money have a look for a 5850 extreme. It will cost about 100 pounds. Something like a benq should be ok for a screen. Try and get the best screen you can. If you get one get the LG IPS231P-BN, excellent screen. Ninjae'd
Thanks for the suggestions both of you I think I am more inclined to go with the second build with the AMD 955, although would probably try and up the GPU to the 560 Ti. Although if I was to try and go with an Intel within budget it seems the only one possible one without sacrificing the rest to much would be the i3 2100, would this be better than the build stated above? It would give me the scope to put a i5 2500 in when I have some money, not sure above performance though.
Ohhh why? And I have just realised I will have to wait for a few weeks anyway as I won't be home until then haha
For that budget I start with a decent all rounder based on the Phenom Quad Core. You can then get an idea on pricing and go from there. Note - All prices are estimates - Antec 100 - £45 - BeQuiet L7 530w - £42 - MSI 870A-G54 - £70 - Phenom II 955BE - £95 - Gelid Tranquillo or corsair A50 - £25 - HD6870 1GB - £130 (special offers only) - Spinpoint F1 1TB - £40 - DVD-RW - £15 - 4GB DDR3 PC12800 (1600MT/s) - £35 Total - £497 including VAT and delivery (assuming you can get free delivery on everything). This would leave you plenty of scope for your monitor, keyboard & mouse. In theory for an extra £90 or so you could squeeze to a i5 2500k / MSI P67-C45 build which would offer significantly more CPU grunt but it would be up to you whether spending the extra £90 is worth it, the Phenom II isn't exactly slow. SandyBridge build: - Antec 100 - £45 - BeQuiet L7 530w - £42 - MSI P67- C45 - £100 - i5 2500k - £160 - Gelid Tranquillo or corsair A50 - £25 - HD6870 1GB - £130 (special offers only) - Spinpoint F1 1TB - £40 - DVD-RW - £15 - 4GB DDR3 PC12800 (1600MT/s) - £35 Total - £592.00 In my opinion spending the extra £90 or so is worth it in the long run. This build would offer plenty of scope for future expansion and has all of the "mod cons" like USB3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s. The only thing it is missing is CF/SLI support.
Thanks for the 2 specs I was pretty much looking at the exact first quote but was going to change the GPU to a gtx 460, although looking at bench marks it may be best to stick with the one you recommended. I can see that the second is a much better PC overall, but I am slightly worried that the GPU might be the bottleneck for the system especially as its primary use will be gaming, so it may be better to wait for the AMD Bulldozer to come out? I assume that is what the person a few posts up is referring to, then maybe I could get better value than the AMD 955? Or the Sandbridge processors may reduce in price.
And i just bought an 2500k rig too. Still i'd rather get whats good now then wait 2 weeks and find out that whatever we are waiting for is mediocre at best.
Cheers for the help, and Bindi running off I am currently looking at this: Antec 100 - £40 - BeQuiet L7 530w - £42 - MSI 870A-G54 - £70 - Phenom II 955BE - £85 - Gelid Tranquillo - £25 - MSI Geforce 560 Ti- £180 - Spinpoint F1 1TB - £40 - DVD-RW - £15 - 4GB DDR3 PC12800 (1600MT/s) - £35 Total £533 The only thing I might change is put in a AM3+ motherboard when they come out so I can upgrade in a few years time. Is this any good? What would cause the bottleneck in this build and could I increase it much without spending much more money? And could I play new upcoming games on medium- high settings such as BF3 Thanks guys
Yeah I can see a new processor going in if they are about the same price as the 955, I will just have to see what the price/ performance is
With regard to playing future games like BF3 on medium-high i don't see why not but a lot of that depends on what resolution you'll be gaming at but with a 560 in there and a quad-core I can't see high setting being any problem at up to (and including)1920x1080. Anything above that and you'd be needing a more powerful graphics card. Also, as good/nice, as the Antec 100 I, personally, think it's still a lot of money for a case which is extremely basic and has, again in my opinion, piss poor cable management. The Xigmatec Asgard doesn't exactly have amazing cable management but the cooling is on par, it looks a bit better and is £10-13 cheaper. If you didn't mind the looks then a Coolermaster 430 can be had with a 500W Coolermaster PSU (would need other people to check on if thats any good or not, i have no idea but it's not like you'll be thrashing it) for around £50 for the pair. That's a good £30 saved on case/PSU which can be used elsewhere maybe.
955 isnt worth buying anymore since a SB build is massively faster than it in everything and costs only slightly more. but agreed if bulldozer is immient then it could be worth checking out. I certainly would not buy AMD now to upgrade to bulldozer later as we have no idea of the performance yet and it could be AWESOME or another pisspoor attempt and intel will still reign supreme. im gunning for AMD as if bulldozer is equal or better it only means better prices and choice for us.
Well, several AMD chips - not just AM3+. If people are recommending him Phenom CPUs, it might be worth seeing how any new ones perform, as well as new mobos with new features etc. I do NOT know performance though - I'm just saying, new stuff is verrrry close for his build if he's going AMD from other people's recommendations, the logic would be to wait for reviews Even if they are "the same as Phenoms" now (might not be remember - only rumour out there) - but 32nm SOI should be interesting to see any OC advantages.
