Gaming PC for around £700

[neilhump3]

Hi all, first post here but know you guys are the experts and I am in safe hands

Its my birthday in March and I want to replace my aging Gateway gaming laptop for a Desktop. I'm not currently playing anything too taxing (mostly Warcraft tbh) but would like a system that has potential to play all the nice FPS games and that is also fairly future proof.

I already bought an LG 24" 5ms IPS monitor, and I will re-use the 128Gb SSD that is currently in my laptop. So basically I need a Gaming PC system with OS.

I appreciate prices will undoubtedly lower/change before March but I just want an idea of a sweet spot for a gaming PC and would love to get some advice from the experts. I work in IT, have previous experience building PC's (it was 10+ years ago though!) so if it really is going to be loads cheaper to buy the components and assemble them myself then so be it.

So far, I have found the following pre-made PC's:-

Medion P5315 i7-3770, 64Gb SSD, 8Gb DDR, GTX 660 (I know they don't have the greatest rep)
- unable to post link atm, but its on the Medion site, currently offering £30 discount

DinoPC Black Ops II i5-3570K, No SSD, 8Gb DDR, GTX 660 (lower spec, but possibly better build quality?)
- unable to post link, but again its on their site

Both come in at around £720.

Any help/guidance appreciated

[Bonebreaker777]

Well lets calculate.
Case : Midi to middle tower - £50 tops (can't really identify the case for that Medion PC)
CPU : i7-3770k - £240 (overclockable unlike the i7-3770)
RAM : 2x4GB DDR3 1600Mhz - £39 (Corsair Memory Vengeance Low Profile 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP)
SSD : OCZ Technology 120GB - £56 (On sale right now, but the price for a 64GB SSD should be similar until March)
PSU : XFX 450W Pro Core - £35
MB : Z77 motherboard (so you can overclock) - £70-75
GPU : Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB - £165-175 (depends on availability)
OS : Windows 8 64bit OEM - £72
Cooling : Any good compatible cooler for 1155 - £30-35
Together : £777 (rounded up) And I am pretty sure you will have better quality and more performance.

If you have the time then go and build one your self, specially if you can either reuse your previous OS (or use an upgrade from Win7 to Win8, if you want to) and save some money.

[neilhump3]

Well lets calculate.
Case : Midi to middle tower - £50 tops (can't really identify the case for that Medion PC)
CPU : i7-3770k - £240 (overclockable unlike the i7-3770)
RAM : 2x4GB DDR3 1600Mhz - £39 (Corsair Memory Vengeance Low Profile 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP)
SSD : OCZ Technology 120GB - £56 (On sale right now, but the price for a 64GB SSD should be similar until March)
PSU : XFX 450W Pro Core - £35
MB : Z77 motherboard (so you can overclock) - £70-75
GPU : Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB - £165-175 (depends on availability)
OS : Windows 8 64bit OEM - £72
Cooling : Any good compatible cooler for 1155 - £30-35
Together : £777 (rounded up) And I am pretty sure you will have better quality and more performance.

If you have the time then go and build one your self, specially if you can either reuse your previous OS (or use an upgrade from Win7 to Win8, if you want to) and save some money.

Thanks for the reply Bonebreaker777 (ironic you rounded up the price to 777!).
I kind of guessed it would be around the same price to build my own system and the Medion was a decent price although possibly not the same build quality etc.

I will keep an eye out for sale prices on the components you mention and hopefully have an even cheaper rig when March comes - patience is killing me!

Thanks again.

[strike-down]

Pretty good from BB, but my advice would be to change the processor to a cheaper i5 (eg the 3570k saving around £70-80 without any noticeable impact on gaming performance) and putting that extra £££ into a better GPU (eg a gtx 660ti/670 or the amd equivalent). You will see a far far greater jump in gaming performance with a much better GPU, and the i5 processors have plenty of power for gaming and just about everything else. I would also change the PSU to a higher rated one. With a 450w you are going to be pretty borderline on power, and from what I've read, the xfx unit has really dodgy 12V regulation so I wouldn't personally trust it in my system. I tend to get a PSU around 750W to give me scope for anything extra I might want to throw in, and not be at the PSU's limits.

Hope this helps

[Bonebreaker777]

What I was trying to achieve,was the comparison of a similarly priced PC with higher performance, while keeping the main performance characteristics of the pre-build PC.

I agree with S-D, if you are not heavily into the professional IT (editing picture/video, scientific things, etc), then just go with the i5. Will be just as good for you and cheaper and you can divert the extra money elsewhere (better GPU usually or bigger SSD or better cooling).

Done a quick calculation of a PSU calculator, with the above mentioned parts and over-clock, the system power usage came to 290W (300W with motherboard and mouse and keyboard I would say).

For a higher grade GPU you may/will need a better PSU.