Cheap as chips gaming rig?

[Marshalc11]

3 flat mates, only 2 rigs that run COD4 - the maths just doesnt add up! we are looking to build a rig for baisc stuff, but needs to be able to run the latest games! Nothing Spectacular tho!!! thing is or budget is VERY low, around £200-£300!!! looking to go duo and wondered if anyone has ideas to save money or any decent deals out there!! any suggestion would be greatly appreciated!

cheers

Marshall

[F1ZZY]

need monitor and keyboard, mouse too?

Either way, you're going to struggle on that budget!!

[bargainboy]

You might be able to buy a atx mid case for less than £10 off ebay although it might be a dented one or without a side panel.

Or you if your good with woodwork build your own case, from a dumped beat up atx case innards.

Once its built start buying the bits as prices normally gone down for parts.

[bargainboy]

Its whats inside that counts

[staffsMike]

Intel E5200 ~£55 (though the £40 pentium duals will do)
G31 or P31 based mobo ~£35 - £40
2GB PC5400 ~£25
Antec NSK3480 + 380w earthwatts (or ATX equivalent) ~£50 - £55
250 - 320GB HDD ~ £30 - £35
Samsung Dvd-Rw ~£13

Leaves £85 (with the NSK3480, G31 and E5200 so you could save a further £20) for a graphics card if you don't need O/S keyboard, monitor etc..

so HD3850 512mb, 9600GT, 8800/9800GT at most. I'd go for the HD4670 though, great card for £50.

Stuck something together.

Changes I would make are,
Samsung DVD -RW, £13
Cosair XMS2 PC6400 £25
both on scan today only.

And you could save money with a £30 HDD but the 640GB is very nice, also the E2180 CPU at £40 will save you another £15.


Half decent G33 board as well for overclocking

For AMD you could do this

£40 for a 5000+ brisbane, £35 for an ASUS M2A-VM which has blu ray capable IGP if someone wanted to swap it out later for an HTPC.

[dhyta23]

Stripping the monitor, OS, keyboard, mouse this might be achievable.

EDIT: Nevermind staffs mike is quick lol

(Not completely sure about prices, but if I was to put down money desperately for a system i'd go like this. I'm no Oc'er and not a hardcore Crysis/Cod 4 player. Id take extra note of the resolution/size of the monitor as it will greatly hit the frames, 17"-20" preferably for comfortable play. Remember Ebay can be your friend too.)

[MantisCSS]

Hi guys, im the other housemate, lol. hes sorted for a monitor, and keyboard and mouse are no probs. and we will just format his old hard drive which should knock a fair bit off, i think we will stick with intel. i like the build you have gone for staffsmike, with the extra 50 quid what would be the best way to put that 50 back in the rig? processor? ram? graphics? cheers for all your help guys! also we were guna reuse a few bit such as his DVD drive which knocks a little bit off.
Rich

[staffsMike]

Graphics I guess. Maybe a CPU cooler.

Cpu wise there is no where to go which is worth the money, other than Quads imo, which seems to be overkill here.

I have no idea what the foxconn motherboard is like so you could spend £15 on the Asus G33 on scan, which I know to be quite good from an anandtech review. Or you could change to full ATX (means changing the case) to the Abit IP-35E which has reappeared on scan. That's a very good budget board.
http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=605521

ATX version of the NSK3480
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130948, it's only limited by 80mm fans in the front but they will be good enough if you pick decent one's (it only comes with the 120mm extractor).

An extra £40 - £50 puts you into 9800GT territory or ypu could push it to an HD4850.

EDIT: maybe the foxconn board is ok
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9741&page=1

sorry HEXUS!

So that's a really good deal for that board or the IP-35E for full ATX

[MantisCSS]

this is what ive goen for so far, just need graphics card next. any suggestions on what to go for?
cheers

[Webby]

Depending on what resolution you will be playing at pricing all from EBuyer,

ATI
4670 ~£55 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149199
3850 512MB ~£60 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148212
3870 OCed with decent cooler ~£80 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143111
4850 ~£110 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146428

NVIDIA
9600GT ~£75 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147945
9800GT ~£95 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148064

Personally at the prices of the Nvidia cards I wouldn't be looking at them really the ATI offerings are cheaper for the same or better performance, 9600GT is similar in performance to the 3850 and the 9800GT is probably a bit better than the 3870 but not £15 better.

So if you are gaming at 1280*1024 I would expect the 4670 to be your best bet if you are going to be working at 1680*1050 you will see a noticable difference with the 3870 for the extra £25 and then the performance will almost double (over the 3870) if you move up to the 4850.

So I guess it is all up to how much you want to spend and what resolution the gaming will be at.

[Pob255]

while you're probably right on not needing much more than a 4670 for 17-19" resolution, the only reviews I've seen of the 4670 are not very good for gaming and put it below the 3850.
For the extra £5 the 3850 is far better option

of thoes cards I think my favourate card from that shortlist is GeCube 3870 OC ~£80, and not just a decent cooler but probably the best cooler without fitting one yourself.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

while you're probably right on not needing much more than a 4670 for 17-19" resolution, the only reviews I've seen of the 4670 are not very good for gaming and put it below the 3850.
For the extra £5 the 3850 is far better option

of thoes cards I think my favourate card from that shortlist is GeCube 3870 OC ~£80, and not just a decent cooler but probably the best cooler without fitting one yourself.

Reviews that have compared the HD3850 512mb and 256mb with the HD4670 512mb show the latter to be slightly ahead especially with AA:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...HD_4670/1.html

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3405&p=6

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=15393&page=1

http://www.amdzone.com/index.php/rev...d-4679?start=3

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/...stream/?page=3

[MantisCSS]

cheers for all your help guys, probs guna go for the 3850 with the speced rig above.