Component know-how

[chuckskull]

The system guide I posted earlier has been updated. Good timing; http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/...ide-july-2013/

EDIT: Re-using the parts you discussed the hotrod box in the guide comes pretty close to budget and will run anything and run it well for a good while.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That Ars guide is made for the US market where component pricing is comparatively different especially for the lower cost build. For example the Corsair CX series is price dumped on the US market and in the UK there are far more better alternatives for the same price. Also there are better priced case alternatives in the UK on the low end especially from Ebuyer. Also,the MSI motherboards I would rather avoid(at least on the midrange and low end),as they are probably the only brand I have heard of which have had VRM failures with Intel boards(and plenty of their AMD boards are crap too). Moreover,for that budget you would get a B75 motherboard anyway,as the $15 to $20 saving would get you an HD7850 2GB or a GTX650TI Boost 2GB and not a 1GB card. The thing is a few quid here and there can make a reasonable difference on a low budget.

Regarding the Samsung 840,the Plextor M5S and similary priced Sandisk SSDs really need to be mentioned too(they are better in some metrics). The fact that they ignore the FX6300(which is cheaper too) shows how the author of that article has not done their research,especially when the FX6300 can thrash the Core i3 3220 in titles like Crysis3 and it appears BF4(looking at the Alpha results). This is the problem,many of the guides are very lazy when it comes to low end builds,and at the low end in reality there are two to three possible build configs on how you would want to balance your rig. Its much easier when you have £200 to spend on a CPU(Core i5 4670K) and £200 on a graphics card(GTX760 or HD7950),as the choices tend to be more obvious.

However,the OP is playing LoL,DOTA2 and CS:GO which would be fine on a Phenom II X4 850. I was playing CS:GO fine at 1920X1080 on a A6-3670K and an HD5850 1GB at a LAN.

[chuckskull]

I didn't look at the lowest end one I admit, but I did think the Hot rod was about right and should come pretty close to £750 with the parts re-used from the old computer, and not exact brands and models just general specification and not withstanding my previous advice of reviews, reviews, reviews.

I agree with your points on the power needed for what he's playing right now, but you should really build for what you want to be playing in a few years, I'm aiming for max FPS and longevity for £750+recycled parts. I'm not saying your wrong just that his budget will go further than you think.

Scan went down while I was pricing it up, but off the top of my head;

4670k - £180 (stock cool for now, cheap upgrade to OC later in life)
Z87 Motherboard - £100
760GTX - £200
4GB XMS3 - £25
128GB SSD - £80 (agreed the sandisk ones are great VFM)
XFX 550W - £55
Windows 8 64bit OEM - £80 (might be able to get an upgrade license for win 7 even cheaper)

£720 still got enough left for a new case. It's pushing the budget but it works and nothing will trouble it for a long time. I'd be tempted to swap the SSD for a SATA3 mechanical drive though at that price point. That would ease te budget pressure a lot and cost 0FPS.

EDIT: That reminded me one crucial link for building a PC no-one's put in yet; http://www.hotukdeals.com/ Always worth checking.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I didn't look at the lowest end one I admit, but I did think the Hot rod was about right and should come pretty close to £750 with the parts re-used from the old computer, and not exact brands and models just general specification and not withstanding my previous advice of reviews, reviews, reviews.

I agree with your points on the power needed for what he's playing right now, but you should really build for what you want to be playing in a few years, I'm aiming for max FPS and longevity for £750+recycled parts. I'm not saying your wrong just that his budget will go further than you think.

Scan went down while I was pricing it up, but off the top of my head;

4670k - £180 (stock cool for now, cheap upgrade to OC later in life)
Z87 Motherboard - £100
760GTX - £200
4GB XMS3 - £25
128GB SSD - £80 (agreed the sandisk ones are great VFM)
XFX 550W - £55
Windows 8 64bit OEM - £80 (might be able to get an upgrade license for win 7 even cheaper)

£720 still got enough left for a new case. It's pushing the budget but it works and nothing will trouble it for a long time. I'd be tempted to swap the SSD for a SATA3 mechanical drive though at that price point. That would ease te budget pressure a lot and cost 0FPS.

EDIT: That reminded me one crucial link for building a PC no-one's put in yet; http://www.hotukdeals.com/ Always worth checking.

The hot-rod actually is not too bad. Regarding the OP at least personally,his budget would get him Core i5 easily but it was more a case of the type of games he seems to like now and the SSD at least with DOTA2 and LoL was quite useful getting onto the maps quicker.

He will be wasting a lot of money if he does not play any other CPU intensive titles for the next year or so,for example.

The thing is though he can always get a better CPU and motherboard later if he actually needs it at that point,is at least my logic. So if he gets half decent ancillary parts,it should not be an issue changing over to newer bits,like Haswell MK2 or even desktop Broadwell.

However,I do get your line of reasoning too.

In the end I suppose it boils down to what the OP sees he will be doing I suppose.

[chuckskull]

Yeah there is a sharp difference between "I want this many £'s worth of gaming PC" and "I want to play these specific games with good performance". Always worth remembering computers like almost anything fun it seems will happily spend all your budget no matter your budget, there's always something else you can buy. Well worth pondering before opening your wallet.

[ConnorLowe]

There's so many different options to look at when looking in to building a new computer, or upgrading my existing one

I've been looking at various builds including Intel i5's and the AMD FX6300 and they all roughly cost around the same (FX6300 was the cheapest of many different builds).

Was taking a look on pcspecialist and a few laptops caught my eye and then the thought occurred of how easy would it be to upgrade different laptop components in the upcoming years? etc

I think the best bet would be to upgrade my current PC (RAM, GPU, PSU, Mobo and SSD). However I'm torn now between a new build, upgrading my current one and even a laptop!

I'll post a few builds that I have come up with soon

Thanks for the help

[chuckskull]

It all comes down to what you want to do with it in the end. If you only want to play those few games and aren't really interested in anything else currently or the near future. Then the simple bolt on upgrade.

If you want to play more demanding games but don't because of your current spec then i5, 760 etc.

Laptops can handle light gaming, the ability to upgrade varies a lot, double check it before you buy if you're planning that and ask yourself do you need a computer that moves around, because you're paying a premium money and gaming wise for that.

[ConnorLowe]

Case: CoolerMaster K-280
CPU: Intel i5 3570K
Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo
Memory: Corsair 8GB XMS3 PC3-12800 1600MHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (went with this over the ATI Radeon 7790)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H
HDD: 500 GB Seagate SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 16MB (don't need loads of storage space, mainly only use it for gaming)

Just under £700

Any thoughts?

[Pob255]

I'd much rather put money on the graphics card than cpu for a gaming build.

[chuckskull]

Case: CoolerMaster K-280
CPU: Intel i5 3570K
Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo
Memory: Corsair 8GB XMS3 PC3-12800 1600MHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (went with this over the ATI Radeon 7790)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H
HDD: 500 GB Seagate SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 16MB (don't need loads of storage space, mainly only use it for gaming)

Just under £700

Any thoughts?

You don't need that faster RAM. Get get another 4GB stick of what you've got and use that to make up 8GB. Doing that and dropping from Haswell to Ivy Bridge like you have brings it to basically £700 for the GTX760 build. Lot more horsepower for basically the same money. You can probably knock a bit off shopping around, although you might want to look into scansure for your first build, will cover you if you break anything.

Don't think I missed anything; http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/bc...69ecf142043ba6 £704.06 + free delivery.

[martober]

You don't have a PSU listed there.

What resolution will you be playing at? That will determine whether the GPU is strong enough or not. I'd stick with the 7790 over the 650ti as it tends to perform better. (don't confuse the 650ti with the 650ti boost, the boost version is a much stronger card)

Depending how set on overclocking you are I'd be tempted to drop the cpu to a non K version and get a h77 board and just use the stock cooler (or b85 if you go haswell), that way you could use the money saved towards either a stronger gpu or an ssd. I'd also try and re-use as much as you can from your existing system (unless you want to keep it operational too) The memory can be reused, and the hard drive too unless it's very old.

[ConnorLowe]

Thank you for the link chuckskull, got it saved for future reference

I meant to include this for my earlier build: http://www.coolermaster.com/product/...plus-500w.html

My current RAM and hard drive can be re-used in a new system, so that will save some cash

I'll shop around for each component and try and bring the price down

Cheers

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Case: CoolerMaster K-280
CPU: Intel i5 3570K
Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo
Memory: Corsair 8GB XMS3 PC3-12800 1600MHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (went with this over the ATI Radeon 7790)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H
HDD: 500 GB Seagate SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 16MB (don't need loads of storage space, mainly only use it for gaming)

Just under £700

Any thoughts?

The problem is with those games your current HD6450 is the limiting factor not the CPU. My mates run LoL fine on a 1080P HDTV with an Athlon II X3 455 and an HD7770. I ran CS:GO fine on a A6-3670K with an HD5850 at 1920X1080 running at 2.7GHZ,which are all slower than your Phenom II X4 850.

The reason why you can't run games well on your current setup is:
1.)The HD6450 graphics card
2.)The RAM running in single channel in your current setup

Also,if you are going with a Core i5 for future games you think you might play,you might as well get a better graphics card,like suggested in post 35,or something a bit faster than an HD7790.

For CS:GO also invest in a reasonably senstive mouse too.

Another factor is this:

http://forums.hexus.net/desktops/289...ml#post2983077

What is the ping on your connection?

Try running this:

http://www.speedtest.net/

If your ping is too high,then that will be an issue especially with CS:GO. I was on a crappy Sky connection under 3MB but luckily for me the ping was decent,and it didn't cause me to lag out in online games.

This is why I asked you about the connection you had.

Thank you for the link chuckskull, got it saved for future reference

I meant to include this for my earlier build: http://www.coolermaster.com/product/...plus-500w.html

My current RAM and hard drive can be re-used in a new system, so that will save some cash

I'll shop around for each component and try and bring the price down

Cheers

That PSU is not really that great. That XFX suggested earlier is quite solid,and has good quality components.

[chuckskull]

Yup, can't recommend HUKD enough for that, and keep in mind shipping costs; buying 10 components from 10 places can cost £100 in shipping, easy to forget.

[D1DM]

I meant to include this for my earlier build: http://www.coolermaster.com/product/...plus-500w.html

Review for that PSU:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/728
Which should put you off it.

[martober]

I would try and get a higher quality power supply if you can afford it. The one you picked out isn't terrible (it'll power things, it probably won't explode) but, it's inefficient, uses an outdated design and cheap low quality components. The power supply is one area where you don't want to cheap out since a failure can damage everything else in your system. XFX make some decent quality units that aren't a lot more expensive so I'd strongly recommend picking from one of those instead.

edit: beaten on the psu. I also agree the GPU is by far the biggest limiting factor in your current system, If you just want to extend it's life a bit with the games you currently play then the cpu will be good for a while longer, though I have a similar processor and it's definitely starting to show its age now. The i5 is a good idea for a more long term upgrade.