Spec my friend a gaming PC - £500 budget

[Behemoth]

I am so out of touch it really is scary, a friend of mine has asked me to spec him a gaming PC for about £500 and then he buys all the bits and I build it for him. He says he'll need Windows so Vista 64 bit and 4 gigs of ram.

He says he wants to play games like Farcry 2, I'm doubtful that £500 will do it but well, surprise me. If it helps sure he won't mind it being AMD instead of Intel to keep the price down.

[Webby]

Do we need a monitor keyboard etc or is the £500 for just the base unit? Makes a big difference to available budget I'm sure you agree.

[SiM]

If he doesn't mind overclocking c2d is better:
E7300 cpu £80, 4gb ram £40, dark raider mobo £65, 4850 £120, Antec sonata (includes psu) £80, xigmatech heatsink £20, any dvdrw £15, Vista HP x64 £60. Total is £480 That should do it. Prices are from my memory, scan/ebuyer but are roughly accurate

[Behemoth]

We'll say for now no peripherals are needed, just the tower, decent sized HDD too would help, that I'd say go for a Western Digital AAKS Drive

[Webby]

SIm the E7300 is £90 on eBuyer and £100 on Scan, and you kinda forgot a hard drive

[Behemoth]

If he had a bigger budget, I'd try and sell him my PC for £650 lol

[Webby]

Well for an Intel system I would be looking at,

E5200 - £63 (Scan)
Abit Dark Raider - £65 or Biostar P45 - £73 (Scan)
4GB Corsair 6400 - £39 (Ebuyer)
640GB Samsung F1 - £45 (Scan)
Optical Drive - £15 (Scan)
Antec Sonata 3 - £80 or Antec 300 + Corsair VX450 or Enermax Pro82+ - £89 (Ebuyer for Sonata and 300, Scan for PSUs)
4850 Powercolor PCS+ - £132 (EBuyer)
Xigmatek S693 - £16 (Scan)
Vista 64 HP - £93 (Scan)

Total - £508 (or with the Biostar board and separate case and PSU £525)

You could save a bit by getting a smaller Hard drive or a not as expensive graphics card £115 will get you a stock cooled 4850 but the Powercolor is quieter and faster (a bit at least).

[MSIC]

Case: Antec NSK4000 £30
PSU: Corsair 450W £48
Motherboard: Gigabyte P31 Express £45
Memory: Corsair TwinX 2 x 2GB £40
Hard Drive: Western Dig 640GB AAKS £50
DVD Writer: Samsung SATA £15
Sub total = £230
Vista 64Bit OEM is £68

This leaves £200 for a CPU and a graphics card.
Graphics: ASUS 4850 £115
CPU: E7300 £98

Total = £510.

Webby's suggestions are also good, although i'm a little dubious about spending extra on an overclocked graphics card when you can do it yourself (and we're talking about a few % difference in games, not 20%).

[Webby]

Case: Antec NSK4000 £30
PSU: Corsair 450W £48
Motherboard: Gigabyte P31 Express £45
Memory: Corsair TwinX 2 x 2GB £40
Hard Drive: Western Dig 640GB AAKS £50
DVD Writer: Samsung SATA £15
Sub total = £230
Vista 64Bit OEM is £68

This leaves £200 for a CPU and a graphics card.
Graphics: ASUS 4850 £115
CPU: E7300 £98

Total = £510.

Webby's suggestions are also good, although i'm a little dubious about spending extra on an overclocked graphics card when you can do it yourself (and we're talking about a few % difference in games, not 20%).

I picked the card more for the cooler than the overclocking while the 4850 stock coolers are not loud they are notoriuous for keeping the chip toasty and if you turn them up they get a bit too much noise, the Powercolor will keep it cooler and quieter which in my opinion is worth the extra £15 if the money is available to spend.

Oh and the £70 vista is Basic I would be wanting Home Premium (can't remember what the differences are but remember HP being worth the extra or more to the point thinking that basic was crippled)

[MSIC]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...s/default.aspx
For a gaming rig, Vista basic is fine. You get DX10, which i assume is the purpose of not going with XP. After about 5 mins of cooing over Aero, you just turn it off anyway.
The only thing that would tempt me to spend the extra is Windows Media Center, although the OP doesnt mention that requirement.

As for graphics, the ASUS one is linked isn't a stock cooler, i agree about the stock ones.
I like the idea of the Xigmatek HSF for the CPU though.

[Webby]

Oh I was going with items that are in stock! Who knows what price they will be when they come back into stock.

Hmmm think it was probably media stuff that put me off basic (not that I run Vista anyway)

[SiM]

I always forget hard drives lol, I always assume there are plenty spare lying around for everyone... perhaps because I have a spare 4x1.5TB + a 1TB

[Behemoth]

Well to be honest with you Vista HP 64, runs fine for me

[Behemoth]

Thanks guys, he's now looking it over, just hope he buys it all in one go rather than buying it in stages like he's planning to. He'll get shafted on the postage.