New PC For Xmas, Primary Gaming £800 Budget

[Jasp]

Hi All,

Been asked to put together a new PC for Xmas with a solid £800 budget including Base - Monitor - Peripherals

So Far :

Amazon -

ViewSonic VX2457-mhd 24-Inch Gaming Monitor with FreeSync 1920 x 1080, 1 ms, VGA/HDMI/DisplayPort - Black by Viewsonic : £109.00

Sumvision LED Gaming Keyboard LED Gaming Mouse Gaming Headset Headphone Gaming Mouse Mat Pad Kane Pro Edition 4 in 1 Chaos Pack Keyboard, Mouse, Headphone Headset and Mouse Mat Pad 4 in 1 Bundle by Sumvision : £30.99

Ebuyer -

Gigabyte GA-990X-GAMING SLI Socket AM3+ 7.1 Channel ATX Motherboard 746072 184 in stock £82.97 £82.97

(free accessory) HyperX Fury Series 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM Memory 633806 81 in stock £0.00 £0.00

Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro+ 8GB GDDR5 DVI-D HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 753949 22 in stock £189.98 £189.98

Scan -

1TB Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda 7200.14, SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8ms, NCQ, OEM £43.74

Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I (rev 4.2) PCIe WiFi Card, 867Mbps, Dual Band, 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, PCI-E 2.0, External Antenna £29.99

AMD FX-8300 Vishera 8-Core, 4.2 GHz, Socket AM3+, 95W, 16MB cache, Retail £99.98

Asus DRW-24D5MT DVD Re-Writer, x24, SATA, with M-DISC support, Tray Loading, Black OEM £11.99

240GB ADATA Premier SP550 SSD, SATA III - 6Gb/s, 560Mb/s Read, 510Mb/s Write, 75k IOPS, Intelligent SLC Caching, Retail £62.28

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Single Tower CPU Cooler With CM Master Fan Pro 120mm Worth £12.49 £29.99

MI: In Win 503 Black+Red Mid Tower ATX Case with Glass Front Panel & Side Window + 750W Cooler Maste In Stock MI: In Win 503 Black+Red Mid Tower ATX Case with Glass Front Panel & Side Window + 750W Cooler Maste

LN54741 750W Cooler Master G750M Hybrid Modular, 80PLUS Bronze, 1x120mm Quiet Fan, ATX v2.31, PSU
LN65870 In Win 503 Black+Red Mid Tower ATX Case with Glass Front Panel & Side Window, 4x Fan Bays, Water cooling ready

£104.98

Total : £795.88

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks Mike

[DanceswithUnix]

Do you need to add a Windows license to that, or do you already have one?

[Bagnaj97]

For starters a 750w PSU is hugely overkill for this system, a decent 450w+ would be perfectly fine.
The DVD drive is probably unnecessary, you can always get a USB one later.

I also really wouldn't recommend buying an AM3+ based system now. For gaming Intel's chips are faster in most cases (i3+, don't look at the 2 thread chips) and AMD is also due to release their new Zen chip in a few months time on the new AM4 socket.
The reason there are deals such as free ram/ssd etc with AM3+ boards is that they're trying to clear stock.

Yes, there are some games that benefit from the extra threads on an FX chip, but mostly an i3 will be comparable or faster, and there's the option to upgrade to an i5 or i7 later.


The other thing is, that might throw a spanner in the works, is there doesn't seem to be a Windows licence in there. You might already have one but it's often overlooked...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thats actually quite a solid build,although the AM3+ platform is almost EOL and the RAM will only be running in single channel.

This is what I have come up with,but it is around £900,but has a faster Core i5 6500 which is the reason for the higher cost. The monitor is slightly smaller but is an IPS FreeSync monitor and not a TN one.

The parts are from Ebuyer and Scan.





If you budget £30 to £40 for some headphones,and a keyboard and a mouse it should be around £900 in total.

[Bagnaj97]

Cat, you've put a DDR3 mobo and DDR4 ram in your build!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Cat, you've put a DDR3 mobo and DDR4 ram in your build!

Doh!! That teaches me to do multiple things at the same time.

This motherboard should do the job:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gig...usb-30-micro-a

[Jasp]

The windows license i already have so don't have to worry about that, the budget sadly cat is a rock solid £800 top end, as that's the amount of money i will be given. I picked the AM3+ build as the motherboard with free ram freed up money to spend elsewhere such as the GPU although it is older tech sadly. They have also asked for a 24" monitor lol.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The windows license i already have so don't have to worry about that, the budget sadly cat is a rock solid £800 top end, as that's the amount of money i will be given. I picked the AM3+ build as the motherboard with free ram freed up money to spend elsewhere such as the GPU although it is older tech sadly. They have also asked for a 24" monitor lol.

Thats the thing with that budget,you are making compromises with the CPU. The FX8300 will certainly do better in multi-threaded titles like Watch Dogs 2 but a Core i3 6100 would do better in games like ARMA 3 for example. The problem is a number of parts have started to go up in price due to all the exchange rate issues,so even a 10% drop in the pound on a £800 build easily nearly adds another £80 on top.

I think we need to do a bit of thinking outside of the box. Before CEX realises what is happening,I would look at this Haswell Core i5 4460 for around £90:

https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SCPUINTI54460A

It comes with a two year warranty IIRC. This B85 motherboard is £60:

http://www.ebuyer.com/507057-gigabyt...rd-ga-b85m-d3h

This Z97 motherboard can be used for overclocking if you plonk in a K series:

http://www.ebuyer.com/666711-asus-z9...herboard-z97-p

The CPU does not come with a cooler,but this one should be fine IMHO OFC since the CPU can't be overclocked:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/ante...ouch-technolog

You will need to get DDR3 RAM:

http://www.ebuyer.com/611848-corsair...gx3m2a2400c11r

So the Core i5 4460,B85 motherboard and DDR3 RAM should come to just over £200. That will save you around £100 on the build I suggested.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I rejigged the build a bit now.

From Scan:



£153 if you use Scan free postage.

From Amazon:



£274 including free postage.

From Ebuyer:



£295 including free postage.

From CEX:

https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SCPUINTI54460A

£90 including free postage.

The total comes to around £812 including postage.

It is possible to push it under that price,if you get this far more basic motherboard and this much slower RAM:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asrock-Gene...1&keywords=b85
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ballistix-P...words=8GB+DDR3

However,Haswell does seem to perform better with faster RAM AFAIK.

[DanceswithUnix]

I think the SSD is a luxury you cannot afford. It will get the machine booting a few seconds faster, but it isn't big enough to store many games on. Spending the money on CPU/GPU is something you will feel on every single frame of every single game, all the time. You can probably lose the DVD drive too, unless you are into retro games and insist on playing them from optical media rather than gog.com

They are also something you can add later if need be.

I like that the monitor has DisplayPort.

Edit: That FX8350 should have come with a Wraith cooler these days, so no urgency in getting an aftermarket cooler. Obsolete, but they do make it a good deal...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AFAIK,the FX8300 comes with an aluminium heatsink:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jU4Ua_GtCY

Interestingly enough it does seem when overclocked to 4.4GHZ it can hold its own against a Core i3 6100 overclocked to 4.4GHZ too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLkaNWo0EV0

Having said that I can see a modern Core i5 still doing better overall.

[Jasp]

Altered Build :

ViewSonic VX2457-mhd 24-Inch Gaming Monitor with FreeSync 1920 x 1080, 1 ms, VGA/HDMI/DisplayPort - Black - £109.99

Sumvision LED Gaming Keyboard LED Gaming Mouse Gaming Headset Headphone Gaming Mouse Mat Pad Kane Pro Edition 4 in 1 Chaos Pack Keyboard, Mouse, Headphone Headset and Mouse Mat Pad 4 in 1 Bundle - £30.99

Gigabyte GA-990X-GAMING SLI Socket AM3+ 7.1 Channel ATX Motherboard 746072 180 in stock £82.97 £82.97

(free accessory) HyperX Fury Series 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM Memory 633806 77 in stock £0.00 £0.00

Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro+ 8GB GDDR5 DVI-D HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 753949 17 in stock £189.98 £189.98

AMD FX-8350 with AMD Wraith Cooler FD8350FRHKHBX 759294 30 in stock £155.94 £155.94

Zalman Z9 Neo ATX Mid Tower Case 746004 2 in stock £54.99 £54.99

Corsair VS Series 550 Watt VS550 Power Supply 702009 66 in stock £41.49 £41.49

SK Hynix SL308 120GB Solid State Drive 766019 > 99 in stock £42.38 £42.38

1TB Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda 7200.14, SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8ms, NCQ, OEM - £43.74

Gigabyte 11ac Wireless PCIe Card with Bluetooth 4.2 - GC-WB867D-I - £29.99

Asus DRW-24D5MT DVD Re-Writer, x24, SATA, with M-DISC support, Tray Loading, Black OEM - £11.99

Total : £793.46

Changed the cooler, SSD, Case & PSU to get a 8350 in their with wrath cooler (totally forgot about this), really don't want to lose the SSD as its the single biggest thing they will notice, they also want to keep the DVD drive as its going in a living room.

Appreciate the assistance cat and looking at other options, the couple I'm building it for won't accept second hand their a little fussy like that, really like the case you picked out.

I haved looked at intel options mainly the 6100 but it can't match the 8350k in newer DX12 games, a build around a I5 sadly would be far more expensive.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The VS series are a bit crap,and I would look at that Seasonic PSU I suggested - I would get the FX8300 still:

https://www.cclonline.com/product/21...FUMTGwodGE8I0Q

For around £93 its a bargain. I would get this cooler:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/cool...1x-120-pwm-fan

The FX8300 has an unlocked multipler too,so I would suspect you should be able to get it to FX8350 speeds with the cooler I suggested.

Edit!!

Another PSU I would look at too,its less efficient but is modular:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CP-...ywords=cx+550w

That will drop the CPU and cooler down to £123. The better PSUs will be around £14 to £18 more. However,you would have saved another £15 or thereabouts over the FX8350. You should be able to fit this larger SSD into the build now:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SK-hynix-Ca...ords=hynix+ssd

At some point I would make sure I add another 8GB DIMM in the future,as the memory will run in dual channel and it will improve CPU performance.

[DanceswithUnix]

I still think the SSD is a luxury. If you drop it, you can get an RX480 instead, or it pays the Intel tax.

[scaryjim]

I still think the SSD is a luxury. If you drop it, you can get an RX480 instead, or it pays the Intel tax.

This. A 128GB SSD is pretty much pointless in a primary gaming machine. Drop that and you can push the GPU budget to £230 which should get you an 8GB RX 480 - that'll make a much bigger difference to the gaming experience. Or you could pick up a second 8GB RAM stick to get dual channel memory running, but personally I'd put the saving into the GPU.

[Jasp]

Cheers for the help guys, swapped a few bits round as per cats recommendations and ordered, hopefully it all arrives before Xmas.