PC/PARTS for £350 - Possible or Impossible?

CrixxzeH · 28 Mar 2011 at 07:46

Hey everyone at overclockers,...
so, my freind wanting to buy a computer to run quite speedy and mild gaming, instead of buying sum cruddy 2h.
I have only come up with this option so far, could any any one give me some pointers in the right direction to increase performance,..again if POSSIBLE?

[1] - OcUK GeForce GTS 450 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
[2] - Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel
[3] - Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6700 "LGA775 Core 2" 3.20GH z
[4] - "Primo Horizon" Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad DDR2 Ready Barebone
[5] - Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache
[6] - Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter
Alltogether, the builds comes to £353.54p witch is ideal in my thought.
the 'Primo Horizon' specs are - >System Specification
- Case: OcUK EZCool NA-705 microATX case - Black
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L Intel G41 (Socket 775) DDR2 microATX
- Power Supply: OcUK Value 500W PSU

so please overclockers peoples, could you please strenghen my build,... if possible?
much thanks, CrixxzeH.

Frozennova · 28 Mar 2011 at 07:54

A gaming machine is going to difficult on that budget, look at an AM3 rig as DDR3 is cheaper than DDR2 and try and get him to increase his budget by £50 or so to get a reputable brand psu as the value one supplied with that bundle won't be great for gaming. Pretty sure the one I used didnt have a PCIE connector for a start.

pastymuncher · 28 Mar 2011 at 08:46

You have made two mistakes there.

The first is going down the socket 775 route. This socket is dead and should be avoided in new builds.

The biggest is the psu. Do not buy a cheap and nasty piece of crap. There is no excuse these days with good psu's costing as little as £41 (OCZ StealthxStream ll 500w). The psu is the single most important component in a pc and is not the place to try to save money. That bundle is cheap because it uses the cheapest components they can find.

Your best bet would be to go down the AMD route or build it out of second hand parts.

SparkyG · 28 Mar 2011 at 09:19

Definately drop the mobo as its old tech now....

AM3 is your best option

pinkpotato · 28 Mar 2011 at 12:42

Go for an amd quad not old school intel imo

Cookeh · 28 Mar 2011 at 13:40

Meh, £10 over but it's a very good build for the price. HD5850 is a very strong performing card and the Athlon can be unlocked to an quad/L3 cache (Not guaranteed by any means, however) - even if it doesn't unlock the X3 will still run pretty much all games out there easily.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 445 3.10GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £56.99
1 x Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £49.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUK) £35.99
1 x OCZ Intel Extreme XMP 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C7 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit (OCZ3X1333LV4GK) £33.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £29.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.60
Total : £359.53 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Redmint · 28 Mar 2011 at 14:09

Decent build suggestion from Cookeh, I'd go with that tbh, quite a fast gaming rig for £360.

CrixxzeH · 28 Mar 2011 at 16:11

ahhh,... i understand now.
after using these comments i have brought it too a conclusion.
the build i first started off WAS cruddy.
but as many people have suggested getting second hand parts... just have to find out where from... :O
AND \thankyou for all the feedback guys, especialy cookie i will take that build in my stride as it is roughly £10 over not including DVD+R.
Thanks for the replys dude, mutch apreciation.

Cookeh · 28 Mar 2011 at 16:30

Oops, sorry about the drive - always assume people have one lying around in current PCs to reuse

olivier renault · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:07

THere is a deal on the 5830, which leaves £15 off Cookeh's build for a optical drive.

CrixxzeH · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:19

ahhh, thanks dude.
and no problem dude problem sorted.. going to just get 2h hopefully.
leaves space for 5850 xD

Cookeh · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:25

olivier renault said:
THere is a deal on the 5830, which leaves £15 off Cookeh's build for a optical drive.

There's that as well!

Although, based on this, I'd try and re-use an optical drive

Liquid · 29 Mar 2011 at 04:33

Cookeh said:
Meh, £10 over but it's a very good build for the price. HD5850 is a very strong performing card and the Athlon can be unlocked to an quad/L3 cache (Not guaranteed by any means, however) - even if it doesn't unlock the X3 will still run pretty much all games out there easily.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 445 3.10GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £56.99
1 x Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £49.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUK) £35.99
1 x OCZ Intel Extreme XMP 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C7 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit (OCZ3X1333LV4GK) £33.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £29.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.60
Total : £359.53 (includes shipping : £12.50).

banging selection for the dollar fella

Bz786 · 3 Apr 2011 at 00:30

Cookeh said:
Meh, £10 over but it's a very good build for the price. HD5850 is a very strong performing card and the Athlon can be unlocked to an quad/L3 cache (Not guaranteed by any means, however) - even if it doesn't unlock the X3 will still run pretty much all games out there easily.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 445 3.10GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £56.99
1 x Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £49.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUK) £35.99
1 x OCZ Intel Extreme XMP 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C7 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit (OCZ3X1333LV4GK) £33.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £29.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.60
Total : £359.53 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Corsair 430w CX with 28 Amps on the 12v rail would handle a 5850 ..... ?

olivier renault · 3 Apr 2011 at 01:55

stretch to a Be Quiet L7 530W.

stulid · 3 Apr 2011 at 01:57

Bz786 said:
Corsair 430w CX with 28 Amps on the 12v rail would handle a 5850 ..... ?

Yes it will, but will need the use of a molex to pci-e adapter that will be supplied with the card as the PSU only has a single 6pin.

coupe69 · 3 Apr 2011 at 03:43

Presumably you've got keyboard, mouse, monitor, OS, and speakers/headphones?

SouthEastBlue · 3 Apr 2011 at 07:54

A mixture of 2nd hand and new items is probably your best bet here.

I would probably buy the graphics card, power supply, ram and motherboard new though, but look for a used bargain on the CPU, grab a cheap used hard drive (to get you up and running at least), you could probably find a cheap decent case too that's been used or bought by somebody but hardly used. Depends if you can be bothered to do a bit of searching, but you could probably get a quad core Phenom II setup with some patience and a good look on auction/forum trading areas.