Very much out of the loop, spec me a gaming system £450ish.

Ahleckz

Ahleckz

Ahleckz

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Hello!

After a fluky evening in the casino, I have £450-£500 to spend on a new computer. Just need a tower.

I want to play the latest game, at a half decent framerate on a 17" screen (will upgrade that next time I win!).

I have no preferences regarding manufacturers or anything like that and won't be OC'ing.

Was kind of hoping to pick up a 2nd hand HDD from the Members Market to save a few quid too or is this a bad idea?

Cheers!
 
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Phenom II X2 545 - £65
ASRock M3A770DE - £50
Patrtiot G Series Sector 5 4GB - £80
Samsung F3 500GB (or similar) - £35
Pioneer DVR-S18L - £20
Coolermaster TX3 - £15
xClio Propeller (or similar) - £30
Be Quiet 530W Pure Power - £45
5750/5770 (of your choice) - £120ish
 
Superewza said:
Phenom II X2 545 - £65
ASRock M3A770DE - £50
Patrtiot G Series Sector 5 4GB - £80
Samsung F3 500GB (or similar) - £35
Pioneer DVR-S18L - £20
Coolermaster TX3 - £15
xClio Propeller (or similar) - £30
Be Quiet 530W Pure Power - £45
5750/5770 (of your choice) - £120ish
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I'd swap for 555BE instead and 785 chipset mobo if possible, save the money on cooler as these things are super cool and will do 3.8 on stock cooling by just changing the multi.
 
PhoenixUK said:
I'd swap for 555BE instead and 785 chipset mobo if possible, save the money on cooler as these things are super cool and will do 3.8 on stock cooling by just changing the multi.
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That was the plan but the 555 is around £80 which is a fair bit more than the 545 for much the same performance. They already said they aren't clocking so i chose the TX3 over stock for the noise and great temperature improvements that help it to last longer.

I wouldn't get a 785 board if you're using dedicated graphics, no point and it's just added power and heat.
 
Bit better OC headroom on the 785 and the temps are actually lower too due to better cooling on the 785 : ). power concumption is lower too, you don't have to use integrated GPU but it's nice to have just in case and could get him going untill he finds decent 2nd hand deal.

Cooler isn't needed unless they want it silent since those things are super super cool : ).

If he wants to save on CPU, i'd go with x3 435, cheaper than 545 and similar or better performance.
 
if your only playing on a 17" screen you could get a 9800gt or hd 4850 to save about £40 and games would still be very playable at 1440 x 900 or 1280 x 1024 (your probable res's on that size of screen).
 
chipps101 said:
if your only playing on a 17" screen you could get a 9800gt or hd 4850 to save about £40 and games would still be very playable at 1440 x 900 or 1280 x 1024 (your probable res's on that size of screen).
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Yeah but he's going to buy a better screen next time he goes to the casino.
 
Yes it's been mathematically proven that if you go to the casino for a sufficiently large period of time, you will lose money.

But it's chance and luck. You could win 500 times in a row or lose 500 times in a row. I'm guessing he only gambles with extra money (which he would be better off just saving), but eventually he'll hit a winning streak. (And a losing streak)
 
What's the difference between the 545 and the 550? As far as I can tell the 550 is faster, and a quid cheaper and a better cache...

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core 9850 2.50GHz Black Edition (Socket AM2)
Corsair Dominator 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 XMS2 PC2-8500C5 TwinX Dual Channel
OCZ StealthXStream 600w Ready Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Gigabyte GA-M52L-S3P nForce 520LE (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Coolermaster Elite 335 Case
Samsung SH-D162D/BEBE IDE DVD-ROM

That's what I came up with, for £452.
 
Also if you want to play the "latest" games you are going to need at least 4GB of RAM, not 2GB. Also depends what you mean by "latest". If for instance you wish to play BFBC2 at decent settings at a decent frame rate that system simply won't cut it I'm afraid :(.
 
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you'll be able to manage pretty decent settings on that, mid/high settings in most games
 
i3 530
Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770
Patrtiot G Series Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w
Coolermaster Elite 360
Sony Optiarc DDU-1681S
£473
plus hdd

I made a system with the same components but with an ac freezer 7 pro v2 on it and OCd the i3 to 4GHz easily (ram back up to stock too). runs dawn of war 2 stress test on full at 50fps average 1920x1080 res.
the mobo supports xfire and the psu has enough spare juice; in a while u can slap in another 5770 and it will be ab absolute beast

i3 cpus are excellent, if not take a look at an i5. phenoms are all well and good but i think i5/i3 is where it is at now
 
It is funny how people seem to not be able to read the OP as it says there will be no overclocking involved.

Here is a comparison of the Phenom II x2 550BE and the Athlon II X3 440:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=97&p2=119&c=1

This is what I would look at getting:

Phenom II X2 550 C3 ~ £66

This is the HDX550WFGIBOX version which does not have an unlocked multiplier.

OR

Athlon II X3 440 ~ £66

MSI 770-C45 AM3 ~ £49

Crucial 4GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ~ £80

Be Quiet 530W Pure Power PSU ~ £44

Samsung F3 500GB ~ £43

LiteOn IHAS124-19 ~ £14

ASUS HD 5770 Cu Core 1GB GDDR5 ~ £122

Coolermaster Elite 334 ~ £25

The total comes to around £443.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It is funny how people seem to not be able to read the OP as it says there will be no overclocking involved.

Here is a comparison of the Phenom II x2 550BE and the Athlon II X3 440:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=97&p2=119&c=1

This is what I would look at getting:

Phenom II X2 550 C3 ~ £66

This is the HDX550WFGIBOX version which does not have an unlocked multiplier.

OR

Athlon II X3 440 ~ £66

MSI 770-C45 AM3 ~ £49

Crucial 4GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ~ £80

Be Quiet 530W Pure Power PSU ~ £44

Samsung F3 500GB ~ £43

LiteOn IHAS124-19 ~ £14

ASUS HD 5770 Cu Core 1GB GDDR5 ~ £122

Coolermaster Elite 334 ~ £25

The total comes to around £443.
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i'd say the x3 the extra core would be handy in some newer games
 
So the age old debate continues, AMD or Intel? I had a look at i5, but I don't want to be spending that much money really, it also appears to me that the motherboards for i3 are a lot more expensive compared to the AMDs.

I was also under the impression that I would need quad core, but would dual be sufficient for my needs atm? Guess the X3 is the compromise processor eh?

VortX said:
Also if you want to play the "latest" games you are going to need at least 4GB of RAM, not 2GB. Also depends what you mean by "latest". If for instance you wish to play BFBC2 at decent settings at a decent frame rate that system simply won't cut it I'm afraid :(.
Click to expand...

As regards to that, when I say latest games at a decent framerate I'm not expecting rates of 100fps odd. At the moment, I only really play CS:S on my laptop where I get 30fps tops in a firefight, and some maps (cs_militia for example) it's closer to 15. Any sort of improvement on this for the latest games would be fantastic and would impress me no end. As said, I'm only planning on playing on a 17" Dell TFT but would prefer to be spending more money on a GFX Card now than a faster CPU.
 
Should I be looking to go to £500 - £550 to get a good compromise between value and performance? Is £450 just a little bit too little nowadays? I don't really have any problems hitting the £550 mark if it will really be worth it.
 
Everyone always says 'buy the best upgrade you can afford' so if you can afford £550 then yes it makes sense to have that as your budget. At that amount you should be able to fit a Phenom II X3/X4 in which are pretty nice chips (and maybe a slightly better case for improved cooling).
 
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