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Thread: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

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    £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    So gotta build a PC for a relative for some 1080P Gaming. £500 Budget (anything over I have to pay)

    They already have monitor/keyboard/mouse

    Here is what I came up with:

    http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/wvC3jX

    I could swap the mobo for a 760g but then I have the bios update faf which I really cba with!

    The other option is to swap the SSHD for a Normal HDD - and buy a £25 cooler.
    Last edited by Marcvs; 07-01-2015 at 08:22 AM.

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    Seriously casual gamer KeyboardDemon's Avatar
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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    I'm not familiar with the dfferent AM3+ mobos out there, is the 760G a better mobo than the model that you have selected?

    If it is then I would get the 760G, unless the 'faf' that you are talking about requires you to install an already supported CPU in order to flash the BIOS so that you can install the FX8320, in which case I can understand why you wouldn't want to do that for a PC that someone else will eventually end up using. It might be worth sending an email to find out what BIOS version would be installed at the point of purchase though in case it already has a BIOS version that supports the hardware you are thinking about.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    That board does have a 760G chipset....the model name seems a tad misleading
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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    That arctic cooling GT heatsink/fan, the description comes up as: "This compact cooler with a quiet 80 mm PWM fan can deal with a TDP of 70 Watts and thus cool most CPUs."

    Most cpus perhaps, but not this one

    You could stick with the box cooler for now?

    My usual goto AM3+ motherboard is http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus...rd-m5a97evor20, but might a hard to squeeze one of those in.

    You have a copy of Windows, or is this a SteamOS box?

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    Quote Originally Posted by shaithis View Post
    That board does have a 760G chipset....the model name seems a tad misleading
    Aye but apparantly this one works with octo core out the box?

    -- With regards to the cooler, Ive ditched it for now.

    How far do those CPUs usually go on a stock HSF? I havent had to work with such a tight budget for ages .

    ALternatively I can keep the mobo and probably squeze in a CM Hyper 212

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    Quote Originally Posted by Marcvs View Post
    Aye but apparantly this one works with octo core out the box?

    -- With regards to the cooler, Ive ditched it for now.

    How far do those CPUs usually go on a stock HSF? I havent had to work with such a tight budget for ages .

    ALternatively I can keep the mobo and probably squeze in a CM Hyper 212
    760G isn't ideal, the hypertransport is a bit out of date so slower than 970 or 990 chipset boards. Are you intending to overclock? That Asrock board can handle the stock CPU (which is good, not all low end boards can manage that) but with a 4+1 phase VRM which doesn't have any heatsinks on it, I don't think you will be able to overclock much. Note that the motherboard web page states you have to use a "top-down blowing design" to cool the surrounding components, so that would be my usual choices of tower cooler out the window. The board can manage an 8370, so you have a bit of headroom there.

    If you want to overclock, I would seriously recommend the Asus M5A97 Evo R2 that I have. Although personally I wouldn't overclock a system I am giving to someone else, it just isn't worth the support aggro, and an 8320 at stock is a pretty capable beast.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    I think that the build is good. Thant's one mof the better motherboards for that chipset.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    could also drop the 280 for a 285 and save almost £15

    http://www.ebuyer.com/662154-powerco...285-2gbd5-tdhe

    This saving would pay for the much better asus m5a97 evo which will be much better than the asrock board you had listed.

    Also

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nzxt-...et-fan-w-o-psu
    slightly better cooling and cheaper

    Any reason your not going for a fx 6300 as that would save almost £25 over the 8320 which is the price of a good cooler like a hyper 212 evo.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    figured the 8 cores would be better than 6 in the future, mostly.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    true but at this budget its a bit of a luxury IMHO.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    GPU wise that 280 is a placeholder for the £150 mark which was where I was aiming.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    Doesn't the 285 perform better for the price? Especially if you can get it for less/could have got it for less.

    I'm assuming you've built it now too.
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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    Nope; had some stuff at work and havent actually got around to ordering it yet; will probably end up waiting till after 31st January too.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    I have done a small edit on your build and it comes in now just below £500

    http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/jFthTW

    No 8 core but a much better motherboard and cooler with the r9 285 from Ebuyer I linked to earlier.
    Last edited by dfour; 27-01-2015 at 01:56 PM.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    Thoughts on dropping the SSHD for just a normal HDD, which frees up ~20 quid, and a sharkoon case (has really good review to shave off another £10)

    So:

    Sharkoon VS3V: £23 (saving ~£14) (here: http://www.ebuyer.com/444444-sharkoo...-4044951013364 )
    Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive: £36 (Saving £21)

    Then whack in the 8 core, OC it a tiny bit and then I hopefully dont have to do any significant upgrades for a few years at least
    Last edited by Marcvs; 27-01-2015 at 11:23 PM.

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    Re: £500 Gaming Tower - Review My Choices

    So what is the final build right now?

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