Modest Gaming PC advice/guidance needed.

[HSK]

Hi Hexus, hoping someone would be able to throw a few suggestions my way, it's been a while since I've done a build and I'm quite out of the loop regarding current hardware and the recent CPU's.

This is for my younger brother, his budget is around 500-600 quid. We used to share a PC for gaming which is a Q6600, with a 8800GTS 512mb and 4GB Ram, he'd like something that can at least match that or better, with abit of a spruce using newer hardware.

He plays FSX alot.

I just really quickly put this basic stuff down:-

Antec 300 Three Hundred Case £42.96

Samsung SH-S223 22X DVD±RW/RAM/DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive - OEM £14.99

Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM Caviar Blue £38.25

Coolermaster GX 650W PSU - 6x SATA 2x PCI-E 80plus Certified £66.62

total so far £162.82

He has copy of Win 7 saved from the pre-order deal, and I can give him one of my displays. I told him to pick out his own mouse and keyboard that suits him.

I'm stuck on the core components, CPU, RAM and GFX. Any suggestion on these to bring it up to the budget?...And thoughts on the stuff up there.

Any help would be great and much appreciated. Thanks.

[scaryjim]

You can save a bit on the case using ebuyer's Casecom KM-6788 which is a really decent case for just under £30. The PSU may be slight overkill too - this BeQuiet 530W unit should be ample and will save you quite a bit of the budget.

As far as the core contents go though, you're not going to be able to spec anything significantly better than a Q6600 / 8800GTS 512MB in that price range! That's a legacy of how good the original components were. But I guess you're looking at a Phenom II X4 / AMD 870 chipset mobo, or a Core i5 750 / Intel H55 chipset mobo, coupled with 4GB DDR3 and a Radeon 5770 as the best balanced solution...

[Champman99]

I would suggest you need to allow £90 for 4GB of DDR3, leaving around 300 for motherboard, cpu and gpu.I usually like to spend twice on a GPU what I do on the CPU, or even higher for gaming, as you only need a fairly moderate CPU before the GPU becomes the lowest common denominator (depending on things like resolution). That is a bit tricky on your budget because motherboard prices are pretty high.

I like AMD at this end of the price range, because the sockets have maintained fairly constant (I think i'm right in saying "Bulldozer" AMD's next processors will be on AM3. Wheras socket 1156 from Intel is EOL according to some reports.

AMD Socket AM3 set
Athlon II Quad ~£80
AMD 800 Series Motherboard ~£80-100 (870, 880G)
AMD HD 5770 ~£120
DDR3 4GB £90-100 (RAM is expensive atm, I paid £60)

If you can find a 5850 for ~200 anywhere, its well worth it in my opinion. You can try and cut some corners elsewhere! Ie. Go for a dual core Athlon II, and a AMD 700 series motherboard (probably 770)

I might change the PSU (I have never really rated Coolermaster PSU's, although I hear they have got better; I would go for Seasonic, Corsair or Enermax), and hard drive brand/size is about personal preference (I like Samsung F3's)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Flight Simulator needs a decent CPU AFAIK.

Here are two possible builds:

AMD build

Phenom II X4 965 ~ £132

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

Asus M4A89GTD PRO ~ £99

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

Has a split 8+2 phase VRM with cooling,SATA 3.0 and does symmetrical Crossfire at PCI-E 2.0 8X/8X.

OR

Asrock 880G Extreme3 ~ £89

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/219204

Has a split 8+2 phase VRM with cooling,SATA 3.0,USB 3.0 and does symmetrical Crossfire at PCI-E 2.0 8X/8X.

4GB Crucial low latency 1333MHZ DDR3 ~ £95

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

OR

4GB low latency 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £99

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...L8D-4GBRM.html

You can get cashback on Noavtech purchases from Quidco and TopCashBack.

Samsung F3 500GB ~ £37 to £38

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

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146252

Casecom 6788 ~ £30

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

This seems quite similar to many NZXT cases.

620W Seasonic M12II-620 Bronze ~ £70

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

OR

Be Quiet Special Edition White 600W E7 Modular PSU ~ £55

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/206053

HIS HD 5770 1GB ~ £123

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186468

You can pick up a SATA DVD rewriter for around £15.

Even with the most expensive parts the total should be just over £600.

Intel Build

Core i5 750 ~ £140

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

ASROCK P55 PRO ~ £81

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174565

Has a split 8 phase VRM with cooling. Does not have SATA 3.0, USB 3.0 and symmetrical Crossfire.

OR

ASUS P7P55D Evo ~ £124

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173448

Has a split 12 phase VRM with cooling and does symmetrical Crossfire.

Taking most of the other components from the AMD build will mean you should be able to keep to the £600 budget.

OTH,socket 1156 is EOL in Q1 2011 AFAIK.

[Cheapy]

Scan have a XFX hd 5830 for £170 which might be worth a look at being bewteen HD 5850 and HD 5770 . Still not sure if the price is too high on it.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-X...ns-vs-Predator

EDIT: Heres a review of the exact model too http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...0-1gb-review/1

[HSK]

Thanks for the response fellas & these suggestions, I'll take a look through these and digest the info.

[Ulti]

I'd second the Samsung F3 over the Caviar Blue, simply because it's the same price yet the Samsung is faster. You could squeeze a SSD in there if you really wanted to but I'd probably wait if I were you (or your bro) because the system will seem really fast anyway.

What resolution are you playing on though? 5770 starts to struggle with some games on 1920*1080 but easily manages them if you dont turn everything on max settings. IIRC it ran COD MW2 on max settings on 1920*1080 very smoothly.

[HSK]

I'd second the Samsung F3 over the Caviar Blue, simply because it's the same price yet the Samsung is faster. You could squeeze a SSD in there if you really wanted to but I'd probably wait if I were you (or your bro) because the system will seem really fast anyway.

What resolution are you playing on though? 5770 starts to struggle with some games on 1920*1080 but easily manages them if you dont turn everything on max settings. IIRC it ran COD MW2 on max settings on 1920*1080 very smoothly.

Ello, I think in that respect it should be ok then - I'm currently using 2 displays, one 1920*1080 the other is 1680*1050, I'll be giving him the 1680*1050 as he said that should be enough for him.

[Ulti]

Then a 5770 should easily be powerful enough for his needs unless you plan to upgrade the monitor in the near future (within 2 years) then and there won't be any need to get anything higher than it. Or perhaps you could use the 5770 yourself and put the 8800GTS 512mb in his rig? Might work out better that way.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The advantage of the AMD build is that you could always get another HD5770 1GB at a later date when it is cheaper. A pair of HD5770 1GB cards can rival even an HD5870 1GB and there is also an upgrade path to the six core Phenom II processors and perhaps even the first iteration of AMD Bulldozer. Of course the motherboards I have listed also have SATA 3.0 which will be useful if you want to have an SSD in the build at a later date.

OTH,though the Core i5 750 is a faster processor than a Phenom II X4 965 and its price has dropped quite a bit recently. However socket 1156 is meant to be EOL in Q1 2011.

Having said that a Phenom II X4 at 2.8GHZ does not even bottleneck an HD5970 in many cases:

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...d_5970,13.html

[Ulti]

If it's for gaming then i5 750 vs Phenom 965 should have neglible differences between the two though so it should be ok with the Phenom build.

[HSK]

Good stuff, you've all helped a great deal. Ha, I should always try and keep up with current hardware, even if I'm not upgrading or building often - otherwise It's gets a lil baffling for abit.

I'll have a sit down with him tomorrow and go through the options & and what he'd prefer.