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New budget rig (Graphics card choice)

paradilly

paradilly

paradilly

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Joined
6 Dec 2008
Posts
23
Hi All,

Im looking to get a new gaming rig but on an extremely tight budget (£450??)

I play games but dont plan to run the most demanding games.

Im planning on getting one of these,

No competitor links

edit > whoops, forgot about the rules on competitor links :o

If only for the reason its the cheapest PC with a 16x PCIX slot. Of course reliability is the key here over performance.

Any comments? (p.s. I realise I could build my own which I did last time but for two reasons, a) I need an OS so after Ive factored in that it is a large chunk of the price b) I dont want the hassle of narrowing down blue screens if :rolleyes: they occur)

Secondly, could you great, clever people recommend the best card to go with for this rig (i.e. £90-100 tops), bought from OCUK of course.

Thanks VERY much in advance for any replies.
 
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Well the way I figure,

£120 for windows 7,
£40 for a psu,
£50 for a case
£10 Keyboard
£10 Mouse

so that leaves me about £140 for CPU, mobo, ram, dvd drives along with as stated a "blue screen" warranty if needed. I figure Id get a similar spec but with the added peace of mind with the warranty.....

What do you think?

Also, any comments on the graphics card?

Thanks,
 
You don't need Windows 7 Professional for gaming. Unless you have a specific need for it get Home and save £50. This is a reasonable starter spec:
basketz.png

£60 more, but much better spec and better quality components (not so much the mobo, but it's at least as good as the cheapo one in the HP I would think). If you want to shave more off the budget shop around and/or get some of the components second hand (RAM is a good candidate for this).

The one you linked to doesn't include a mouse or keyboard btw.

GPU wise this 5770 is a good deal IMO:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-122-HT&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1515
Spending less than that and I'd be tempted to get 2nd hand really.
 
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Baboonanza said:
You don't need Windows 7 Professional for gaming. Unless you have a specific need for it get Home and save £50. This is a reasonable starter spec:
baskett.png

£70 more, but much better spec and better quality components (not so much the mobo, but it's at least as good as the cheapo one in the HP I would think). If you want to shave more off the budget shop around and/or get some of the components second hand (RAM is a good candidate for this). You could maybe save a little by gettting a slightly lower power (but not lower quality!) PSU, I think 400W should still do it.
Click to expand...
One problem with your suggested build...no gaming graphic card :o His £450 budget need to include the cost of graphic card, not just the bare system.
 
I know :) If you replace the X4 with the X2 250 and the 4GB with 2GB it's more-or-less the same (and I updated the original to shave a little more off the price). I personally think it's a big jump in spec for a small bump in cost though, 2GB RAM and the X2 250 is going to show it's age pretty fast.
 
83757870.png


1. Post up till you get free deliver (100 posts I believe)
2. Buy the above (could get away with £5 less if you get Palit instead of Asus 460)
3. Sell HAWX 2 (crappy game)
4. ???
5. PROFIT

EDIT: forgot the case, get any :p
 
paradilly said:
Well the way I figure,

£120 for windows 7,
£40 for a psu,
£50 for a case
£10 Keyboard
£10 Mouse

so that leaves me about £140 for CPU, mobo, ram, dvd drives along with as stated a "blue screen" warranty if needed. I figure Id get a similar spec but with the added peace of mind with the warranty.....
Click to expand...

All you will ever get from 1st year hardware support warranty is a reminder to update drivers, reminder that its worth trying Windows system restore. And then they will ask you to put in the factory settings disk.

Beyond that, yes it is their job to decide which physical part is faulty and replace it. But you get next to _NO_ software support. If you feel you cant diagnose which piece of hardware is faulty, fine. OEM machines are actually good for this. But you will never move on from them.

It is a risk if you have no existing spare parts of your own and/or friend willing to test parts. Full retail license as you say costs quite a bit. Slight risk on the bay of ees getting conned, but not much, and full retail sealed box will be about £80. I recommend buying a second hand machine that comes with an OS to get you going.

Anyway. That machine you linked too is not ideal. Only has a 300W power supply. Probably not the greatest one either. Rather limits you to the £75-80 class of cards like the 5750.
 
Here's what I think, OP.

The rig you initially suggested in your op had a 300w psu of unknown quality (12v amps???) no matter who made the total rig.

Now if you are going to stick any half decent gaming gcard in that you are a very, very brave chap indeed.
 
Spending £80 on OEM Windows is a bit of a waste as you technically cant move it onto a new motherboard. You would have to sell it with the motherboard.

Better off finding an OEM with a befier power supply. £20 cases are dismal. OEM machines actually have a 2nd hand value in your local paper/city forum/workplace and are more popular as hand me downs to family members.
 
thanks very much for all the replies. Seems OC is just as good now as it was three years ago when I used to lurk.... Great community! :D

Its not that Im opposed to building my rig as I did it last time I got a PC, its just that Im the only person I know who runs a top end PC so borrowing parts if the worst (BSOD) did happen would be tricky and greatly frustrate me (especially if it was a new box).

@bru. - that does look very interesting, I kind of get the same spec as if id built but effectively with better spec and better quality components. It looks like I may just go with that and save £20 to boot. Ill have to ask OC if it supports double height graphics cards now :) I assume it will.

On to the graphics card then.... what do you guys think?

Thanks again!
 
Marine-RX179 said:
I would say get a GTX460 768MB for around £120. For £20 more, it offer much more performance than cards at around £100 such as 5770 and GTS450.
Click to expand...

Definitely. I know people have a budget in mind that they want to stick to but the extra layout for a 460 over a 5770 is small but very much worth it
 
Thanks very much for the update and your continued patience.

Forgive me for being stupid but the specs on the 5770 look much better than the specs on the GTX460

5770
- Core Clock: 850MHz
- Memory: 1024MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 4800MHz (Effective)
- Memory Bandwidth: 76.8GB/s
- Processing Cores: 800
- Bus Type: PCI-Express 2.1
- Display Connectors: 1 Dual-Link DVI-I, 1 HDMI & 1 DisplayPort
- HDCP Capable
- DirectX 11 Support
- OpenGL 3.2 Support
- ATI CrossFireX Ready
- ATI Eyefinity Technology
- ATI Avivo HD
- ATI Stream Technology
- Warranty: 2 Year


GTX460
- Exclusive Voltage Tweak Technology
- Core Clock: 700MHz
- Memory: 768MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 3680MHz (Effective)
- Memory Interface: 192-Bit
- Processing Cores: 336
- Shader Clock: 1400MHz
- Bus Type: PCI-Express 2.0
- Display Connectors: 2x Dual-Link DVI-I & 1x Mini-HDMI 1.4a
- SLI Ready
- HDCP Capable
- DirectX 11 Support
- OpenGL 4.0 Support
- PhysX Enabled
- CUDA Enabled
- Warranty: 3 Years


I obviously assume the benchamrks are much better but how come the GTX460 is so much better when the spec appears worse?

Thanks again.
 
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