budget gaming pc

[edp33]

My friend wants a pc for internet/office and the occasional bit of gaming, has dawn of war and will be playing starcraft 2 when it comes out.

I came up with (borrowed some ideas from other topics CAT-THE-FIFTH ty )

CPU: X4 620 - 71.66
MOBO : MSI 770-C45 - 48.05
RAM: 4GB DDR3 - 77.54
GRAPHICS: Nvidia GT 240 - 56.18
PSU: OCZ Stealth Xtreme 400W - 39.52
CASE: Coolermaster Elite 330 - 22.31
HDD: Samsung 500GB F3 - 36.14

Total comes to 351.4 inc vat

Does that look ok, anywhere else where cash can be saved?

He has monitor/keyboard/mouse from his old pc.

He will need to add on Windows 7, also thinking of getting a card reader, are the card readers that take up a 3.5/5.25 slot any good?, or is he better of getting a portable card reader?

[Zak33]

don't forget £20 worth of SATA Optical drive.

[edp33]

hmmz good point, he does have an optical drive but can't be sure if it is SATA or IDE will check

Thanks !

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My friend wants a pc for internet/office and the occasional bit of gaming, has dawn of war and will be playing starcraft 2 when it comes out.

I came up with (borrowed some ideas from other topics CAT-THE-FIFTH ty )

CPU: X4 620 - 71.66
MOBO : MSI 770-C45 - 48.05
RAM: 4GB DDR3 - 77.54
GRAPHICS: Nvidia GT 240 - 56.18
PSU: OCZ Stealth Xtreme 400W - 39.52
CASE: Coolermaster Elite 330 - 22.31
HDD: Samsung 500GB F3 - 36.14

Total comes to 351.4 inc vat

Does that look ok, anywhere else where cash can be saved?

He has monitor/keyboard/mouse from his old pc.

He will need to add on Windows 7, also thinking of getting a card reader, are the card readers that take up a 3.5/5.25 slot any good?, or is he better of getting a portable card reader?

I would also consider the X2 550BE which is better for gaming in many cases:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=106&p2=97

The X3 435 is also worth a look:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/defau...x?p=106&p2=112

The X3 435 and X4 620 have very similar performance in games but the X3 435 is over £10 cheaper than an X4 620.

A few bits are on Today Only this weekend:

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/index.aspx

I would also get the 9600GT over a GT240 GDDR3:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/175334

[dirky]

Pretty sure I read something about the 620 being (benchmark wise) not as good in games due to a missing L3 cache?

[Ulti]

Pretty sure I read something about the 620 being (benchmark wise) not as good in games due to a missing L3 cache?

You're right.

Slightly lower clock speed, low L2 cache, no L3 cache = Weaker performance compared to Phenom II X2 550.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For gaming the X3 435 is the better bet over the X4 620 as the former has a 300MHZ higher clockspeed which enables it to match or even beat the more expensive X4 620.

However even compared to the X2 550BE the X3 435 is still competitive:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3663&p=8

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...w_9.html#sect0

Even the Pentium G6950 cannot keep up with an X3 435 in most games!

If you cannot stretch to an X2 545 or X2 550BE it is still a good choice.

[edp33]

Thanks, I told my friend about the 24" Dell on HotUKDeals and he is going to get that so advised him to go for the better CPU, X2 550 BE and a 4770.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks, I told my friend about the 24" Dell on HotUKDeals and he is going to get that so advised him to go for the better CPU, X2 550 BE and a 4770.

How much is the HD4770 costing your friend??

It maybe worth looking an HD4850 or HD5750 512MB instead!

[dirky]

24" is good, but for gaming its going to be a pain for your pocket to run it at native res (if its 1920x)

[edp33]

4770 was going for £77 I think, didn't see any 4850's cheaper than that, I think 4850's started at scan from £100+.

He won't be gaming that often so guess he could run it in low detail at 1920 or play at 1680 and mainly use the 24" for internet/office.

[Ulti]

For that price you may want to consider the 5750, it's just over 10% more expensive at Scan for around £85 (£83 on Today Only)

Performance is roughly equal to the 4770 but it's slightly better in pretty much every case and will draw less power and has dx11.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For that price you may want to consider the 5750, it's just over 10% more expensive at Scan for around £85 (£83 on Today Only)

Performance is roughly equal to the 4770 but it's slightly better in pretty much every case and will draw less power and has dx11.

The 1GB version of the HD5750 is faster than an HD4770:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/...0_5750_review/

The OP may also want to consider an HD4850 for around the same price:

http://www.svp.co.uk/technology/gpu-...xfx-01004.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...s/48501GB.html