£500 gaming build

[mikepegg]

Hi guys,

Sorting a new gaming machine, have a sata disk and dvd drive spare but the rest is up for grabs. Been a couple of years but any advice is welcome. Will be getting components from scan.co.uk.

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R - £106.95
Akasa AK-965 - £13.79
Intel Core2 Duo E7400 - £98.31
896MB XFX GTX260 XT, 2000MHz GDDR3, GPU 621MHz, 216 Cores - £147.19
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2, PC2-8500 (1066) - £42.38
550w Corsair VX Series PSU - £69.63
Antec Three Hundred Black Midi Tower Case - £50.47

Total - £528.72

p.s. Should the cpu retail box and/or the fan come with thermal paste or should I pick some up seperate?

[Infinite]

Looks all good to me.

The aftermarket cool should come with some.

[mikepegg]

Looks all good to me.

The aftermarket cool should come with some.

Ok, thanks.

Good to know.

[moogle]

p.s. Should the cpu retail box and/or the fan come with thermal paste or should I pick some up seperate?

Comes pre-applied on the bottom of the heatsink, but isn't the best quality stuff

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would go for an AMD based build for the same money as it will be FAR faster!!

I would get one of the following 790GX based motherboards:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...-SATA-RAID-ATX

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/JandW...Board-Graphics

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sapph...-3Gb-s-ATX-VGA

The J&W motherboard is the best one. They have a good reputation in Asia.

I would also get the AMD Phenom II X3 720:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...che-95W-Retail

It has an unlocked multiplier too!! People have managed to unlock the fourth core too on 790GX motherboards so you maybe lucky!!

Here are some reviews:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16382/14

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-ph...-review-am3/26

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...10-am3-cpus/13

[moogle]

I would go for an AMD based build for the same money as it will be FAR faster!!

That E7400 seems to match up to an E8600 when at the same speeds and in those reviews the E8400 beats the AMD cpu's in quite a few tests. What part/s of the AMD builds are significantly cheaper?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That E7400 seems to match up to an E8600 when at the same speeds and in those reviews the E8400 beats the AMD cpu's in quite a few tests. What part/s of the AMD builds are significantly cheaper?

This is what bit-tech said:

". Unless you're after some extreme overclocking or all of the applications you use take advantage of no more than two cores, we do think it's probably a better option than the E8400 at £136.07 or the E7500 at £124.19, as the Phenom II X3 720 beats the even higher clocked Core 2 Duo E8500 in quite a few of our tests."

The E8400 is over £140 at Scan currently whereas the 720 is now £121!

Also whereas the Q6600 would be a good buy at £150 the later ones have high VIDs too and are poor overclockers when compared to earlier examples. I have one of these higher VID Q6600 processors.
However the Phenom II X4 920 is around this price too.

Also in the Guru3D review the E8400 was beaten too!!

The E7400 has much less cache so it can never fully match up with the E8600 at the same clockspeeds. It will probably be at least a few percent slower per mhz.The fact is that the 3ghz E8400 with 6mb of cache only beats the 720 in Crysis Warhead, is equal in one and is beaten in two others in the Techreport review.

As you know the E7400 runs at 2.8ghz and has 3mb cache. Also the Phenom II is a good overclocker too so talking about comparing the overclocked speed of one processor to another is not really useful. Many people have reached 3.4ghz to 4ghz with Phenom II processors and at least one Hexus member has unlocked a 720 to a full quad core. Not bad for £120.

Also by the time you start reaching 3.4ghz+ most games will not see any more useful increase in FPS anyway unless you have something like a pair of GTX295 graphics cards.

If you are intending to get a dual core to overclock it makes more sense to get an E5200 or E5300 and overclock these instead. They have very high multipliers due to their 800mhz FSBs.

You seemed to have conveniently missed the fact that the X3 720 keeps up or exceeds the Q6700 and Q9300 in most of the gaming tests. Of course you failed to see the point that more and more games like FarCry2 and GTA4 are using multiple cores too. This will mean that the OP will have a system with a longer gaming lifespan.

What part/s of the AMD builds are significantly cheaper?

The fact that you get a higher performing part at a similar price. The 790GX motherboards are under £90 and have similar features to the EP45. The money saved would go towards the 720 which costs around £20 more.


In fact with unlocked multiplier of the 720 you can use a £60 780G motherboard for overclocking instead. Of course you cannot check if you can unlock it with a 780G chipset motherboard as usually this is only possible with 790GX motherboards.

Edit!!

There are a couple of 790GX motherboards for under £80:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...ID-OnBoard-VGA

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=992830

[moogle]

The E7400 has much less cache so it can never match up with the E8600. The fact is that the 3ghz E8400 with 6mb of cache only beats the 720 in Crysis Warhead, is equal in one and is beaten in two others in the Techreport review.

As you know the E7400 runs at 2.8ghz and has 3mb cache. Also the Phenom II is a good overclocker too. Many people have reached 3.4ghz+ and at least one Hexus member has unlocked a 720 to a full quad core. Not bad for £120.

You seemed to have conveniently missed the fact that the X3 720 keeps up or exceeds the Q6700 and Q9300 in most of the gaming tests. Of course you failed to see the point that more and more games like FarCry2 and GTA4 are using multiple cores too.

In fact with unlocked multiplier of the 720 you can use a £60 780G motherboard for overclocking instead.

Am I being attacked for questioning your AMD suggestion?

I'm not conveniently missing points/facts that you seem to think I am, I'm just asking which part of the AMD builds make it the same price if you're buying a more expensive CPU (than the E7400).

Check The Battle of the Caches the E7400 keeps up pretty darn close and if cache size is such an issue why are we talking about gaming results where cache makes very little difference (in this case as 3mb cache is enough I would think especially for gaming).

But it does seem that the AMD setup is around £10 cheaper, so you're right the AMD setup does look good for budget builds.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Am I being attacked for questioning your AMD suggestion?

I'm not conveniently missing points/facts that you seem to think I am, I'm just asking which part of the AMD builds make it the same price if you're buying a more expensive CPU (than the E7400).

Check The Battle of the Caches the E7400 keeps up pretty darn close and if cache size is such an issue why are we talking about gaming results where cache makes very little difference (in this case as 3mb cache is enough I would think especially for gaming).

But it does seem that the AMD setup is around £10 cheaper, so you're right the AMD setup does look good for budget builds.

With FarCry 2 the E7400 is 10% slower clock for clock whereas with Crysis it is around the same.

In some games cache can make a difference though. I think the main advantage of the X3 is the extra core and the potential to unlock a fourth one.

I personally think that the E7*** series are poorly priced and the E5*** are far better for the money if you are overclocking. The worst thing is that you could get an E8400 for a similar price to an E7400 and E7500 only a couple of months ago!! If anything the E7500 should be £100 not the E7400!!

[Dreaming]

I think either CPU / platform will perform adequately tbh. I think the AMD route gives a better upgrade path as the intel LGA775 platform is pretty much end of life but then again because the technology changes quite quickly these days every time I upgrade CPU it's onto a new platform... (athlon xp2500+, 3 years later intel e6300, now 2 years or so later it looks like the next upgrade may be core i7 or so)

Bit-tech's monthly round up suggested the ATI 4830 as a good buy graphics card wise.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...y-april-2009/2

Graphics Card
First Choice: Radeon HD 4830 512MB
UK Pricing: £74.98 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $89.99 (ex. Tax)

In the past we’ve recommended ATI’s Radeon HD 4850 in this position, but recently its price has become a little too high to stomach for a budget PC, especially as the Radeon HD 4830 is now available for below £90 – an absolute bargain considering it’s faster in a lot of circumstances than even a heavily overclocked Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT, and not too far off the performance of its bigger brother, the Radeon HD 4850.

While it might not set the world alight performance wise, for those playing at the more common low end resolutions of 1,280 x 1,024 or even 1,680 x 1,050 should have no problem playing modern games with most of the graphical bells and whistles turned on, and it especially excels when anti-aliasing is enabled too, with just a 20 performance dip in performance when 4xAA is enabled at 1,680 x 1,050 in Call of Duty: World at War.

However, it’s not the most future proof card on the block - in fact, it's actually reached it's end of life now so get in quick if you want one. That doesn't mean it's a bad product - far from it and we still rate it to keep your new games looking great until another graphics upgrade in twelve months time.

Nevertheless, for the price and performance, there’s simply no card out there right now that can match an HD 4830 in bang for buck. For a thirty percent saving in comparison to the HD 4850 you’re only dropping ten percent in performance, and it’s numbers like that which make the HD 4830 such a winner.

But that's a different price range. They also do recommend the GTX260:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...y-april-2009/4

So it depends what you wanna spend.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think either CPU / platform will perform adequately tbh. I think the AMD route gives a better upgrade path as the intel LGA775 platform is pretty much end of life but then again because the technology changes quite quickly these days every time I upgrade CPU it's onto a new platform... (athlon xp2500+, 3 years later intel e6300, now 2 years or so later it looks like the next upgrade may be core i7 or so)

Bit-tech's monthly round up suggested the ATI 4830 as a good buy graphics card wise.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...y-april-2009/2



But that's a different price range. They also do recommend the GTX260:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...y-april-2009/4

So it depends what you wanna spend.

I have an HD4830 and it has great performance for the price and is very near to an HD4850 when overclocked too. A pair of XFX HD4830 cards can be had for £150 and when in crossfire is much faster than an HD4870 1gb or GTX260 216 shader version in most games.

However the GTX260 is still a great choice for gaming at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080.

I would be careful about reading too much into the Bit-tech article!!

They are talking some utter crap about the 790GX motherboards. They say that the only good ones are £150+ when on Scan even the most expensive one is £130!! Of course there are many excellent motherboards for under £105 too!!

They sprout some nonsense about the 790GX not being "solid" even though there are users on Hexus who have the Phenom II X3 720 overclocked to 3.4ghz and even have unlocked the fourth core using 790GX motherboards. If anything some of the older 790GX stock had older versions of the BIOS which needed updating to a newer version. The newer stock have the newer BIOS.

This is why feedback on hardware in forums is so important as it does clear up some of the absolute FUD websites can come up with sometimes!!

[lego batman]

Get a couple of extra fans for the case
If you put 2 in the front sucking in, turns the case into a wind tunnel! Don't think you need a side fan really though.

[Turbotab]

I would be careful about reading too much into the Bit-tech article!!

They are talking some utter crap about the 790GX motherboards. They say that the only good ones are £150+ when on Scan even the most expensive one is £130!! Of course there are many excellent motherboards for under £105 too!!

They sprout some nonsense about the 790GX not being "solid" even though there are users on Hexus who have the Phenom II X3 720 overclocked to 3.4ghz and even have unlocked the fourth core using 790GX motherboards. If anything some of the older 790GX stock had older versions of the BIOS which needed updating to a newer version. The newer stock have the newer BIOS.

This is why feedback on hardware in forums is so important as it does clear up some of the absolute FUD websites can come up with sometimes!!

What is your quantitative definition of an excellent motherboard?, Bit-Tech actually test the items they recommend, what objective methodology do use, beyond the power of fanboism! The age of stock in the supply chain cannot be guaranteed, and thus many AM2+ motherboards, may not even work with an AM3 processor, without a BIOS flash, none too handy if you do not have a spare AM2 to hand.
The ability to unlock the forth core on the X3 720 is sporadic at best, and even then you cannot guarantee stability, especially when overclocked. The few that do achieve a stable OC on the forth core, well I say more power to them!.

Regarding the Madshrimps article, if you examine the Crysis Warhead result, both CPUs produce the same result, when at the same clock rate. They conclude that even at 1280 x1024 the game is GPU bottlenecked. All games at 1920 x 1200 and even 1680 x1050 are heavily GPU bottlenecked, so it demonstrates that a E7400 is just as capable as a E8600 or X3 720 of supporting a modern GPU, at high resolutions.

You state that “Also whereas the Q6600 would be a good buy at £150 the later ones have high VIDs too and are poor overclockers when compared to earlier examples”, please can you provide links, to where this has been methodically tested, also Scan has the Q6600 for sale at £135!!

In the reviews you link to, all three use one of the following:
MSI DKA790GX Platinum
Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
ASUS M4A79 Deluxe
Quite ironic that in an attempt to back-up your assertion that cheaper AM2+ motherboard provide a solid foundation for overclocking, that these professional reviewers chose to utilise MBs that retail for well over £100.

You also confidently state that modern games prefer multi cores, you give GTA IV & Far Cry 2 as examples, we can ignore GTA, as it is a crappy port, that struggles even on uber hardware, without compensating gamers with mind blowingly superior graphics over its console brethren.

Lets take Far Cry 2, as an example, in this review the higher clocked dual core (E8500) is faster than the triple core, X3 720, so where is the purported multi core advantage? Do not get me wrong, DirectX 11 and Windows 7, may allow developers to better utilise many core environments, however I do not possess a crystal ball.

[PeterStoba]

I can't belive nobody has picked up on the PSU yet!

Corsair are massively overpriced!

Get a modular coolermaster for less - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/520W-...-80-Efficiency

Good PSUs!

Corsair are good, but very expensive lately..

[Infinite]

or this if u want silent =0

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500W-...et-Modular-PSU

[tickedon]

I haven't built a budget build this year (treated myself with a Core i7!), but, last year I put together a very cheap build using (the older) AMD 790X chipset and an Athlon X2. It served me well, and, the upgrade potential was there for me to stick in a Phenom X4 if I'd felt like it.

Based on the news articles and reviews I read, generally, it seems that AMD is sometimes better at the budget end as the motherboards are usually slightly less, and the X3/X4 CPU's are great with multi-threaded applications. However, even with Intel's own CPU line, I've seen higher clocked Core 2 Duo's perform better than Core 2 Quads as the application in question couldn't take advantage of the additional cores - that ultimately is going to be the question, and the reason why you see the variations in benchmarks. There is no real easy answer to that unfortunately.

You may find Anandtech's $800 entry level PC build "guide" useful for some ideas, swapping the money they'd allocated to a monitor for a graphics card instead - http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3528

Also, I put together a build using the Antec 300 case for my family last month as well, good choice of case - and I've got a Corsair PSU in this machine and can't complain!