Super budget PC - suitable for gaming - £350 or so

Hey guys,
I know its another one of "these" threads.

But I figured you wouldn't mind giving it the once over. My friends looked into this for a while and believes this is the best he can do with the cash he has.

http://i26.tinypic.com/1t7xud.jpg

Max spending is £350 - Ive looked over a few threads that were at the £400/500 mark and couldn't really make a decision.

Getting geil pc6400 2gb off me - has monitor, kb, mouse, optical drive.

Just wanted to know if you could replace some things to get more bang4buck.

Thanks.


P.S. Is it me or is DDR2 ram going UP steadily in price?!

graphics card
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168023

Don't think much of that case, too narrow for a 120mm fan based tower cooler
And only a max 92mm rear fan.

If you're in no rush this case "looks" very good
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172779

Bit more expensive but not much
NZXT Beta
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/NZXT-...r-Case-w-o-PSU

Silverstone Precision PS02b
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Silve...r-Case-w-o-PSU

Coolermaster Elite 330
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127584

In general CAT's exellent cheap build
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...ild-400-a.html
damn him.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pob255

In general CAT's exellent cheap build
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...ild-400-a.html
damn him.

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Hopefully in a good way?? :p


To the OP you can save money on the build I specced by going for a DDR2 based AM2+ motherboard and the Geil RAM you are giving your mate.

I would get the Gigabyte MA770-UD3 revision 2:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...D3-Motherboard

This should bring the cost down to under £350 and it will be a a decent build for the price. The triple core processor will do well in games which run better on multiple cores too. The SB710 southbridge may enable you to unlock the processor to a quad core if you are lucky.

It's amazing just how cheap you can build a pretty good gaming system for these days, I upgraded from my single core AMD 3200+ to a E5200, 4gb ram, and a 8800gt for a total of £170 back in May, though I did get my 8800gt for 50 quid second hand and it runs almost everything on the highest settings @ 1440 x 900, and my next upgrade will just be the gfx card as my E5200 oc'd to 3.4ghz is far from being a bottle neck as yet nor can I see it becoming one for a while.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by revol68

It's amazing just how cheap you can build a pretty good gaming system for these days, I upgraded from my single core AMD 3200+ to a E5200, 4gb ram, and a 8800gt for a total of £170 back in May, though I did get my 8800gt for 50 quid second hand and it runs almost everything on the highest settings @ 1440 x 900, and my next upgrade will just be the gfx card as my E5200 oc'd to 3.4ghz is far from being a bottle neck as yet nor can I see it becoming one for a while.

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any thing over a 9800gtx+(gts 250) will be held back buy ure cpu just thorght i would give you the heads up

yeah, ddr2 ram jumped in price recently, I bought 4x2gb ram just before the price hike and since then it costs at £20 more if I were to buy the same thing now.. it's a huge difference.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by barwell1992

any thing over a 9800gtx+(gts 250) will be held back buy ure cpu just thorght i would give you the heads up

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held back in what sense though, I'm not exactly going to be missing playing CoD4 at 160 fps versus 80 fps.

The whole CPU bottlenecking issue is largely over stated, just up the image quality, stick on some AA and it quickly becomes largely insignificant.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...Malik/Wic2.jpg

I mean the difference between an overclocked E5200 with 2 x 4850's and a Q6600 is very little, especially when you overclock the e5200

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

Hopefully in a good way?? :p


To the OP you can save money on the build I specced by going for a DDR2 based AM2+ motherboard and the Geil RAM you are giving your mate.

I would get the Gigabyte MA770-UD3 revision 2:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...D3-Motherboard

This should bring the cost down to under £350 and it will be a a decent build for the price. The triple core processor will do well in games which run better on multiple cores too. The SB710 southbridge may enable you to unlock the processor to a quad core if you are lucky.

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Ah right ok, thats comforting to know. Thanks for the additions guys, I'll discuss this with him.

I was going to post in that £400 thread you answered in, but didnt want to hijack it! It was rather good.
In retrospect I should have mentioned it in my post really (to show I did read up here, to some extent), silly me.


PS. Dont ask why Im still up at this time...:crazy:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by barwell1992

any thing over a 9800gtx+(gts 250) will be held back buy ure cpu just thorght i would give you the heads up

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but anything over a 9800gtx+ is totally wasted on a 19" res of 1440x900, in fact a9800gtx+ is overkill for that res, a 8800gt is just right
The only reason I'd put forward a 4850 is that they are very cheap atm for £70 that is just as much as most 9800gt/4770 go for new

If I were to upgrade his monitor to a 22" later down the line, a 4850 would be sufficient, correct?

The ram I bought was £37.99 when I started looking a week later was £40 and now its £55!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oobie-

If I were to upgrade his monitor to a 22" later down the line, a 4850 would be sufficient, correct?

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Should be fine, I'm still happly running a 22" off of my 9800gtx (not + version) which is less powerful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by no_numb

The ram I bought was £37.99 when I started looking a week later was £40 and now its £55!

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That is because its DDR2, not many manufactures are making that now as it is not were the volume is however it does have better margins than DDR3.

Right well hes decided on the e5300 - his reasoning not mine.

Wants to OC that bad boy when he can. Any recommendations on a cooler?

Is it still the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro that's the choice for cheapness? :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oobie-

Is it still the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro that's the choice for cheapness? :D

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Yeah.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oobie-

Right well hes decided on the e5300 - his reasoning not mine.

Wants to OC that bad boy when he can. Any recommendations on a cooler?

Is it still the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro that's the choice for cheapness? :D

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No
It was betten a while back by the Akasa AK-965 x3 which is just as good but slightly cheaper.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Akasa...Intel-push-pin

Depending on the size of the case (200mm wide at least) then a 120mm fan based tower cooler would be good (quieter) about £10 more thoe
Akasa Nero AK-967
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Akasa...-120mm-PWM-fan

EDIT: this Xigmatek cooler should fit if the case is under 200mm wide, not sure what it's like for mounting (found it, push pins) performance nothing spectaular, but you don't need spectaular cooling on a e5300 anyway and it's cheap
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Xigma...T-D1284-cooler