low end gaming rig build

[Flibb]

One of the security guards here at work has asked for suggestions on a gaming rig build. Budget would be around £650. Hes got a monitor, its for his son (at school) so thats a discount Win7 sorted. Soo what should I be looking at?

[Blaineoliver]

Thats hardly low end. I would go for a:
720BE x3
790XT gigabyte mobo
2x2GB DDR3 1600mhz (run it at 1333 with tighter timings)
5770 gpu.
Any decent brand psu
Any decent brand case eg antec 300.

[Ulti]

£650 without having to pay for a monitor is noway lowend as Blaineoliver said. I'm guessing you won't need speakers/mouse/other peripherals. He won't need blueray playback either will he?

CPU:
AMD Phenom II X4 925
£109.20

Mobo:
Foxconn A7DA-S 3.0 790GX
£79.26

RAM:
Crucial 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz CL7
£74.98

GFX:
PowerColor HD 5770 x2 Crossfire
£226.78

PSU:
OCZ StealthXStream 600W
£60.40

HDD:
Samsung 1TB F3
£66.68

Case: This is really personal preference really.
Casecom 6788
£24.99
I'd also recommend the NZXT M59 as it comes with 2 decent fans as opposed to 1, however it's out of stock at Ebuyer and Scan and it does cost around the £45 mark but it may appeal to the gamer.

DVD Drive:
Sony AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW
£16.69

OS:
W7
£30

I assume no overclocking will be done, hence the choices.

Not sure if the OS is included in the £650 budget.
Total including OS: £689.48
Total excluding OS: £659.48

[Cheapy]

Or you could look at a i5 build.

i5-750 at £150
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...156-CPU-Retail

Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2at £80 not sure if it does crossfire though as its ticked to say it does yet says it only has one PCI 2.0 slot.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...rboard-LGA1156

4Gb OCZ Gold Low Voltage at £77 (sure someone else can point you to a better memory kit)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=8&subcat=1517

HD 5850 if you can find one roughly £220
http://www.scan.co.uk/Shop/Computer-...n-HD5850-PCI-E

Antec 300 £42
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec...r-Case-w-o-PSU

Corsair HX 450W power supply at £50
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...-year-Warranty

Samsung 500Gb F3 hard drive at £36
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500Gb...-Cache-8ms-OEM

comes to £655 all told. If you need to include the windows in that £650 then drop to a HD5770 and it comes to £595. Feel free to pull the build apart

[Ulti]

If you can get a cheap yet decent crossfire socket 1156 motherboard, an i5 would work too. However, I'm pretty sure an i5 on stock would equal the AMD in performance. If you were to overclock you'd have to get a 3rd party cooler but the i5 does OC VERY VERY well.

5850 are impossible to source for a decent price (decent being sub 230) so 5770 offer very nice bang for buck and would go well with a socket 1156 motherboard.

I've heard that currently, 5850 offers 4890 performance whilst 5770 offers 4870 performance. (Performance for dx11 cards will only improve and as 5850 and 5870 are both dx11 cards it's a fair comparison) That means 5770 crossfire will definitely be better than the 5850, especially as it's also cheaper. 5770 crossfire equals and sometimes even manages to beat 5870 too which is currently the best single card at the moment.

[Flibb]

Probably not going to OC, needs to be kept nice and simple, once its built its going to belong to a 14 year old, so if they stuff it up they can sort it out

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD Phenom II X4 955 ~ £118

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164047

Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P ~ £66

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167782

4GB DDR3 ~ £75

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179278

OCZ ModXStream 600W PSU ~£62

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174182

HD5850 ~ £230

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1502

Samsung F3 500GB ~ £39

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=HD-081-SA

Casecom 6788 ~ £25

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172779

SATA DVD rewriter ~ £17

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164449

The total comes to around £643 including postage at OcUK.

[this_is_gav]

No point in spending that much if it's going to reap little rewards.

Dual-core or X3, Single 5770, simple mATX board and case.


Mainly from Scan with a few bits from Ebuyer. Not checked who's cheapest for anything, so you'll probably shave a few quid off.

Intel:

Pentium dual-core E5400 | £50 (perhaps the i3 if it comes in a half decent price... which is unlikely)

Asus P5QPL-AM | £36

Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 | £65

500W Seasonic M12II-500 Modular | £69

Silverstone TJ08B | £56

HD 5770 | £113

500GB Western Digital Black | £43 (Or the Samsung F3, which is a few quid cheaper. Depends on your hard drive manufacturer preference)

Samsung DVDRW | £17

Total: ~ £450 + del


AMD:

AMD Athlon II X3 435 | £59

MSI 785GM-E51 785G | £51

Crucial 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 | £75

500W Seasonic M12II-500 Modular | £69

Silverstone TJ08B | £56

HD 5770 | £113

500GB Western Digital Black | £43 (Or the Samsung F3, which is a few quid cheaper. Depends on your hard drive manufacturer preference)

Samsung DVDRW | £17

Total: ~ £483 + del

[Ulti]

Well it's up the OP, pay 50% more and you jump from low-mid-ish end to very high end.

A very high end system of today will last more than 2x the length of a a low-mid end system of today in my opinion.