£500 gaming PC with 22" monitor possible?

broona · 9 Jan 2011 at 11:52

Mate's asked me to look into building him a reasonable PC for £500 all in, is this possible?

I've done a quick spec, will add in a cheap student Win7 from elsewhere, comes to under £550, anyone do any better please (shouldn't be hard, lol!) :-

Darkpilgrim · 9 Jan 2011 at 12:30

Well if you don't get that bundle but get the same components it only comes to £118.21 so you save a few quid.
Also use the no VAT code "novatrise" and save a few more

broona · 9 Jan 2011 at 12:46

Darkpilgrim said:
Well if you don't get that bundle but get the same components it only comes to £118.21 so you save a few quid.
Also use the no VAT code "novatrise" and save a few more

Never noticed that, cheers!

Don't think he'll be buying it in the next couple of days, so the VAT code will be out of date by the time he wants it unfortunately.

Try again :-

Darkpilgrim · 9 Jan 2011 at 13:20

Maybe with the money saved bump up to a quad Clicky

Greavesy · 9 Jan 2011 at 13:27

+1 for the quad, I would also recommend that you switch the PSU out for one of the Corsair builder series, more reliable ona budget

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Jan 2011 at 13:32

The motherboard won't run the HT at full speed. At least get this motherboard:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-300-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1481

If you want to overclock then this is the cheapest motherboard I would go for:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-034-AK&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1481

I would also get this processor:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-269-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=803

If you are lucky you could probably unlock it to a triple or quad core.

I would also get one of these PSUs over the Corsair CX series:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-146-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-045-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

broona · 9 Jan 2011 at 13:44

Thanks for the replies, how's this look please :-

Darkpilgrim · 9 Jan 2011 at 14:31

Looks good to me,didn't save any money but it's a lot better build for it

broona · 9 Jan 2011 at 19:23

Right, final spec, Asrock board's out of stock, and I'm ordering tomorrow, any opinions please :-

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Jan 2011 at 19:30

Get the OCZ PSU instead of the CX500W. The new CX series is built as cheaply as possible. The OCZ StealthXStream PSUs can actually supply their rated wattage at high temperatures. The OCZ StealthXStream 500W can also supply more amps on the 12V line than the CX500W. Also the CX500W uses a cheap sleeve bearing fan whereas the OCZ StealthXStream uses a ball bearing fan which will last longer.

broona · 9 Jan 2011 at 19:34

Thanks, swapped the PSU's round half a dozen times now, lol!

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Jan 2011 at 19:42

This motherboard has more PCI slots:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-244-GI&tool=3

It also uses all solid capacitors too.

broona · 9 Jan 2011 at 20:05

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
This motherboard has more PCI slots:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-244-GI&tool=3

It also uses all solid capacitors too.

Thank you, but no PCI or PCI-E 1x slots are required, and as far as I can tell, they both use solid capacitors, I'll look into them both though.