<£800 gaming machine advice.

[Ekreed]

I'm building a new computer for a friend, since his machine is now on its last legs. He has a budget of around £800 pounds and needs a monitor with it, although he does already have a graphics card (a sapphire hd4770 ). I have made this list up quickly tonight from what was on offer at Scan and some other sites, based on my own computer, and was wondering if I had made any misjudgements, forgotten anything or was being ripped off . In particular, I'm not sure how to calculate the power requirements of the system, when I built mine I was told I needed at least 600W, but from what I've read I'm not sure how true that was.

What he needs out of it is the ability to play most games that are out now (especially L4D2) and for the next few years, although not at a ridiculously high level like full graphics crysis. Also having scope to upgrade in a year or so could be handy, in particular the ability to crossfire the graphics at a later date could be handy (maybe when the price of the HD57** series drops), but I think that the HD4770 can handle games like L4D2 fine at the moment (mine is doing fine for that).

Motherboard http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=33758 £136.84
CPU http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=31763 £128.79
Cooler http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Zalma...M2-754-939-940) £32.99
RAM http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=30579 £80.49 OR http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MY-083-GL £69.99
HD 2x http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=29693 in Raid 0 £71.28
DVD http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sony-...ightscribe-OEM £17.95
Case http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=21651 £51.74
PSU http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=CA-032-OC £69.99
Monitor http://www.ebuyer.com/product/180273 £115

Total: £705

So have I made a complete mess of this or forgotten something?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is what I would go for:

Phenom II X4 965 125W ~ £129

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

MSI 790FX-GD70 ~ £121

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160880

OR

ASUS M4A79T Deluxe~ £127

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159769

OR

Asus Crosshair III Formula ~£133

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

OR

Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 ~ £137

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

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600) ~ £85

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

1TB Samsung F3 ~ £67

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1TB-S...-89-ms-NCQ-OEM

SATA DVD rewriter ~ £18

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sony-...ightscribe-OEM

Antec 300 and Antec 650W modular PSU ~ £111

http://www.ebuyer.com/bundle/CGYCYJG99

BenQ G2410HD ~ £150

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159782

OR

Philips 230C1HSB ~ £150

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161787

Windows 7 Retail Edition ~ £90

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Micro...-32-and-64-Bit

The total should come to under £800.

[morda8]

i would get this

i7 920 - £197
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161171

Foxconn flaming blade gti x58 - £111.65 which includes vat
https://www.pricelover.com/product/020F1664BA5-00/

pny 3gb ddr3 1333mhz 1.5v - £39.99 + free postage
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/11102616/PNY-PC3-10660-3GB-1333Mhz-DDR3-240pin-DIMM-Computer-Memory/Product.html?&_$ja=tsid:11518|cc:|prd:11102616|cat:Memory

another hd4770 for crossfire £84.28
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...DTV-CrossFireX

Total for ram,mobo,cpu and gpu = £432.93 and this will destroy any phenom setup and for the rest of the money im sure u can buy a decent cpu cooler, hdd, monitor, psu and case

[Ekreed]

Morda: I'm not sure about an i7 build, I think it may be too costly. An i5 setup would probably be more feasible since those boards/chips have a reasonable price, and they aren't so different to the am3 (dual channel, ddr3 and all that). How do the i5s compare to AM3 in the same price bracket, I'm really only familiar with AMD setups? Also is there a reason for only putting 3Gb in instead of 6Gb other than cost? I guess it is unlikely that the RAM will need to be increased as high as 12Gb, but it would be nice to be able to do that without having to replace the existing memory.

Cat: Some nice suggestions there, I really hadn't noticed that benq monitor before, but it looks pretty good. Any reason you reccomend a single 1Tb drive over two 500Gbs raided. The price difference isn't that much, so do you think a raid would be less advantageous? I have one in my computer at the advice of a friend, but I can't say I have really noticed the difference in speed between my raid and my 1Tb drive.

[morda8]

Morda: I'm not sure about an i7 build, I think it may be too costly. An i5 setup would probably be more feasible since those boards/chips have a reasonable price, and they aren't so different to the am3 (dual channel, ddr3 and all that). How do the i5s compare to AM3 in the same price bracket, I'm really only familiar with AMD setups? Also is there a reason for only putting 3Gb in instead of 6Gb other than cost? I guess it is unlikely that the RAM will need to be increased as high as 12Gb, but it would be nice to be able to do that without having to replace the existing memory.

Cat: Some nice suggestions there, I really hadn't noticed that benq monitor before, but it looks pretty good. Any reason you reccomend a single 1Tb drive over two 500Gbs raided. The price difference isn't that much, so do you think a raid would be less advantageous? I have one in my computer at the advice of a friend, but I can't say I have really noticed the difference in speed between my raid and my 1Tb drive.

remove the extra hd4770 and its going to cost the same as the amd system and for gaming 3gb would be more than enough specially wen its fast ddr3 memory but if u still choose amd i suggest u get this memory:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MICRON-4GB-2X-...item1c0ea0d06f

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Morda: I'm not sure about an i7 build, I think it may be too costly. An i5 setup would probably be more feasible since those boards/chips have a reasonable price, and they aren't so different to the am3 (dual channel, ddr3 and all that). How do the i5s compare to AM3 in the same price bracket, I'm really only familiar with AMD setups? Also is there a reason for only putting 3Gb in instead of 6Gb other than cost? I guess it is unlikely that the RAM will need to be increased as high as 12Gb, but it would be nice to be able to do that without having to replace the existing memory.

Cat: Some nice suggestions there, I really hadn't noticed that benq monitor before, but it looks pretty good. Any reason you reccomend a single 1Tb drive over two 500Gbs raided. The price difference isn't that much, so do you think a raid would be less advantageous? I have one in my computer at the advice of a friend, but I can't say I have really noticed the difference in speed between my raid and my 1Tb drive.

All Core i5 setups are limited to PCI-E 2.0 8X Crossfire at best whereas the 790FX can do PCI-E 2.0 16X Crossfire. Also decent 790X motherboards can be had for well under £100 if PCI-E 2.0 8X Crossfire is fast enough:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...SATA-3Gb-s-ATX

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

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158608

AFAIK, the sub £100 socket 1156 motherboards cannot run two cards at PCI-E 2.0 8X and instead run the cards at 16X and 4X IIRC. If you are running a single card setup the socket 1156 Core i5 processors are a good choice too.

The Phenom II X4 965 is more than fast enough to do the job:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/17402/4

The review is for the older 140W C2 stepping of the Phenom II X4 965 which also cannot run four dimms of RAM at 1333MHZ unlike the newer 125W C3 stepping.

This article is also worth a read:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=869

Building a PC is about balancing the components in the build and not skimping on things like the RAM. If you intend to overclock go with 1600MHZ RAM or low latency 1333MHZ RAM if you intend to run the CPU at stock speeds.

I tend to prefer running a single disc over a RAID 0 setup due to reliability. The Samsung F3 is a fast 1TB disc using 2 platters AFAIK.