Thanks for all the input guys, changed the CPU and the case/PSU to an unbranded 700watt unit....... I know branded is better but price is key here. I'm keeping almost everything else as is...... as said above it gives the best for upgrading in the future too. While money is key this will save money in the long term too hopefully. Coming in just under £400 now with better better case and 4x quiet 80mm fans.
What is your build now ? not sure what you have gone for ? please please do not get a 700W unbranded PSU, i cant stress enough that you NEED a decent PSU. for example that unbranded 700W unit will not be able to output 700W or anywhere near it, its horribly inefficient, poor build quality and when you get a power cut or the PSU just blows it will take the motherboard, RAM and CPU with it. Grab a decent 400W one like the corsair one its only £40 or the coolermaster extreme one isnt bad either y buy 4 80mm fans thats gunna be quite loud and for a budget build you shouldnt even need to buy extra fans to be honest, even cheap cases usually come with 120mm exhaust/intake, at most you would only need to buy 1x120mm.
No no no... You must must must always get a good PSU. Just think, a PSU powers the entire system, it's the blood of your computer. Thats the last thing you want to cheap out on. Get This Drop the case for this - Cheap, decent quality, branded, easy to work with, looks really nice in person, dust gets caught on the front so theres very little chance of ever having dust in the PC. If you really want get a 120mm LED fan for it. Drop the GTS 250 for a 4850 Not under £400? drop the CPU cooler and just use the AMD stock cooler. ___ Do you have an operating system for this PC? or does one need to be purchased.
What! you dont need a 700W Sh*t brick in that machine. A mid range 400W PSU is pleanty, so stick with the corsair CX-400 Anyway the 'budget' 700W would never give that output stably.
Un-branded? must have some brand name, just because it doesnt say corsair or OCZ doesnt mean its a bad unit, look at reviews, i bought a PSU @ 850 watts for about 60 pounds, it had over 70 reviews, didnt see any bad.
You guys are truly exaggerating the hardware you need to play WoW, the game will play on almost everything, even Intergrated Graphics, granted you might get like 10fps on low settings but who cares? Since when was graphics its strong point... avoid Dalaran and Ironforge and you should be fine even on a £400 laptop
Ever consider that the end user might care? He quite likely enjoys running at smooth frame rates with a decent level of graphics. Perhaps he will enjoy 25 man raids and will want to be able to see a variety of spell animations during them. Some effects in the game are visual and will become difficult to see, if visible at all, on low settings. Maybe he likes to actually see grass on the ground, even if it's low quality WoW grass. Maybe he just doesn't want to be "that guy" with the shitty computer that all of his friends poke fun at and wait for as he stutters around. Sorry to kind of go off on you but you raise a point that is frequently mentioned, especially when WoW is involved. Requirements are not always the same as desires.
^ +, there is a point where buying less of a system is just pointless i.e buying a 8800GT which would run wow, but why bother paying when for probably the same price or what ever you can grab a 4850 and get much better performance. Must also consider upgrade options in the future. The user is young and wont be able to upgrade for sometime so he needs to keep up with the times as best he can even if it's just for driver support or technical support. Going for lower hardware than mentioned for a budget gaming PC is just a money loss, DDR2, LGA 775 has come to the end of it's life. There is no logical reason to buy a non-DDR3 set up when purchasing a new PC as it's same or higher costs for lower preformance..
You're missing a point about buying slightly last gen stuff for upgrades. As a younger user, by the time they get to the next upgrade in the line, the current bleeding edge/ddr3 stuff will be obsolete and need a new motherboard, cpu, and RAM anyway. WoW doesn't care much about CPU; I've played it on the same PC with the following gfx cards: 7600M GT (with a c2d t5600 in a laptop) res 1680x1050 medium X1650XT (with a c2d 6600 and now 6850) res 1680x1050 medium details HD3870 (with a c2d 6850) high / very high with low aa HD4870 (with a c2d 6850) ultra high with full aa and it never drops below 60 fps, even in busy instances Each time the gfx upgrade made a HUGE difference, but the CPU change I made meant nothing at all. The best bet is to spend less money on DDR2 and buy Intel Core 2, on socket 775. Put in 4gb ram and a decent gfx card.
Me douts your tellng the truth zoom or you raid with no ui as on ultra settings all aa maxed even my 5850 doesn't go above 50 fps during boss fights in 25man herioc and that's on 1920x1080 wow maybe an old game but every addon you use costs you fps and as a raider the list of addon can be huge, most people use at least grid deadly boss mods a unit frame bartender recount bag mod And that's a small list
I'm not a raider - I live with my girlfriend and gaming is a distraction for when she's watching her TV shows or playing her wii games. I have only a couple of basic addons, titan panel, automaton and auctioneer. I run several instances weekly, and the settings I have given above are truthful. The only thing I don't use is shadows, which I don't use in any game, at any time, and I have found they're a drag on frame rates certainly, and when I get an occasional bit of hard drive stutter on zone loading the whole PC will chug for a second or two affecting the FPS down into the 40s but other than that it either reads 59 or 60 (v-sync). Also, I'm 1680x1050 as mentioned above.
Ok guys i've taken onboard what everbody has said...... and thought it over last night. My Wife is 8 months along and being PC support for a build this late stage is a bad idea. I have got a qoute for dell machine with 3 year warranty and im going to throw a new gfx card in it. The Gfx card has to be Low Profile so my next question is the two most powerful low profile cards i can find are 9800GT £65 ~ GTS250 £105 ~ Is the price difference worth the GTS250? thanks
You can get a 4870 for the money it's best value card out there 4850 4870 one of these 2 if you must choose the 250 is slightly faster and has less heat power draw
Hold the phone people........ none of those cards will be good as the Dell machines PSU is only 250watts So I've asked for a re qoute for the normal midi tower so full high pci-e will be ok. Anybody know the power consumption of a 4850
Just to update you guys this is what i ended up Getting Dell Inspiron 580 Intel I3 2.93 4Gb Ram 640 HDD ATI HD 5450 1gb Inc Vat and Del £432
