Minimum cost gaming PC sticky?

[Hicks12]

sorry terb, my bad as i only skim read . But i guess it is a valid point, the best thing about the pc is the fact it can be used for almost anything so adding the bluray drive could add a significant value to it.

edit: Oh yeah cat, i was just throwing the idea of a motherboard havent looked at pricing .

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Perhaps it would be better to add the Blu-Ray drive to one of the system upgrades like the overclocking ones.

So basically,there will be 4 builds at most - two Intel and AMD builds at around £400 and two AMD and Intel builds at around £500. The price needs to include the OS and any delivery charges. Ideally the parts should be kept to one or two suppliers.

I will come up with some specifications in the next few hours and then everyone else can have a ponder at them.

Maybe I while start a new thread to make things a bit clearer.

In the voice of Yoda I need: "BEER!!"

[shakerist]

Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H 880G Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard £58.99
Seagate ST3500418AS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM £30.81
OCZ Stealth Xstream II 600W PSU - 3x SATA 2x PCI-E 204353 16 in stock £51.99 £51.99
EXTRA VALUE 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit 1.5V CL9 £30.18
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English £71.44
AMD Athlon II X3 450 3.2GHz Socket AM3 95w 1.5MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 238326 44 in stock £60.82 £60.82
LiteOn iHOS104 4x BD-ROM SATA Blu-Ray Drive - OEM Black 172638
Casecom KM-6988 Black Mid Tower Case with Full Black Interior/Exterior 120mm Red LED Front Fan - £19.99
Sapphire HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Mini Display Port Out PCI-E Graphics Card

HD6850 and BLURAY
Cart total inc vat: £503.78

GTX 460 768mb and BLURAY
Cart total inc vat: £480.77

HD 5770 and BLURAY
Cart total inc vat: £466.67

from ebuyer

[shakerist]

had a bit more of a rummage round in ebuyer and found a quad core athlon bundle, same as above minus the amd x3, gigabyte mobo and extra value ram

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/240618 bundle is £130 with 2gb ddr3 x4 630 and asus M4A78LT-M LE

also add Kingston DDR3 2GB 1333MHz i5 Memory Module CL9 1.5V for £22.68

total same components as above gpu being the 5770 price is £469.36

£3 pounds for an extra core but inferior mobo i think worth it?

[c.ruel]

I think the spec on some of these could be lower still in terms of GFX. My mate (an xbox360 gamer) was really impressed by my HD4850! Considering CCL had a deal on a HD5770 for 60quid recently I think something like a HD5770, GTS250 or HD5750 might be good. Also just out of curiousity is 600w on the psu front really necessary!?

I think to make it easier for people to suggest components you should suggest a bit of a clearer "mission statement" for the system. Will it be primarily for gaming at 1920x1080 or 1680X1050? Presumably AA and all that stuff will be off? What fps is acceptable in what titles?

Just if everyone has clear idea of what the system should be able to do it makes it much easier for everyone to suggest stuff for it!

[c.ruel]

In terms of psu these two look good:

Antec 400w High current gamer £45

400w silverstone strider £37

I have no idea if thse psu is any good but it is a sea sonic

430w seasonic S12II-430 aPFC PSU Silent ATX2.0 *New v2 might be good for just £37 as well

[Terbinator]

I was going to suggest a Seasonic before as Scan usually have them on TO. For the current PSU price of £52 I'd rather go for a Seasonic.

Edit: These two could be worth a shout, I've never actually seen the Antec unit before...
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/430w-...-12v-120mm-fan

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/400w-...ps12v-v291-psu

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Like I said I have set two price points: £400 and £500. Basically at these two price points the best specifications possible.

The builds need to be upgradeable and I suggest a lifespan of around 3 to 4 years for the PC. Hence decent enough parts need to be used. Since the case and PSU are among the parts which are used the longest at last half decent ones should be used.

The 600W OCZ PSU is only a few quid more than most 500W PSUs and has a pair of PCI-E power connectors. This means it could even run a GTX470 in theory.

Also,the parts used need to be easily available and not special deals with limited availability as these last only a few days.The build needs to be current for around a month. Of course prices will fluctuate a bit though.

Edit!!

The Seasonic PSU does look good but postage does need to also be included.

Another thing is that it would be better to go for a retail copy of Windows.

Let me finish my beer and I see what I can suggest.

[Kumagoro]

Perhaps a more basic approach for just core parts could be done in parallel.

Exclude the cost of things which are more tertiary and personal choice such as the case
optical drives, HDD size, PSU etc. Just have mobo, cpu, ram and gpu combo + maybe HSF.

That way you could get a feel for how much performance has changed over time for a particular
price point and have say a core component budget of £300. Though in this case I think
overclocking and core unlocking should be taken into consideration.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It has to be the full build as the whole point is to show that you can get build a reasonable gaming PC on a budget as I stated in the OP. Overclocking and unlocking will be mentioned but many people who build PCs tend to keep things at stock and you cannot guarantee overclocking and core unlocking.

[shakerist]

Core unlocking is a maybe, its not definite if some guy orders his build thinking his gona unlock a core and ends up the other way round his gona be pissed, and yes overclocking should be taken into account.

about the seasonic i dont see 80+ certified anywhere, it says max efficiency 80% but its not 80+ correct me if im wrong


and maybe we can adjust categories into how the performance is as suggested before we could use the 5750 and that could be medium and the 6850 could be max "Max setting rig" "medium setting rig" " scraping it rig"

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Many people don't overclock their computers. This is why the computers have to be accessed by stock performance first. Potential overclocked performance can be mentioned for each build.

I know plenty of people who build their own computers but apart from me only 2 other people I know would consider overclocking their computers. However, both of them keep their CPUs at stock. One of them got a high VID Q9000 series quad core which was a rubbish overclocker anyway and there lies the problem: you can get bad batches of chips.

I went by price-points as this is what people tend to go by AFAIK in many cases.

The £500 computer would be max setting rig and £400 computer would be the medium setting rig.

Below this I am not sure how good a computer you could build especially as the cost of an OS needs to be included too.

[shakerist]

Im going sleep i dont think your going to finish your beer for a while