Please help spec me a ~£600 matx gaming rig

LewLewB

LewLewB

LewLewB

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28 Feb 2011
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17
As my 4 years old desktop is dead now i need a new desktop for gaming :), but I've not been into hardware these days and all those components just confuse me now :(
Basically i'd like a decent gaming rig thats relatively portable (i'm at uni so when i go back home for summer or when i go on placements next year i can put it in the suitcase or massive backpack to carry it)
For the performance i'm looking to play like Portal 2, Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls 5 on medium high when they come out.

Also i dont need hard drive (got a spare one) and windows (still got my win7 copy from my desktop).

So any help will be appreciated!! :D

(P.S. on the other hand i dont know if i can get any decent gaming laptop if i stretch my budget to around £800? )
 
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Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £213.59
(£177.99) £213.59
(£177.99)
Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £154.99
(£129.16) £154.99
(£129.16)
MSI H67MA-E45 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
XFX Pro 650W Core Edition Power Supply £68.99
(£57.49) £68.99
(£57.49)
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Ultra Low Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600C9ELV4GK) £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)
Coolermaster Elite 342 Case - Black £24.98
(£20.82) £24.98
(£20.82)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/775/1155/1156/1366) £20.99
(£17.49) £20.99
(£17.49)
OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
(£9.99) £11.99
(£9.99)
Sub Total : £504.59
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £103.27
Total : £619.61

£20 over bugdet but it does have a much better gpu which can be flashed to a 6970 to make it even faster . I'd imagine this set up would play the games you want on high .
 
thanks Lemin and smiley1987,
in terms of budget i'm happy to stretch it a little bit (just that i will get cheaper gaming mouse etc)

for Lemin's build, does it actually make a big difference with that motherboard compare to the ~£90 boards? i think i could get a cheaper board and perhaps get the MSI GTX460 cyclone ?

smiley1987: it looks pretty promising for the price, but i've heard like ATI's drivers are quite horrible for gaming ? (i'm not sure if thats true), but for gaming i see a lot of games i'm interested in are like optimised for Nvidia..

so if i say i push it to £650 does it make things a lot better O-o?
 
LewLewB said:
:eek: didn't knows theres such a big gap, so 6950 can pretty much play crysis on high smoothly!?

is it worth it if i get the i5 2500k??
Click to expand...

Yeah i think it is worth spending the extra bit of cash as the i5 2500k has an unlocked multiplier for easy over clocking . Oh if your an nvidia fan this on special and it performs slightly better but it uses a lot more power and it runs hotter : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-222-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750
 
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smiley1987 said:
Yeah i think it is worth spending the extra bit of cash as the i5 2500k has an unlocked multiplier for easy over clocking . Oh if your an nvidia fan this on special and it performs slightly better but it uses a lot more power and it runs hotter : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-222-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750
Click to expand...

480 and 6950/70 are on par with each other both in different aspects of their own. OP's best bet is to look at a few benches and compare the two to see which one performs best in games he is most likely to play.
 
Rexton said:
480 and 6950/70 are on par with each other both in different aspects of their own. OP's best bet is to look at a few benches and compare the two to see which one performs best in games he is most likely to play.
Click to expand...

Or look at the power consumption and make your mind up very fast (well as long as you pay for your electricity...)
 
ahhh thanks guys!!
I think i will go for 6950, 480 looks too hot for the elite 342 case and my room is always kind of quite warm already (despite 480 does perform better in most games that i'm interested in)

another thing.. if i go for i5, just found out they say like there are potential issues on the sandy bridge boards? does it really have an effect or not? seems like they replacing it all in america : /
 
Fernick said:
Hehe awesome dude... enjoy! :P

What motherboard did you for in the end? Just don't use ports 2-5 and you'll be fine :D
Click to expand...

I went for the MSI H67MA-E45 suggested by Smiley :)

I think the elite 342 is pretty portable (altough not as portable as those silverstone ones), i think i will manage to stuff it in my suitcase or moutain backpack.

another quick question :p
actually i'm so tempted to throw in a SSD for the OS, like 40 / 60gb, is it possible to get a decent one under £80? i dont know about SSDs' performance at all :(
 
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