Sub £370 Gaming PC

[PeterStoba]

Hi,

Not often I make a thread like this, but a friend wants a PC to play GOW/COD at about 1280x1024, nothing major.

I've gone the Intel route as usual, but, I think and 3 core Phenom would be better performance for less?

Specs so far -

CoolerMaster Elite 333 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 460W PSU - £54.20
Asus P5KPL-AM iG31 Socket 775 onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard - £39.99
LiteOn 20x DVD±RW Dual Layer & Ram SATA Black Bare Drive - £14.99
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 GOLD XTC Memory Kit CL5(5-5-5-18) - £34.99
Sapphire HD 4770 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card - £78.12
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8GHz Socket 775 1066MHz FSB 3MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £99.89
Samsung HD502HI 500GB Hard Drive SATAII - £42.99

Total: £365.17 including free delivery from ebuyer.

I'm thinking, keep everything the same, just swap the motherboard and CPU to something AMD. I was gonna grab him a cheap 4830 for £75, but it performs worse, so the £7 makes sense...

He's got an overall budget of £380 but needs a keyboard and mouse, so £370 for the pc itself, already got an OS.

I don't mind ordering from Ebuyer, Novatech, Aria or Scan if I have to, so try and keep it to those stores, preferably all from one.

Thanks...

[kalniel]

I've gone the Intel route as usual, but, I think and 3 core Phenom would be better performance for less?

Actually I don't think it would unless you were talking a few specific games like UT3.

[Georgy291]

i would avoid mATX boards, they are compact and tend to heat up more

and i wold downgrade on everything to try to get HD4870, because modern games are grafix cards loads mainly cpu does hardly anything

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hi,

Not often I make a thread like this, but a friend wants a PC to play GOW/COD at about 1280x1024, nothing major.

I've gone the Intel route as usual, but, I think and 3 core Phenom would be better performance for less?

Specs so far -

CoolerMaster Elite 333 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 460W PSU - £54.20
Asus P5KPL-AM iG31 Socket 775 onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard - £39.99
LiteOn 20x DVD±RW Dual Layer & Ram SATA Black Bare Drive - £14.99
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 GOLD XTC Memory Kit CL5(5-5-5-18) - £34.99
Sapphire HD 4770 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card - £78.12
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8GHz Socket 775 1066MHz FSB 3MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £99.89
Samsung HD502HI 500GB Hard Drive SATAII - £42.99

Total: £365.17 including free delivery from ebuyer.

I'm thinking, keep everything the same, just swap the motherboard and CPU to something AMD. I was gonna grab him a cheap 4830 for £75, but it performs worse, so the £7 makes sense...

He's got an overall budget of £380 but needs a keyboard and mouse, so £370 for the pc itself, already got an OS.

I don't mind ordering from Ebuyer, Novatech, Aria or Scan if I have to, so try and keep it to those stores, preferably all from one.

Thanks...

The Samsung is a 5400rpm drive. The X3 710 will be better in a few years when more games take advantage of multiple cores.

Build

From Ebuyer

MSI K9A2VM-FD ~ £48

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148368

OCZ 4gb RM ~ £35

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146049

HD4770 ~ £78

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164142

Elite 340 with 460w PSU ~ £55

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146338

Gigabyte keyboard and mouse £7

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164273

From Scan

500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS ~£42

X3 710 ~ £99

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Samsung DVD writer ~ £15

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Total cost ~ £381

[Hicks12]

Or you could get a E5200, great cpu and only £55!. Or the AMD 7750x2?
the 4770 is a great card from reviews and since its at that low res id certainly recommend sticking with that for value for money.

[kalniel]

Or you could get a E5200, great cpu and only £55!. Or the AMD 7750x2?
the 4770 is a great card from reviews and since its at that low res id certainly recommend sticking with that for value for money.

Agree with all of that - dual core is the only thing you should look at for value for money for quite a while yet - if we should ever hit a point where dual core isn't good enough then you will be able to drop in a second hand quad quite cheaply, or even try and unlock cores if you go down the AMD phenom dual core route. The 4770 is a good card too.

mATX is absolutely fine - they don't heat up any more than full sized boards.

[PeterStoba]

I might source a cheap E5400 or something and overclock it a bit, up to 2.8, still E7400 performance near enough.

Thanks for the help

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

People have managed decent overclocks with the following budget motherboard:

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

I would probably stick with the E5200 as with 12.5x multiplier as you will only need to increase the FSB from 800mhz to 960mhz to get to 3ghz!!

The E5200 is on Scan Today Only this weekend too.

If you want to overclock further than this it maybe worthwhile investing in an aftermarket heatsink such as an Akasa AK965:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Akasa...Intel-push-pin

[PeterStoba]

People have managed decent overclocks with the following budget motherboard:

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

I would probably stick with the E5200 as with 12.5x multiplier as you will only need to increase the FSB from 800mhz to 960mhz to get to 3ghz!!

The E5200 is on Scan Today Only this weekend too.

If you want to overclock further than this it maybe worthwhile investing in an aftermarket heatsink such as an Akasa AK965:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Akasa...Intel-push-pin

Yep, I went for the gigabyte board and the E5400. I only went for the E5400 over the E5200 as it will run quicker at stock and wont cause me problems with overclocking as its not mine.

Spent £355 in the end;

E5400, P31 ES3G, 2x2GB Crucial DDR2 800, 500GB WD AAKS, CM 333 and PSU, DVD drive and a gigabyte keyboard / mouse all from ebuyer.

Should be fine, feels weird asking for help but low end isn't my strong point

[mac124]

How long is he likely to keep it and how often is he likely to upgreade it?

If the answer is something like 3-4 years and not like to upgrade then i'd go for the triple core. If its only a short term build / or he might consider upgrading in a year or so then you might be ok to stick to the intel set up.