Sub £400 entry/mid level gaming build

[brduk]

Hey,

I'm looking to build an entry/mid level multimedia/gaming PC for a relative. The most taxing game he will be playing at the moment is Rome: Total War 2, there wont be any FPS or other strenuous titles played. He may however want to hook up to his 42" flatscreen and down the line maybe use the PC in conjunction with a tablet. Will need another suggestion on the Motherboard as the one below is ExDisplay and only 1 in stock.

I've put together a list of components below based around an AMD 6600k APU thinking that if the GPU needs more juice it can be Hybrid crossfired with cheap 77series GPU

Casecom CM-431 Shiny Black MicroATX Case - No PSU: £12.99 - http://www.ebuyer.com/265748-casecom...tx-case-cm-431

or a Midi-ATX

Casecom KM-6988 Black Mid Tower ATX Case with Full Black Interior/Exterior 120mm Red LED Front Fan: £21.99 - http://www.ebuyer.com/205154-casecom...mm-red-km-6988
Corsair Builder Series 80+ Bronze CMPSU-430CXV2UK 430W Power Supply: £35.52 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/430w-...an-atx-v23-psu
EXDISPLAY Gigabyte GA-F2A55M-HD2 A55 Socket FM2 VGA DVI HDMI 7.1 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard - £38.06 - http://www.ebuyer.com/614472-exdispl...-ga-f2a55m-hd2
AMD APU A8 6600K 4.2GHz Socket FM2 4MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor: £72.53 - http://www.ebuyer.com/507063-amd-apu...-ad660kwohlbox
Aftermarket cooler: £8.36 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/arcti...us-am2-and-939
WD 1TB Green Desktop Drive £44.03 - http://www.ebuyer.com/321341-wd-1tb-...drive-wd10ezrx
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Blu Red Series: £59.99 - http://www.ebuyer.com/394109-kingsto...-khx16c10b1r-8
Samsung SH-224DB 24X Internal DVD Writer with SATA - OEM: £11.98 - http://www.ebuyer.com/506016-samsung...-sh-224db-bebe
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit Service Pack 1 Operating System Single PC OEM DVD: 70.44 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/micro...sp-oem-dvd-lcp

Optional Sapphire HD 7730 2GB DDR3 UEFI VGA DVI HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card: 57.99 - http://www.ebuyer.com/524782-sapphir...d-11211-02-20g

Basic build with microATX case = £365.88 / with Hybrid Crossfire £423.87
Basic build with midiATX = £374.88 / with Hybrid Crossfire £432.87

Thoughts and advice on alternatives welcomed

[brduk]

Been poking around looking for cheaper components and managed to find a company called Freshtech Solutions (trade as Millenium Computers on ebay) that have an extremely similar rig (but with a 600w Corasir PSU) available for £384.00 delivered.

http://www.freshtechsolutions.co.uk/...dows-7-pc.html

£9 more than my basic midi build, mostly the same components but pre-built with a beefier version of the Corsair PSU

Question is, will the APU handle a 42" with decent resolution for RTS games?

Thoughts?

[cptwhite_uk]

AMD have just released their new range of APU's today. You can get the 7850K from dabs for £130. It's a massive step up in graphic performance so if you're considering an APU you need to be looking at this. Unfortunately only the high end option is available as of today (A10-7850K), the lower priced A8-7600 won't be available for another couple of months. The A10-7850K will likely run most games comfortably at 1600x900 with medium detail (i.e. 25-35 fps). Or at Full HD on low settings. Either way, games will be able to be made playable.

You can think of it as swapping it out for the 7730 if you need to justify the cost difference.

I'd also highly recommend spending ~ £25 on a reasonable CPU cooler if you got for the 7850k, it's a high wattage chip (95W) by today's standards, I suspect the supplied cooler would be no worse than the one you've listed, it's not exactly a meaty heatsink!

[brduk]

The reviews I read on the 7850k dont want to make me rush out and get one for this build

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/a...0-a10-7850k/16

In nearly all of our GPU tests, a 45W Kaveri ends up delivering very similar gaming performance to a 100W Richland.

[GoodZE]

I'd go for a CPU not an APU and put more performance on the GPU as it is a gaming build

Maybe go for some 2nd hand parts & check scans today only page :-)

[Domestic_Ginger]

I would try for a second hand 560ti/570/660 if possible; performance should be much better.

[cptwhite_uk]

When your budget is £330 for the system build, obviously corners need cutting. The review you linked to is comparing the A10-7850k to high/mid Intel CPU offerings, and yes comparatively it's not going to win any performance awards. But look what Intel is offering in the £130 space (remember you'll need a GPU too as Intel IGP solutions are ~ 60-70% the performance of the A10-7850k, which probably just puts it under what you need for a light gaming rig.)

Suddenly the 7850k is a reasonable proposition from a price/performance perspective. Ideally you'd have another £50 and you could invest in a dedicated second hand GPU as DG suggests, but if we're sticking strictly to your budget you could do a lot worse than AMD's offering.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I will do some alternate specs for you later.

[Domestic_Ginger]

I can see what you're saying Cpt. R:TWII is pretty serious and CA don't really do a good job on optimising their games.

[brduk]

Had another look at components, what do you think of this set-up?

Casecom CM-431 Shiny Black MicroATX Case - No PSU: £12.99 - http://www.ebuyer.com/265748-casecom...tx-case-cm-431
Corsair Builder Series 80+ Bronze CMPSU-430CXV2UK 430W Power Supply: £37.71 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/430w-...ze-eps-12v-atx
EXDISPLAY Gigabyte GA-F2A55M-HD2 A55 Socket FM2 VGA DVI HDMI 7.1 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard - £37.71 - http://www.ebuyer.com/614472-exdispl...-ga-f2a55m-hd2
AMD Athlon II X4 740, Virgo, Quad Core, S FM2, 3.2GHz, 4MB Cache, 65W: £52.49 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...che-65w-retail
Asus AMD Radeon 7790 HD 1GB: £86.98 - http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-am...56920000&src=3
Western Digital 1TB internal Hard Drive - Caviar Blue: £43.99 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/1TB-Desktop-...9839666&sr=1-7
Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9B Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1866 Mhz CL9 XMP Performance Desktop Memory Kit Blue: £54.99 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMZ8...dp/B0056VO2HK/
Samsung SH-224DB 24X Internal DVD Writer with SATA - OEM: £11.98 - http://www.ebuyer.com/506016-samsung...-sh-224db-bebe
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit Service Pack 1 Operating System Single PC OEM DVD: 70.44 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/micro...sp-oem-dvd-lcp

Comes out just over budget at £409.28

Thoughts?

[GoodZE]

Asus AMD Radeon 7790 HD 1GB: £86.98 - http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-am...56920000&src=3

Thoughts?

My only thought is the GPU, personally id go for a 2nd hand 7850/7870 or 650/660, i picked up my GPU atm which is 7850 for £80 and its in good condition aswell, no issues.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I assume the OP has free Scan postage?

I would get the following parts:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...he-100w-retail
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-GA-...eywords=fm2%2B
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMZ8...dp/B0056VO2HK/
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-s...he-8ms-ncq-oem
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/liteo...sata-black-oem
http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Edition-...words=xfx+450w
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...50-1gd5oc.html
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/micro...pk-dsp-oei-dvd

However,the card is not the 2GB version of the HD7850.

Edit!!

It comes to around £465 though!!

Second Edit!!

It seems the game is very demanding:

http://gamegpu.ru/rts-/-strategii/to...-test-gpu.html







Even people with high end rigs can struggle with it from what I gather. It is quite CPU intensive.

If you drop down the graphics settings to high or medium I suspect an HD7770 or HD7790 should be fine.

I really think the OP needs to increase the budget to around £500.

[Pob255]

One thing I'd like to point out is that screen size is irrelevant, it's the resolution that matters, there will be no performance difference between a 1920x1080 resolution 21" monitor and a 1920x1080 resolution 47" TV

Very roughly speaking bigger screen means higher resolution, but not always esp when you look at TV's many 32" TV's are only 1366x768 resolution so you'll actually get better performance out of them than you would from a 21" 1920x1080 monitor.

How "Good" something looks is a mix of your eyes, distance from the screen, resolution of the screen and size of the screen.
A 32" 720p tv will not look as good as a 21" 1080p monitor close up but will look better from a distance.

[brduk]

I believe that I qualify for free Scan postage through Hexus \0/. I also have Amazon Prime.

In terms of budget, I do have a set of 8GB G-Skill Ripjaws that turned out to be faulty and require RMA'd, I guess the warranty replacements could go to this new build as I have already bought replacements for them.

[brduk]

Yep, understand that, was thinking of it more from a connectivity point of view. I've never hooked a Tablet up to a PC before, not sure if a PCI WiFi card or some sort of bluetooth adaptor would be advantageous, or if it would work over wired BB router.

One thing I'd like to point out is that screen size is irrelevant, it's the resolution that matters, there will be no performance difference between a 1920x1080 resolution 21" monitor and a 1920x1080 resolution 47" TV

Very roughly speaking bigger screen means higher resolution, but not always esp when you look at TV's many 32" TV's are only 1366x768 resolution so you'll actually get better performance out of them than you would from a 21" 1920x1080 monitor.

How "Good" something looks is a mix of your eyes, distance from the screen, resolution of the screen and size of the screen.
A 32" 720p tv will not look as good as a 21" 1080p monitor close up but will look better from a distance.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am thinking maybe the following parts might be a better bet:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX6300-E...eywords=FX6300
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-970...ywords=amd+970
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMZ8...dp/B0056VO2HK/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.cclonline.com/product/135...-Card/VGA2206/
http://www.cclonline.com/product/125...rnal-/CDR0205/
http://www.cclonline.com/product/115...D-OEM/SFT0434/

The total should come to just under £450. An FX6300 and an HD7770 GDDR5 2GB should be a better fit for the game IMHO.

Edit!!

Another site has looked at Rome 2 though:

http://pclab.pl/zdjecia/artykuly/cha...0_gpu_high.png
http://pclab.pl/zdjecia/artykuly/cha...adeon_high.png
http://pclab.pl/zdjecia/artykuly/cha...force_high.png

OTH,it is pclab,although their findings are somewhat verified by GameGPU,so will actually use them.

Nvidia drivers are more multi-threaded than the AMD ones ATM,so I expect the Haswell Core i3 won't beat an FX6300. However,I suspect with an AMD GPU the Haswell Core i3 potentially could be faster,but I don't expect the difference to be much. OTH,the FX6300 should do better as more and more titles start to thread better.

This is what I would go for regarding the Intel equivalents:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-54w-retail
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...vi-d-hdmi-matx

It will cost you a bit more overall though.

The motherboard is smaller though. There is a MSI for around £50,but I would not go with them TBH.