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Total price £350 spec me a gaming machine!

opethdisciple

opethdisciple

opethdisciple

Soldato
Joined
18 May 2010
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Freind wants to buy a computer to game on.

This is what they'v put togther so far for £337


* 4GB 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Memory Kit
* LG GH22NS50 22x DVDRW
* AMD Athlon II X4 (630) 2.8GHz Processor
* 1.5TB Samsung SpinPoint EcoGreen F2 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
* Asus M4A78-EM AM3 Motherboard
* Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5570 1GB


Thing is that this person is not really bothered about dx11 best graphics etc...

It just that their current machine is at least 10 years old now and is in a really bad condition.

I was thinking of saying he should get a better cpu, maybe a corei3 so that he could invest on a better gpu, as the 5570 isnt great from benchmarks Iv looked at.

Any thoughts?
 
opethdisciple said:
I was thinking of saying he should get a better cpu, maybe a corei3 so that he could invest on a better gpu, as the 5570 isnt great from benchmarks Iv looked at.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
It wouldn't be possible for going i3 with that tight budget (not with a decent new gaming graphic card). Athlon II X2 is probably the only option he got.

Also there's no reason to go DDR2 memory platform over DDR3, considering the DDR2 memory are as expensive as DDR3 memory now. Get a budget AM3 board that use DDR3 memory such as the following:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-128-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1481

And get some low price DDR3 rams. Graphic card wise, he will get a better card if he's willing to look at 2nd hands...8800GT/9800GT around £35, 9800GTX+/GTS250/HD6850 around £40...all will be much faster than the 5570. But if he really don't want 2nd hand, then he'd probably have to look at a 9800GT 512MB at around £65, or 5750 1GB at around £80~£90.
 
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Just get 780/785G / 8xxG chipset motherboard with onboard 42xx GPU.
No point spending 50-60quid on a GPU which is just a replacement for onboard and not much better. If your friend doesn't want to play latest games then he'll be fine with onboard.

That CPU is alright but if you want to save few pennies you could get the x3 445 from elsewhere at just 56inc del.

DDR3 is now cheaper than DDR2 so don't bother with DDR2, just grab 4GB of the nice C7 patriot that's on offer now for just over 60quid.

I'd also suggest 1TB samsung f4 over that hdd if it's going to be your main drive. You can add additional storage later on if you need it.
 
I wouldn't game on anything less then a core i5 760 and a 460gtx the whole point of PC gaming is to run nice res and high frame rate or he might as well buy a ps3.
 
I put a system together for £550 recently with 1 gig 460 gtx and a core i5 760 @ 4Ghz sometimes spending more is the best option in the long run he could basically put a 580GTX in this machine and Boom one of the fastest gaming pc on the planet.

Spend alittle get alittle
Spend moderate get a lot
Spend loads get little over the former..

It's all about finding the Sweet point for current hardware and leaving your upgrade options open for future.
 
jorzeh said:
I put a system together for £550 recently with 1 gig 460 gtx and a core i5 760 @ 4Ghz sometimes spending more is the best option in the long run he could basically put a 580GTX in this machine and Boom one of the fastest gaming pc on the planet.

Spend alittle get alittle
Spend moderate get a lot
Spend loads get little over the former..

It's all about finding the Sweet point for current hardware and leaving your upgrade options open for future.
Click to expand...

Regarding the GPU bit, fine.
Regarding the CPU part, you'll be very suprised at the fact that nearly every single game available up to date will run just as fine on a 50quid CPU as on your i5 or i7 ;-).

Also if you even read the OP, it's not even going to be a gaming machine.


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Considering that your friend hasnt upgraded in ages, I'd strongly consider the x3 with the following bits:

X3 445 = 56GBP
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-278-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

70GBP

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-041-PA

63GBP

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279

40GBP

---------------------------------------------------
Total = 229GBP

Now this has no GPU but I'd give it a try first and see if your friend needs one. If he doesn't want to play the newest games then the onboard will be just fine, if he however decides to play some I'd recommend depending on his monitor res either a 2nd hand 4870 / gtx 260 for pennies or the 460/5770 depending on what prices you can get them for ( or whatever else is available at that moment ).

You can also find already a 2nd hand 460s and 5770s at decent prices (5770 around 70-75, 460 around 90-100 ).
 
No it doesn't i had a E5200 @ 3.8Ghz which bottlenecked my 4870x2 just you can't tell the differance if you don't know any better, 90% of people on ocuk forums said i should not get a bottleneck with the heavy overclock i had but when i upgraded i saw over 3 times the fps on all my games.
 
 
Hmm well I found my friend a cheap all in on, case and psu.

Was thinkig I could give him my 3870x2. But then it occured to me that the psu, might not have the pci-e power connectors.

Can you get molex to pci-e six and eight pin converters?

Also 3870x2 vs 5770 for raw performance?
 
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