gaming pc for son <£400 ?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You aren't taking into account the savings on the motherboard (even B75) and the PSU, the difference is £7.
If it was me I'd pay it quite happily, better than regretting it later on.

OcUK say due soon on the 450w so perhaps Scan are in a similar situation.

??

With the same PSU in the AMD rig it is still £20 to £25. The OP wants to spend around £400 not closer to £450 and TBH the build I suggested is still a bit over their limit. That extra £20 to £25 might be better spent on a HD7850 2GB or GTX660 2GB,etc. So you could also regret not spending more the GPU too.

Also,sadly for you the 450W PSU will also work fine in the AMD rig. Moreover,the OP probably gets free postage with Scan. The issue is that once you start adding postage,you are near the cost of the XFX PRO 550W or OCZ ZS 550W from Scan. Novatech does free postage but have not stocked the XFX PRO 450W for a while.

Moreover,SB and IB prefer lower voltage DDR3. The RAM set in the AMD build is 1.65V,so will default to 1333MHZ at 1.5V,so if you want to run the DDR3 RAM at 1600MHZ you need one of the other sets which cost slightly more at least from Scan. Ideally with SB and IB you do want to keep not higher than 1.58V with the RAM.

So,going with the cheapest B75 motherboard with 4 RAM slots which is mATX,the build is around £22 more.



However,since the AMD build is ATX,lets include an ATX B75 motherboard.



It is now £28 difference.

Now,since you do tend to go on about comparing like with like graphics cards,lets do the same with the motherboard. Instead of an MSI jobbie,lets include a Gigabyte one.



That is £34 now.

[Willzzz]

Also,sadly for you the 450W PSU will also work fine in the AMD rig.

Why is that sad for me?
Why didn't you choose a 450w PSU in the first place?
It's not like that graphics card being on pre-order stopped you including that in your suggested build.

With the cheaper PSU and motherboard it is just £7 difference.
There is no advantage in him going for a more expensive motherboard.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Why is that sad for me?
Why didn't you choose a 450w PSU in the first place?
It's not like that graphics card being on pre-order stopped you including that in your suggested build.

Maybe,you don't get it(repeatedly),but the XFX PRO 450W has been out of stock from Scan for months. Try harder next time.

With the cheaper PSU and motherboard it is just £7 difference.
There is no advantage in him going for a more expensive motherboard.

Which can also be applied to the AMD build too,making it cheaper.

[Willzzz]

And this is why asked you why you specced a 550w PSU in the first place considering the budget.
Even if the XFX model doesn't come back in stock there are other alternatives as you admitted earlier.

I mean yes when I buy my next PSU I'll make it a top end Seasonic modular PSU, but this is just a cheap gaming PC for a kid.

The power difference between a 125w AMD processor and an i3 IB can actually be over 100w:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ks,3314-8.html

[pritsey]

Since I started this thread, I feel I should at least tell you what I ended up doing! I'm afraid its nothing that was suggested either :-(

Last weekend I was in Comet and they had an end of line Packard Bell on offer. £422 for an i5 3GHz, 6GB RAM, 1TH HD, seemed a pretty good deal. If he wants to upgrade the GPU at Xmas then so be it....

So that is all for trying to guide me even though it ended up on a tangent somewhat! :-)