Best gaming PC for £400

[MantisCSS]

Hi guys, im ordering a PC later on 2night. and would like some input i havent built one recently so im not completely up to date componant wise. i have a dell 2408 FPW and gaming mouse and keyboard.
what does everyone think of the ATI4750 and are there any better options for a similar price.
also are the E series dual cores are better a better bet than quad core. if you could post some differnt specs for what u think i should go for it would be brilliant, i was thinking of building it around a coolermaster centurion and would preferably like a modular PSU.

Cheers guys, i know im asking alot but im a bit behind, thanks in advance!
Richard

[staffsMike]

I think I would build something to the effect of,

Intel E7200 + Xigmatec Tower ~£95
2GB PC6300 ~£30
Abit IP-35 PRO ~£80 (or asus P5Q PRO)
Corsair 520W HX ~£65 (cheapest good modular I can think of but a 450W VX would do the job ~£45)
Western Digital 640GB AAKS ~£50
HD4850 ~£110

Even that will be £430 without the case or optical though.

I guess if you dropped to a pentium dual core you could save £35, a 320GB single platter ~£15, went for the 450W VX, then you could get down to about £360, so £40 for your case.

If you really want to build something around a HD4870 (although I would be tempted by the 260GTX now scan's prices have dropped) then you need to make serious compromises. Like an antec combo case and PSU maybe. £60 get you a pretty decent case and 430W PSU, £80 will get you a less than perfect sonata III with 500W PSU.

[TheKork]

Intel E7200 + Xigmatec Tower ~£95 (Overclocks easily to 3.4ghz and beyond)
4GB PC6400 ~ £60 (Corsair XM2 DHX C4 is a good one)
Gigabyte P35 DS3L ~£60
Corsair 520W HX ~£65, 450W VX £45
HD4850 ~£110

Excluding your new case that keeps you below £400 and will cater for all your gaming needs unless you game at a very high resolution.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is the best I could do for the price using the free Supersaver postage off Ebuyer:

Coolermaster Centurion 5 All Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU £49.99

Corsair 450W VX 450W PSU - ATX12V v2.2 £45.57

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53GHz (1066MHz) Socket 775 3MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £76.39

OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC with LIFETIME WARRANTY £29.77

Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM £48.99

Sapphire HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI Dual slot cooler HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card £110.01


Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard £54.95


OCZ Vanquisher CPU Cooler For Sockets AMD 754/939/AM2, Intel LGA775 £11.48

Cart total inc vat:£427.15

If you dropped down to a 2.2ghz E2200 the total system will cost just under £400. You should be able to get to 3ghz with a bit of overclocking(hopefully) but the E7200 is better in this regard.

You could probably re-use your old optical drives to save some money too.

[Lanky123]

Does this have to include an operating system? If so it's going to be difficult to fit that case and a modular PSU into the budget.

Edit: Did you mean this case? Because it's on Today Only or £28...convenient...

[staffsMike]

Well with a half decent case and modular PSU you are looking at £100 easy.

The card is £170, leaving £130 for everything else. It not really feasible, do-able but you would be compromising on too much for my liking.

At the very least you need to scale back to the HD4850.

[MantisCSS]

no, it doesnt include operating system, whats the difference between the centurion and the other case on today only?

[Lanky123]

The one I linked is the one on Today Only. 9th down on the High Performance list. There are a few other Centurion models listed so I was wondering which one you were refering to in the OP.

[Noxvayl]

no, it doesnt include operating system, whats the difference between the centurion and the other case on today only?

The price

[MantisCSS]

its this one http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=11211 but when i click on it the price goes up to 50 something quid

[Lanky123]

If you click on 'Buy' on the Today Only page you get it for the Today Only price. The special offer will be gone by about midday tomorrow.

Sorry I didn't explain that earlier, I just assumed you knew how Scan's deals worked. You do know about the free delivery right.

[looney]

Do you need OS? optical drives?

[looney]

something like this should be suitbled:



additional items

DVD-RW:http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145869
CPU cooler: Akasa Ak965 - £10

[staffsMike]

The motherboard really sucks though from what I hear.

And you might as well have the 640GB for £4 - £5 more

[looney]

The motherboard really sucks though from what I hear.

And you might as well have the 640GB for £4 - £5 more

The Motherboard is actually a very good board from what ive read very underrated, its a very good overclocker and quality board, they did a test on it on tomshardware and recommended it for a budget ocing board, the only bad thing ive heard of it is that it has a double boot function.

and true say on the 640gb, much better performance from it

[staffsMike]

But what I hear.. from the forums is that in practice they really aren't very good.. so what you got to say about that? huh? HUH?

I've always been in two minds about that board. It looks too good to be true though.. so it probably is