Best gaming PC for £800

MisfiTTTTT

MisfiTTTTT

MisfiTTTTT

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3 Apr 2011
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33
Hello All,

It's been 4 years since my current PC was built so I think it's time for an upgrade!

I have £800 to spend and am very interested in overclocking so any recommendations on easily overclockable components are welcome.

Thanks,
 
XFX ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £196.79

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £169.99

MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £139.98

XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply £74.99

Coolermaster RC-600 Gladiator Case - Black £52.07

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000528AS) £42.98

G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL) £39.98

Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £29.99

Sub Total : £622.31
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 : £126.96
Total : £761.77

Thats assuming you've got a monitor, dvd drive, mouse, keyboard and OS from your last build but I left you a little bit of left over cash to mess around with :) lol
 
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Welcome to the forums :)

Jacks looks good to me.

Will overclock like a beast on that cooler, has a modular powersupply thats good for CrossFire down the line, solid mobo that runs nice and cool.

Only issue is that the ram may foul the cpu heatsink. I would consider swapping it out for low profile ram such as XMS3 or GeIL Value Plus - both excellent ram that overclock nicely.
 
Thanks for the advice Cookeh,

In your opinion do you think this is a good time to upgrade or do you think it will be better to leave it for 6 months with new components e.t.c due?
 
May be worth a look at the Spec here, which you could probs bring down to the £800 mark if you not buying peripherals and cutting down on the amount of memory ...
 
jacks system look solid, especially if your looking for overclocking fun.

The 6950 can be unlocked into a 6970 and overclocked...

The K edition sandybridge chips have been known to have plenty of overclocking headroom in them...

Decent power supply and cooler...

The only thing I would try and squeeze into it is a SSD...

You'll have top components that will fly... all held back by disk speed...

Even a small one, just enough for windows, web browsers and your everyday apps will make a huge difference, everytime you browse the web, use windows, all the temp files that are constantly being read and written will be on the SSD, which will make all the difference...

Just my two notes
 
woodsford007 said:
*snip*

The only thing I would try and squeeze into it is a SSD...
Click to expand...

something like this?

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £161.99
1 x OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G) £119.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £104.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £42.98
1 x Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £38.80
1 x OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Ultra Low Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600C9ELV4GK) £36.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £27.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.98
Total : £792.26 (includes shipping : £10.50).

only difference is the PSU is not modular, so your going to have to tuck a bundle of unused wires away somewhere, but thats not a problem really
 
OP, i would spend an extra £20 and get a modular power supply, so much easier. GPU wise, the 480 is a cracking card at £200.
 
I wouldn't bother with a solid state personally, still overpriced.

Fast sata drives are still very liveable and with the £ saved you can get a better power supply and case.
 
All,

Thanks for the advice, if I were to stretch my budget to £900 which components would you change/ replace from the ones that the people above have posted. Would it be worth me taking the first build posted and just adding a SSD drive?

I think the SSD drive and a modular power supply are a must for me.
 
Ok, £900 budget gets you something like this...


YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Far Cry 2 £199.98
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £161.99
1 x Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £138.00
1 x XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply £74.99
1 x OCZ Vertex 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-1VTX60G) £73.99
1 x Coolermaster CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black £62.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM2/AM3) £54.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £43.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000528AS) £42.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.98
Total : £882.37 (includes shipping : £11.25).

Not sure on the SSD, prehaps someone could advise on a better solution.
 
It's a good question, It varies, a full loop with a radiator will get the cpu cooler more than normal air but is a lot more expensive. That H50 is a good very good HSF though.

Are the days of watercooling up? It's a moot point!
 
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I'd just slap on a A50 or Hyper 212+. That should get you to at least 4.4GHz overclock.

If you drop the SSD, you can get 8GB ram, or a more powerful PSU if you are thinking of going SLI / XF at some point in the future.

And yeah, get the retail CPU, even if it means shopping around.
 
olivier renault said:
I'd just slap on a A50 or Hyper 212+. That should get you to at least 4.4GHz overclock.

If you drop the SSD, you can get 8GB ram, or a more powerful PSU if you are thinking of going SLI / XF at some point in the future.

And yeah, get the retail CPU, even if it means shopping around.
Click to expand...

they sell it on the website.


and it is not worth the extra £20

If your CPU is going to pop, it will do so within the first month... when you are adjusting voltages.

The OEM warranty is still long enough
 
Keep the SSD if you want one, it will speed up windows a lot. 4gb of ram is fine for gaming. Regarding SLI/Xfire that people are mentioning, i personally don't really see the point. If you come to a time where games are becoming unplayable, i would sell the GPU and buy another one. Performance increase is hazy with SLI/Xfire at times and in my eyes not worth it unless you've cash to blow.
 
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