£300 Gaming PC...

[joshwa]

I priced this up... seems like a good deal to me...

£306 from Scan, although the PSU probably needs replacing? They have 500w PSUs from £20.

CASE/PSU: Jou-Jye NU-3505 Silver/Black Micro-ATX Tower Case with 300W aPFC PSU £22.99 £27.01 (on Today Only)
1 LN19446 Jou-Jye NU-3505 Silver/Black Micro-ATX Tower Case with 300W aPFC PSU

Motherboard: MSI K9VGM-V, VIA K8M890, S AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA I, SATA/IDE RAID, uATX £24.99 £29.36 (on Today Only)
1 LN15120 MSI K9VGM-V, VIA K8M890, S AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA I, SATA/IDE RAID, uATX

Hard Drive: LN19559 400 GB Western Digital WD4000AAJS Caviar SE, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9 ms £46.39 £54.51

CPU: LN19291 AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4800+ Brisbane Core, Dual Core 2.5GHz, 2x 512KB Cache, Energy Eff'' Retail £46.98 £55.20

GFX: LN17073 512MB Sapphire RX1950Pro, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1400MHz, GDDR3, GPU 580MHz, 36Pipes CrossFire Master/Slave £66.99 £78.71

RAM LN11596 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 £28.99 £34.06

Optical: LN19437 LiteON DH-20A1S-18C Black 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8 / -RW x 6, DVD-RAM x12, SATA Black £14.29 £16.79

Net Total £251.62
Carriage £9.03
V.A.T. £45.61
TOTAL £306.26

[MrP]

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2180, S775, 2.0GHz, 800MHzFSB, Allendale Core, 1MB Cache, Retail £44.75 £52.58
2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 £21.99 £25.84
Jou-Jye NU-3505 Silver/Black Micro-ATX Tower Case with 300W aPFC PSU £22.99 £27.01
400 GB Western Digital WD4000AAJS Caviar SE, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9 ms £46.39 £54.51
Lite-ON 20X DVD+/-RW/RAM internal SATA beige drive & s/w £13.85 £16.27
MSI P4M900M2-L VIA P4M900 S775 PCI-E(x16) DDR2 400/533/667MHz SATA II SATA RAID uATX On Board VGA £24.95 £29.32
256MB PowerColor HD 3850 PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 1656 MHz, GDDR3, GPU 668 MHz, 320 Streams, 2 x DVI-I £89.49 £105.15
Net Total £264.41

Carriage £9.03

V.A.T. £47.85

TOTAL £321.29

i'm not sure how good that board is, but if you can overclock the board you can clock the 2180 to close on 3ghz, that and the extra power of the 3850, you'll get a much better gaming machine i think.

[directhex]

gaming pc running linux? good on you! might want nvidia rather than ati in that case though

[shadowmaster]

If you plan to get the amd 3850 you might as well get the 512 version from aria for the same price as the 256 version.

ATI Radeon HD 3850 512MB - PCI-E2.0 - Aria Technology

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is the best I could do using Ebuyer and their free postage:

ECS NFORCE6M-A V2.0 Socket AM2 nForce 520LE 6 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £27.21 £23.15

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.5GHz Energy Efficient Socket AM2 L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor £57.51 £48.94 £57.51 £48.94

Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 675MHz/PC2-5400 XMS Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL4(4-4-4-12) Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty £26.99 £22.97

Antec Black NSK4480B ATX/MATX Mini Tower - With 380W EarthWatts PSU £51.26

Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM £60.99 £51.90

Optiarc AD-5200A-0B 20X DVD±RW/DL Int IDE Bare Black Drive - OEM £15.62 £13.29

Nvidia 7900GS 256MB DDR3 Dual DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card £59.99 £51.05


*Free Shipping has been applied to this order

*FREE SHIPPING ON THIS ORDER»

Total:£299.57

[EarlGrey]

Recently Crytek have released their suggestion on a gaming PC for Crysis - to play it on high settings at 1280x720 (HD TV res)

bit-tech.net | Crytek specs a budget machine for Crysis

CPU - Intel Core2Duo E6750
GPU - GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Motherboard - Nvidia nForce 650i Socket 775
PSU - 600W ATX12V
RAM - 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
HDD - SATA 250GB 7200RPM
DVD - 20x DVD±R Burner
Case - ATX Midi Tower Computer Case
OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home with SP2

It strikes me that this would be good to base your purchases around.

The important points on this build are:
A reasonably good CPU - but if you overclock any Intel CPU dual core will be fast enough.
2GB of RAM
Stick with XP
And spend the most on your graphics card.

In my opinion if you want to game, then you blow the bank on the graphics card at the moment. Do try and squeeze an 8800GT 512Mb out of you budget, it will be worth it in the long run.

Good luck

[cptwhite_uk]

Lol try and sqeeze a 8800GT out of a £300 budget? Maybe a £400 budget...it's not going to happen on a budget of £300.

My spec:

• Processor - Intel E2140 - This will overclock to 2.6-3.0Ghz easily - £43 Ebuyer
• Motherboard - EVGA 650i Ultra - This will allow you to overclock the processor £60 Ebuyer
• Hard Drive - Seagate 160GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 2MB Cache - 160Gb is enough for games installing - £29 Ebuyer
• RAM - 2Gb PC5300 - here - £23 + del Aria
• Graphics Card - HD 3850 256Mb - 75% of the performance of a 8800GT, utter bargain for a cheap gaming PC - £85 Aria
• PSU & Case - Antec Black NSK4480B ATX/MATX Mini Tower - With 380W EarthWatts PSU - £55 Ebuyer
• DVD-R drive = £15 Ebuyer

Total Approx. = £305 (allowing £6 for delivery from Aria, other stores with free delivery)

That's the minimum I'd want for a modern day gaming machine - but play games it will, and very well too.

Edit: Cat's choice of Case + PSU for £55 is better than my suggestion so I'm stealing it

[SiM]

Maybe its a good idea to look for some second hand bits with this budget...

[MrP]

na, any system with a half decent chipset (i'd prefer p/g35) will do for some times yet (think penryn) and will overclock like the clappers.

so $40 for a e2140, run it at 3.0ghz with an 3850 and you have a system that will play most games to a decent level, oc the card as well and you can go a bit higher on the settings or the res

[directhex]

all these ati cards with linux. silly silly.

[Pob255]

I think they are working off reuseing a current copy of XP from a pc it's replaceing. it's the same as how well these graphics cards do on a 0x0 resolution monitor


It might be best to buy a pre-built pc and stick a half decent graphics card in it. you can pick up a x1950pro or 7900gs for around £75 now, maybe less especially 2nd hand.
If you're not adding vista to the price you might as well go for one of thoes, yes they are not the fastest but they are still good card, esp at low res and who's going to be spending £200+ on a high res monitor when the pc is only £300?

[s3ds]

I priced this up... seems like a good deal to me...

<edit>
RAM LN11596 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 &#163;28.99 &#163;34.06
<edit>
TOTAL &#163;306.26

The RAM i think runs at 2.2 volts

cut and pasted from MSI site
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Main Memory

•
Supports dual channel DDR2 533/667/800, using two 240-pin DDR2 DIMMs.
• Supports the memory size up to 2GB
• Supports 1.8v DDR2 SDRAM DIMM
Due to the High Performance Memory design, motherboards or system configurations may or may not operate smoothly at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standard settings (BIOS Default on the motherboard) such as DDR2 voltage, memory speeds and memory timing. Please confirm and adjust your memory setting in the BIOS accordingly for better system stability.
Example: Kingston HyperX DDR2-800 PC-6400 operates at 2.0V, 4-4-4-12.
For more information about specification of high performance memory modules, please check with your Memory Manufactures for more details.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Personaly i would use Kingston Value Ram if you go with your choise ( Std @ 1.8 Volts )
and yes i would change the PSU

[EarlGrey]

Lol try and sqeeze a 8800GT out of a £300 budget? Maybe a £400 budget...it's not going to happen on a budget of £300.

Yeah, it's not gonna be easy, but think about it this way: If this is gonna last you at least a couple of years (more?) you don't want to have to upgrade the most expensive component. Get a graphics card that will last you a while, as dropping a new CPU into your machine can be done for £50. Sort out the most expensive components now!

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

8800GT £133 each. 256Mb is no big deal, just don't expect to use the highest textures on all games. Better than having to put all the settings to low with a 3850!

It is very tight spending nearly half your budget on a graphics card, but if you want to game it really is worth it.

Put two machines side by side, one medium PC with a low end graphics card and one low end PC with a decent graphics card, and you can guarantee the latter will give a better gaming experience.

Good luck

[cptwhite_uk]

Do try and squeeze an 8800GT 512Mb out of you budget

Your original comment, hence my comment. 256mb version may be doable, bt it's not worth the extra &#163;30 over the graphics card I allowed for (&#163;85, compared with &#163;115 for your 8800GT 256Mb).

Not to mention the 8800GT 256Mb for &#163;117 is out of stock. So if you're buying now you're looking at an extra &#163;38, which is about 13&#37; of the budget thrown at increasing the graphics card performance maybe ~15% or so. This money can be spent better elsewhere on the system (good Mobo, or a decent PSU, bigger hard drive, more RAM etc.)

Edit: BTW Those % are not comparitive. Compartive would be

Graphics card cost (as a percentage of HD3850) = ~ 156% (based on what's in stock at &#163;133)
Boost in performance (as a percentage of HD3850) = ~ 115% (estimate, but definately within +/- 5%)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 8800GS 384mb is around the same price as the 512mb HD3850. The 8800GS is over 10% faster than the 8800GT 25mb on average:

Expreview.com - Extra Hardware News Report! » Blog Archive » [review] Palit GeForce 8800GS 384MB &#038; 768MB

However the 8800GS 384mb and the HD3850 512mb are very similiar in performance overall - in some game the HD3850 is soundly beaten and in others the 8800GS 384mb is slower. The choice depends on what games you want to play:

Expreview.com - Extra Hardware News Report! » Blog Archive » [review] Palit GeForce 8800GS 384MB &#038; 768MB

However the HD3850 256mb is around £91 from Ebuyer delivered and is better value for money.

[cptwhite_uk]

Or &#163;85 from Aria, as per my suggestion in my original post!

Edit: Sorry, it's gone to &#163;88 now, so with free delivery from Ebuyer, it's probably the better deal Aira link in case you're interested anyway: ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB - PCI-E2.0 - Aria Technology