tight budgeted build

[Marenghi]

myself and a friend want to build a PC which will be used for gaming primarily.

£200 ideally but at a push £300

Needed:
CPU (not looking to OC)
Mobo (barebones will do but for future proofing i guess the capacity for 1 SSD if possible)
8GB RAM

Owned:
5770 gfx
500w psu

the reason i'm asking for advice is that we want to future proof this build as much as possible for the money we have and i don't know enough of the current gen CPU's to decide what to go for. AMD CPU's are a lot cheaper but that comes at a cost of performance?

and yes i'm also aware the 5770 will probably be bottlenecking the new CPU but this will be upgraded once the next gen consoles are out.

Thanks!

[MrJim]

These bundles at Dabs seem like reasonable value:

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-in...id=15005&src=3

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyt...id=15005&src=3

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-in...rc=3#usedstock

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-am...id=15005&src=3

[teppic]

AMD FX 6300 (£80-£90) + a good AMD 970 board (£70-£80).

In most games, the CPU would perform almost as well as any high end Intel CPU.

If primarily gaming, 4gb RAM is sufficient.

An example. The FX 6300 isn't show, but would sit above any A-series processor.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What is the model number of the PSU and do you have a copy of an OS??

[Marenghi]

thanks for the suggestions so far.

the PSU is from my mate and i'm pretty sure it's a cheap thing, i guess £50 for a half decent 500w would do the job, thanks for reminding me!!

[teppic]

If you go for an FX 6300 and overclock it (as most do, it tends to go very high), you might be pushing things a bit with a cheap 500w PSU. If you get a new one, I'd go for 550w.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So,I assume the budget does not need to include a PSU,OS,HDD and case??

Edit!!

I would suggest the following parts then if you want to save some money:
http://www.ebuyer.com/436858-biostar...herboard-ta970
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX6300-E...eywords=fx6300
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Patriot-Vipe...words=8gb+ddr3
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w-...-quiet-fan-atx

[Marenghi]

wow that looks very good for a total of £235.56, thanks cat.

OC'ing is tempting but i don't think there's enough space is the case for an aftermarket cooler (or at least a decent one, the one i saw stood 15cm from the CPU housing). we'll probably come back to that at a later date once the system starts to feel sluggish.

[teppic]

There are decent low profile coolers available. Mine is only 59mm (Coolermaster GeminII).

A mild overclock shouldn't cause any problem at all, it's essentially a free upgrade. You'll be able to do small ones on the stock cooler.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you are going for a heavy overclock I would probably go for a more expensive 970 based motherboard. However,for a mild overclock on stock voltage you might be OK and if you want a cheap cooler this would probably do the job:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-AMD-CO...item33836d8ea0
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CPU-COOLER...item4166eeedda
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMD-Heatsi...item3cd2dbce04

It is the AMD stock cooler for their 125W TDP CPUs. The FX6300 has a lower 95W TDP.

[DanceswithUnix]

If you want to shave some cost, an FM2 motherboard and an X4 760K cpu would be an option.

[DanceswithUnix]

If you are going for a heavy overclock I would probably go for a more expensive 970 based motherboard. However,for a mild overclock on stock voltage you might be OK and if you want a cheap cooler this would probably do the job:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-AMD-CO...item33836d8ea0
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CPU-COOLER...item4166eeedda
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMD-Heatsi...item3cd2dbce04

It is the AMD stock cooler for their 125W TDP CPUs. The FX6300 has a lower 95W TDP.

Another £15 gets you the 6350, you get a faster CPU which comes with that heatsink and lose the stress of buying something off ebay.

Edit to add: And starts you down that slippery slope of creeping the price up

[scaryjim]

If you want to shave some cost, an FM2 motherboard and an X4 760K cpu would be an option.

Just to back this up - you essentially get Core i3 CPU performance for < £70. There's also a better choice of decent motherboards in the FM2 socket: for AM3+ you'll be stuck with the aging 760G chipset: for FM2 you get to pick from a good range of A55 and A75 boards, or if you get in quick you could grab http://www.ebuyer.com/product/432657 which is an A85X board for £45... Processor, board and RAM will set you back around £150 - £160

[teppic]

For gaming the 6300 will give noticeably better results than the X4 760K - but there is the benefit of a better range of FM2 boards. Aria had an offer of £70 for the 6300, which made it excellent value, but it's not available right now.

[Marenghi]

thanks for the suggestions guys, there's a lot to consider

out of interest if the budget was larger would you all be suggesting i5 / i7's?

[MrJim]

thanks for the suggestions guys, there's a lot to consider

out of interest if the budget was larger would you all be suggesting i5 / i7's?

It's a case of diminishing returns once you go into i7 territory; there aren't many games that make use of 8 threads, at the moment. Of course once the next-gen consoles arrive that might change, but there will be better CPUs around by that time, I expect