Ultimate gaming build £650 budget

jamesy505 · 24 Mar 2011 at 08:42

Following on from my previous thread, I've decided build my own pc is the way forward, even if all I've ever done is add some RAM

everyone says it is easy so how hard can it be for a computer illiterate person like me?

My new budget is £650 and I need all components except monitor, keyboard, mouse. My monitor is an ACER X233H but may be able to upgrade in few months so don't want GPU limited to the monitor res.

OS also needed.

And thanks to those who offered advice on my budget thread. Again, much appreciated.

Anyone able to spec me the ultimate gaming rig for £650?

Many thanks

ewarwoowar · 24 Mar 2011 at 09:06

You could build a game rig for that, but "ultimate" You're going to want to spend more

jamesy505 · 24 Mar 2011 at 09:28

I'm planning to build, as the pre built rigs when updating GPU and adding windows seems to take the value to around £650 but I am nit sure I couldnt get better with building myself.

What I meant by Ultimate was the best possible components for £650 to give me the best rig possible

[WU-TANG]GZA · 24 Mar 2011 at 09:44

XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
(£166.66) £199.99
(£166.66)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £173.99
(£144.99) £173.99
(£144.99)
Gigabyte P67A-UD3 Intel P67 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £96.38
(£80.32) £96.38
(£80.32)
OCZ StealthXStream 2 600W Power Supply £50.99
(£42.49) £50.99
(£42.49)
Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)
G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £17.99
(£14.99) £17.99
(£14.99)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.66) £13.99
(£11.66)
Sub Total : £564.41
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £115.13
Total : £690.79

The 5870 is a great card (with 20% off also). There is no OS included in my spec but it's just too tight with the kind of requirements you are after (in terms of getting a gfx card that will allow you to upgrade your monitor in the future)

If you cannot get an OS elsewhere and are sticking to £650 - AMD route will have to be done which would look something like this:

XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
(£166.66) £199.99
(£166.66)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £95.99
(£79.99) £95.99
(£79.99)
Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £88.99
(£74.16) £88.99
(£74.16)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
OCZ StealthXStream 2 600W Power Supply £50.99
(£42.49) £50.99
(£42.49)
Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)
G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £17.99
(£14.99) £17.99
(£14.99)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.66) £13.99
(£11.66)
Sub Total : £559.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £114.23
Total : £685.39

Again 5870 20% dsicount needs to be applied.

Reaper 392 · 24 Mar 2011 at 10:53

*edit*
only just realised about this 20% off the 5870 deal. it also performs nearly as well as the 6950 that i recommended before the edit
voucher code: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18255771
comparison of the 5870 flashed to a 6950 i recommended previously: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/294?vs=293

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
(£166.66) £199.99
(£166.66)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £95.99
(£79.99) £95.99
(£79.99)
Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
(£57.00) £68.40
(£57.00)
Options applied to the above product:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
(£27.49) £32.99
(£27.49)
Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case - Black £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
XFX Pro 550W Core Edition Power Supply £50.99
(£42.49) £50.99
(£42.49)
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £38.99
(£32.49) £38.99
(£32.49)
Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.66) £13.99
(£11.66)
Sub Total : £546.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £111.88
Total : £671.30

with the 20% off voucher, this should be ~£631.30

notes:
- didnt know what case you wanted, so i got the HAF912
- im 99% sure that a 550W PSU is fine, but you might want to check that out
- make sure the processor fan fits over the ram. the ram will be going into the two furthest away slots on this mobo (the overclocking slots)

jamesy505 · 24 Mar 2011 at 13:26

Is there a huge performance increase choosing Intel over AMD? I know AMD appear to be the cheaper choice, but frankly im clueless to all this overwhelming tech chat :-)

jamesy505 · 24 Mar 2011 at 13:30

[QUOTE='[WU-TANG]There is no OS included in my spec but it's just too tight with the kind of requirements you are after (in terms of getting a gfx card that will allow you to upgrade your monitor in the future)[/QUOTE]

If I wasnt too bothered about upgrading the monitor in future how would the spec change?

Alasdairhurst · 24 Mar 2011 at 14:11

Even though the 5870 has 20% off, its still probably better going for a rev1 6950, as it can be unlocked to a 6970, it has 2gb of memory (plays better on higher resolutions/more AA, performs better in crossfire, and better tesselation

.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 24 Mar 2011 at 14:26

Alasdairhurst said:
Even though the 5870 has 20% off, its still probably better going for a rev1 6950, as it can be unlocked to a 6970, it has 2gb of memory (plays better on higher resolutions/more AA, performs better in crossfire, and better tesselation .

Whilst the 6950 is of course better it's £60 more which is nearly 10% of the total budget. This means that other components will suffer but the sake of a few FPS.

GFX card is the easiest thing to change in a build so the OP can get a 5870 now and upgrade gfx card in like a year or so to something else with no hassle whatsoever.

Compromising on CPU, Mobo or PSU is totally not worth it imo.

to OP: your monitor is already 1080 monitor right? Yes if you're planning to upgrade to 2560 x 1440 or something then yes the 6950 2GB will do MUCH MUCH better than the 5870 but we need to know if you are planning to upgrade your monitor and if so, what to and when (roughly).

chrisarm · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:05

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-194-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Here is a 6950 for only £179.99 it's only a 1gb version but is still worth a look

jamesy505 · 24 Mar 2011 at 15:08

[WU-TANG]GZA;18741806 said:
Whilst the 6950 is of course better it's £60 more which is nearly 10% of the total budget. This means that other components will suffer but the sake of a few FPS.

GFX card is the easiest thing to change in a build so the OP can get a 5870 now and upgrade gfx card in like a year or so to something else with no hassle whatsoever.

Compromising on CPU, Mobo or PSU is totally not worth it imo.

to OP: your monitor is already 1080 monitor right? Yes if you're planning to upgrade to 2560 x 1440 or something then yes the 6950 2GB will do MUCH MUCH better than the 5870 but we need to know if you are planning to upgrade your monitor and if so, what to and when (roughly).

No real plans to upgrade the monitor at this time, so dont have any idea when and to what.

I thought I had read that my monitor displays 1920x1280 (or 1024) as max resolution so the GFX recommended on an earlier post was the std GTX 430 if I recall.

The reason I was thinking of something more powerful was more to do with future proofing rather than current display. If that makes sense?

triggerthat · 26 Mar 2011 at 09:01

XFX ATI Radeon 6950 XXX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
(£149.99) £179.99
(£149.99)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £173.99
(£144.99) £173.99
(£144.99)
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £90.00
(£75.00) £90.00
(£75.00)
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) £53.99
(£44.99) £53.99
(£44.99)
Sub Total : £473.29
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £96.66
Total : £579.95

Shayper · 26 Mar 2011 at 09:13

Any of these builds but with 5830 Xfire, costs about as much as the 5870, and a fair bit faster

hybrid572 · 26 Mar 2011 at 10:22

Cheaper than the above builds, still equipped with over-the-top graphics, with Corsair RAM and a more reliable PSU:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £173.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £90.00
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition Power Supply £50.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £39.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
1 x Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black £29.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £17.99
1 x Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £655.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).