Gaming Rig for under £800

[Sacred]

A friend of mine is looking to get himself a new gaming rig, he hasn't bought a computer for some years now so is fairly far behind todays tech. He's looking to spend up to a max of £800 on the system and would prefer if a finance option was available to help spread the cost. The games he's interested in playing are things like FF14, Starcraft II, Fallout New Vegas, Diablo III and Crysis 2 (when they are released). Where would you guys say is a good starting point for his new system, should he be looking at pre-built systems or look to build one himself (hes never done this before).

Hope you guys can help advise us. Thanks,
/Sacred

P.S. He doesnt need a monitor or Windows in the build

[Sacred]

BUMP!

Anyone got any advice? Pref looking to go with an i core processor and probably taking an nVidia over an ATI (mainly plays RPGs unless the difference wouldn't be noticed). May want to upgrade from an i5 to an i7 in the future and the ability to possibly SLi the GPU in the future would be great (I assume this means the mobo has to support this?)

[kalniel]

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ConfigureSystem.asp?SystemID=1162

review:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25589

Sorted!

[Nobull]

Well if your friend is up for a challenge, wants to save a few pounds and configure his system to his own needs then he should self build. I did it for the first time 3 and half years ago and have never looked back. My PC is still going strong and I have been able to upgrade it myself as my needs have changed. I've also built about a dozen systems for friends and family and my hardware knowledge is now so much better than I am the 'go 2 guy' if someone I know has a PC problem (obviously this is a blessing and a curse).

Considering he doesn't need a monitor or an Operating System £800 is quite a decent wedge to spend on a system. First question though, what resolution is his monitor?

This will be a massive consideration for any graphics usage, if its quite a high resolution (1920x1200 or above) the Graphics Card you buy will have to be up to the task. By the same token if its quite low (1400x900 or less) then there's no point in spending too much on a really pricey graphics card because a modern day mid range card will handle anything you throw at it at that resolution.

Second question, why such a high budget? If he wants/needs to spread the cost that tells me he probably doesn't have all that much money to spend, in which case he could easily reduce the budget quite significantly and still have an awesome machine. I'll spec you up something that I think will be up to the task of playing all those games (and many more in the future) for as cheap as I can, and if your friend wants to spend more than that then you can tell me and I'll upgrade the parts in the spec accordingly. JUst answer my questions and I'll try to get back to you

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A build such as the following would be under bugdet:

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 945 ~ £113

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...roductId=38137

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit ~ £68

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...roductId=37540

ASRock 880GXH/USB3 ~ £73

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=40954

OR

Asus M4A785TD-V Evo ~ £73

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=37387

The ASRock 880GXH/USB3 has the newer SB850 southbridge and supports both USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0! However some Samsung F3 hard drives need a firmware update to work with the SB850. Both motherboards have the ability to unlock the Athlon II X3 to an Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4 although this is not guaranteed.

VTX ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card ~ £200

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=40733

OCZ StealthXStream 2 500W Power Supply ~ £45

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...roductId=40958

Samsung HD103SJ SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 3.5" Hard Drive ~ £44

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...37726&context=

Samsung SH-S223C 22x Internal DVD±R/RW SATA Drive ~ £14

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...38547&context=

Antec Three Hundred Gaming Midi Tower Case ~ £55

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...roductId=31087

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64 OEM ~ £82

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Soft...roductId=36921

The total comes to around £694 excluding delivery.

If you want to save some more money you could go for a cheaper case,a GTX460 768MB or 1GB and a cheaper processor such as an Athlon II X3 440.

[realillusion222]

The build above is pretty decent, though it's around £200 under you mates budget (minus the windows that he doesn't need)

However, if he still wants to save some cash, i'd recommend making a few changes.

I'd upgrade the processer from the 945 to the 955; recently reduced on Scan and will do nicely for gaming

I'd also go for the Corsair 650TX to make the system more future proof; and possibly go for the 1600mhz Corsair RAM too.

This will still make the system cost below £700; so if you wanted to push further you could look into the Nvidia GTX470 graphics card, or the Phenom X6 1090T processor and go Hex-core

[lego batman]

Also for the case he could look at the Lancool k58. I have the antec 300 and like it but I think the lancool has better features such as cable management holes.

[Attila the Bun]

Sacred,
If you check my system specs this cost me just under £740 (minus the OS) to build myself. I'm not a big gamer but I have to say I'm going to play a whole lot more with the speed of this thing.

[xNuSeNsE]

definatly build one yourself and cocentrate on the graphics card the most if he is looking to play crysis 2 you need a good one and make sure it has direct x 11 so its not outdated