building a gaming rig for €500

[pedrone]

So, Im gonna build a gaming rig but i don't have a lot of money! I have been searching all over the internet for the past few days to try and find some good suggestions/examples but most of what i find online are from American sites and are only shipped to America.

Ive never built a pc before, right now i have a Hp g60 laptop which has trouble running left 4 dead and other such games and it is impossible to upgrade.

So what im looking for is a pc with specs for running the likes of l4d on full (or as close as possible with the budget) not including monitor, mouse, keyboard etc for around €500(not including shipping).

Things i want included would be space to expand(especially in the graphics area) and a place in europe to buy all the parts from so i only have to pay for shipping once instead of getting parts from all around the world!

Another thing im unsure of is whether to go with vista or xp so if you could point me in the right direction on that. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at Pixmania:

http://www.pixmania.com/

IMHO they are not as good as most UK based retailers like Scan but they do delivery to many countries. What country do you want them to deliver to BTW??

Also you can use windows 7 RC1 free until March 2010 for free so I would use that for the time being and get the OEM version of windows 7 next year.This means you can spend more on the hardware.

[pedrone]

Thanks ill go for the windows 7 rc that should save some money!

im living in Ireland but i do have relatives in northern Ireland where i can get uk products shipped to so i might just stick with scan thanks for the reply!

[aidanjt]

Almost all UK etailers ship to Ireland. There's also a Northern Ireland outfit called C3, but their stock portfolio isn't that big. Komplett also has a .ie store, but they still deliver from mainland Europe.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well Dabs have a Irish store too:

http://www.dabs.ie/

This is for the Republic of Ireland BTW so you should be OK!!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is what I would get:

AMD Phenom X2 550 ~ 91 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/amd-phen...-7mb-5KQ7.html

4gb DDR2 ~ 44 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/ocz-tech...408-4294953829

AMD 770 motherboard ~ 79 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/gigabyte...?refs=48750000

It has the later SB700 southbridge and all solid capacitors too. It is meant to be a Ultra Durable 3 Classic motherboard with enhanced stability.

XFX HD4850 512mb ~ 106 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/xfx-r485...=hd%204850

This has a dual slot cooler and is pre-overclocked.

OCZ 500w PSU ~ 56 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/ocz-tech...?refs=48870000

Coolermaster Elite 330 case ~ 34 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/coolerma...lack-4KMR.html

Samsung 320gb hard drive ~ 39 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/samsung-...16mb-4LZJ.html

SATA DVD rewriter ~ 16 Euro

http://www.dabs.ie/products/liteon-1...sata-5CY4.html

The total including postage is €519.05 and you can get cashback(at least in the UK) from the following websites:

http://www.quidco.com/computers-software/dabs-com/

http://www.cashbacktoyou.co.uk/html/dabs.php

I am uncertain whether the cashback will work with Dabs.ie though!

[pedrone]

thanks guys you both wrote back so fast! Im amazed that I never came over either of those sites before!

[aidanjt]

If you're on a tight €500 budget, you should probably use your relatives up North to take delivery anyway, it'll shave 6% off VAT charges, and delivery is usually a bit cheaper, too. More money on hardware, less on Cowen's cronies.