Critique on gaming PC for younger brother - £400

[Adegville]

Thoughts on the following build? This is going to be my younger brothers Christmas present, as he has decided he would rather have a PC than the XBone (Good choice!)

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Adegville/saved/2MzO

I haven't chose a case yet but am open to suggestions, needs to be cheap though!

[Bonebreaker777]

Thoughts on the following build? This is going to be my younger brothers Christmas present, as he has decided he would rather have a PC than the XBone (Good choice!)

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Adegville/saved/2MzO

I haven't chose a case yet but am open to suggestions, needs to be cheap though!

I would say it looks good for now, but I am sure CAT will add his words of wisdom to it (which are definitely worth it).
I would exchange but one part which would be the PSU, and the replacement would be the following > XFX ProSeries 450W from £35.10.

That ASUS 7790 2GB looks like a very good value btw ;-)

[Adegville]

I'll take a look at the PSU, was really surprised at how cheap the GPU was. £2 more for an extra 1gb VRAM yes please!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get this motherboard:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/M5A97-R2-0-M...words=asus+970

I would also get this PSU:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Edition-...words=xfx+450w

Get the FX6300 from Amazon as you need to add postage costs to Aria purchases.

This case will do the job and can take long graphics cards:

http://www.ebuyer.com/239238-casecom...an-k5-9388blue

Get this hard drive:

http://www.ebuyer.com/272944-seagate...ive-st500dm002

Get this HD7850 2GB:

http://www.ebuyer.com/544191-powerco...0-2gbd5-2dhppe

It is probably the best HD7850 2GB model IMHO. It seems to come with six games!

The optical drive is not in stock at Amazon anymore,so I would get this one:

http://www.ebuyer.com/567530-asus-dv...f1st-blk-b-oem

The total comes to around £403 if you include the cheap RAM from Amazon. You can also get cashback too:

http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ebuyer/
http://www.quidco.com/ebuyer/

If you cannot get the cheap,I would get one of these RAM sets:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-BLT2...words=8gb+ddr3
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-BLT2...words=8gb+ddr3

You would need to get the HD7790 2GB from Dabs to keep within budget,although I would spend the extra £20 and get the HD7850 2GB I mentioned.

[scaryjim]

Get this HD7850 2GB:

http://www.ebuyer.com/544191-powerco...0-2gbd5-2dhppe

It is probably the best HD7850 2GB model IMHO. It seems to come with six games!

Probably only comes with the 2 games from the never settle silver promotion now (at least as far as I can see from the ebuyer listing). OTOH, for £113 that's an absolute bargain - be mad to get anything else at that price...

[cheesyboy]

I would get this motherboard:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/M5A97-R2-0-M...words=asus+970

Why that Mobo, Cat?

(I'm looking at getting a cheap-ish AM3+ board myself, so am interested in any snippets of knowledge.)

The Gigabyte 970a-UD3P at ~£69 from Scan seems good, as it has 8+2 phase power delivery so should cope with a decent overclock on the bigger CPUs

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Probably only comes with the 2 games from the never settle silver promotion now (at least as far as I can see from the ebuyer listing). OTOH, for £113 that's an absolute bargain - be mad to get anything else at that price...

If you add it to the basket it says the following:

(free accessory) FarCry3 Download Coupon for AMD 409692 633 in stock £0.00 £0.00
(free accessory) AMD 7800 2013 Game Coupon Tomb Raider 452625 801 in stock £0.00 £0.00
(free accessory) AMD Bioshock Coupon 495956 652 in stock £0.00 £0.00
(free accessory) Never Settle Forever Silver for 7800 Series Coupon 544925 1271 in stock £0.00 £0.00

Why that Mobo, Cat?

(I'm looking at getting a cheap-ish AM3+ board myself, so am interested in any snippets of knowledge.)

The Gigabyte 970a-UD3P at ~£69 from Scan seems good, as it has 8+2 phase power delivery so should cope with a decent overclock on the bigger CPUs

It does indeed,but I was trying to keep to £400 as close as possible!

[scaryjim]

If you add it to the basket it says the following: <snip>

Wow, impressive! So that's Far Cry 3, Bioshock, Tomb Raider, plus Never Settle Silver? I make that 5 games (unless one of the other coupons includes DLC/expansions/sequals?). Even better deal at £113 then (isn't that roughly what all those games would cost you at full retail price?)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Wow, impressive! So that's Far Cry 3, Bioshock, Tomb Raider, plus Never Settle Silver? I make that 5 games (unless one of the other coupons includes DLC/expansions/sequals?). Even better deal at £113 then (isn't that roughly what all those games would cost you at full retail price?)

A week or two ago it also came with the old Never Settle promo too.

They must have run out of those now.

Edit!!

Regarding the Gigabyte 970a-UD3P,make sure it has LLC.

My mate had the Gigabyte 970a-UD3 and the lack of LLC limited the overclock on his FX6300. Later versions had it,but it was hard to know what one you would receive.

However,the £5 to £10 saving over the Gigabyte 970a-UD3 is down to less connectivity on the backplate.

[Bonebreaker777]

Ah maan, that is one SWEET deal on that 7850 2GB. And as usual, can't really pick on the rest.

[Bagnaj97]

Regarding the Gigabyte 970a-UD3P,make sure it has LLC.

My mate had the Gigabyte 970a-UD3 and the lack of LLC limited the overclock on his FX6300. Later versions had it,but it was hard to know what one you would receive.

The UD3p is a newer mobo than the UD3, they appear to be the same spec wise, but the "p" variant is certified for the FX 9xxx chips. Because it's a newer mobo I'd assume it'll have LLC.

[cheesyboy]

Regarding the Gigabyte 970a-UD3P,make sure it has LLC.

My mate had the Gigabyte 970a-UD3 and the lack of LLC limited the overclock on his FX6300. Later versions had it,but it was hard to know what one you would receive.

However,the £5 to £10 saving over the Gigabyte 970a-UD3 is down to less connectivity on the backplate.

The only version of the 970a-UD3P (Rev 1.0) carries Gigabyte's "Digital Power Engine" which I believe is their LLC controller system (?).

Digital Power Engine isn't on the 970a-UD3 (non-P), and is only found on the 990fx-UD3 in Rev 4.0, and not on any earlier revisions, per Giga's website.

[Adegville]

Thanks so much for the suggestions, think we may stretch the budget a tiny bit to get him a 7850. Hoping to get some deals with black friday/cyber monday coming up.

[PowerPie5000]

You could even get a bit of cash back by selling the games you don't want .

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You are not really going to get a better deal on an HD7850 2GB model of that quality TBH!

[Adegville]

All ordered (except for memory) thanks so much for all the suggestions!

Just need to find 8gb ram that is reasonably priced now...