£400 Rig?

[HolyFruitLoops]

Hi,

Slipped over in the snow yesterday with my laptop in my bag and now I have a destroyed laptop thanks to my lofty weight

But hey-ho time to build my first rig now...

After it coming a shock, I havent really had chance to save up, I can probably get together around £400 for the build, Ideally I'd like something I can game on, but thats not the main priority of the machine. I've been thinking of going i3 with a better GPU rather than, i5 and half hearted GPU.

Just asking for some advice on a setup or any specific bits and bobs I should be going for on this budget?

Many Thanks!

[Bonebreaker777]

Would be the gaming aspect at least 50% important? Cause in that case you could contemplate to purchase a AMD APU computer with semi-decent IGP? And able to overclock it.

That would fit into £400 with new OS. Unless you set your mind toward a Intel configuration.

[MrJim]

Are you wanting to buy a monitor & keyboard + mouse, or just the system unit? The resolution you plan to game at, as well as the type of games you want to play, will have a bearing on the type of system you'll need.

[HolyFruitLoops]

I've already got an old mouse and keyboard, I think I have a monitor still in my garage back at home which I could use if not, I'm hoping to run it on my TV? Gaming isn't a massive priority, I'd say 30%? I enjoy gaming but mainly console based right now, which is why I'd like to build a Intel system and maybe upgrade the GPU, Processor etc in the future. I'm not really a fan of AMD machines but I suppose they're more budget friendly?

[Bonebreaker777]

For £400 with monitor, keyboard, mouse and OS plus to be able to play games will be a challenge.

I quickly put together a system, hopefully for your needs. The configuration takes into account the cashback system.
And it's got a SSD and it is overclock-able.

CPU - AMD A10 5800K Black Edition - £099 from Novatech.co.uk
RAM - Crucial Ballistix 2x4GB DDR3 1866MHz - £045 from Novatech.co.uk
MB - MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 AMD A75 - £050 from Novatech.co.uk
Case - mATX case of your choice - £030 from Novatech.co.uk
PSU - Xfx Proseries 450w - £037 from Novatech.co.uk
GPU - HD 7660D Integrated - £000
SSD - Samsung 840 Series 120GB - £078 from Novatech.co.uk
COOLING- Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 - £026 from Play.com

Total - £365 and if you use Topcashback, you should get back around £13.85 (both Play.com and Novatech cashback). Costing you in total £351.15

Similar at Scan co.uk would cost you £364 rounded up, no cashback. Both set ups got free delivery.

[HolyFruitLoops]

Hmm, would it be worth me saving up a little while longer and getting £500-550? For the build?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Have you got a copy of an OS??

[HolyFruitLoops]

Sadly I don't, but I do live in a house with 16 lads, half of which are IT nerds, so I might be able to pick one up off them, try and save a few pennies

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Until the end of the month you can Windows 8 upgrade for around £25. If you install one of the Windows 8 Preview verisons you should be able to upgrade from that. What sort of games do you run and what sort of non-gaming applications do you use??

[Bonebreaker777]

Hmm, would it be worth me saving up a little while longer and getting £500-550? For the build?

So what you would fancy? i5 and a mid-range GPU?

CPU - Intel Core i5 3570K - £168.20 from Scan.co.uk
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600MHz - £38.20 from Scan.co.uk
MB - MSI Z77MA-G45 Intel Z77 - £75.30 from Scan.co.uk
Case - mATX case of your choice - £30 from Scan.co.uk
PSU - Xfx Pro series 450w - £35.40 from Scan.co.uk
GPU - Asus GeForce GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II - £105.20 from Scan.co.uk
SSD - Samsung 840 Series 120GB - £81.70 from Scan.co.uk
COOLING - Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 - £20.70 from Scan.co.uk

Something like this? This would set you back £555 from Scan.co.uk with SCAN2HEXUS - Free shipping

How does this sound?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The parts are from Ebuyer. The case can take graphics cards 33CM long.

I would get this graphic card:

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-am...%207770&src=16

You will also get Sleeping Dogs and Farcry3 with the graphics card. The total should come to around £407.

Also,another thing I remembered. You can get a 90 day trial of Windows 7 or Windows 8:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/e.../cc442495.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/e.../hh699156.aspx

You will need to wipe the install after this,but gives a few months to save up for Windows if you don't have the budget.

Here are a few reviews comparing the FX6300 and the Core i3 3220 which cost around the same:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/t...-fx4300-tested

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3314...ly-good-enough

http://www.techspot.com/review/586-a...300/page4.html

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That is an Intel build for around £550. However is not made for overclocking,but a Core i5 is fast enough for most purposes at stock clockspeeds. I also specified an ATX motherboard which gives you more expansive slots than smaller mATX motherboards. OTH,if you want a more compact you could get a mATX motheboard and case.

This graphics cards is the fastest one under £200:

http://www.dabs.com/products/best-va...?q=7870&src=16

It also comes with Farcry3.

There are also a few GTX660 cards for under £170:

http://www.dabs.com/products/evga-ge...GF1.html?src=2

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyt...x%20660&src=16

[rover214]

Have you tested your HDD from the laptop yet?

If that works, it will save a bit of cash,

Have you got an OS license on the laptop, there is another saving if there is

[HolyFruitLoops]

Are the AMD chips any good? I've read a few reviews on them and they all seem to come up short?

Being a student though, if an AMD machine is going to save me the cash I'd much rather go that route. I'd love an i5 machine but I just don't know if I can afford it with everything else coming out my wallet in the next few months .

The HDD on the laptop is fine, but it's only a 320GB HDD, ideally I'd like more memory than that and the OS License stiker on the laptop has worn away is unreadable now, is their any other way I can get the license key?

Thanks for all the help guys!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Are the AMD chips any good? I've read a few reviews on them and they all seem to come up short?

Being a student though, if an AMD machine is going to save me the cash I'd much rather go that route. I'd love an i5 machine but I just don't know if I can afford it with everything else coming out my wallet in the next few months .

The HDD on the laptop is fine, but it's only a 320GB HDD, ideally I'd like more memory than that and the OS License stiker on the laptop has worn away is unreadable now, is their any other way I can get the license key?

Thanks for all the help guys!

I think the comparisons tend to look at the FX8350 against the slightly more expensive Core i5 3570K with regards to gaming,not the cheaper CPUs. The FX8350 tends to do reasonably well in productivity benchmarks,although the Core i5 does tend to push ahead in games which are more lightly threaded(multi-threaded games do reasonably OK though with both CPUs),has a higher overclock percentage potential with the K series,so gets the overall win for gaming.

However,CPUs like the A10 5800K and FX6300 are quite competitive against the Core i3 CPUs,dependent on the metrics IMHO. The Core i3 CPUs lack Turbo and use HT so are not as strong as a Core i5. Think of a Core i3 as half a Core i7,but with no Turbo. They do have an edge over a FX6300 in some lightly threaded games,but a lot of the newer games tend to use engines which use more threads better. They tend to be the new generation DX11 multiplatform engines used in games like BF3 for example.

With productivity applications they also tend to do well too.

[HolyFruitLoops]

I think you're twisting my arm over the AMD chips now, I'm getting out of my depths now as I've never previously played PC games, but would the AMD machine be able to run games such as Battlefield 3? or is a game like that needing a much more powerful and expensive system?