£400-500 - Budget PC Build Help

My 2 pence worth if it counts for anything nowadays, similar to Reapers above with a mid range mobo but no aftermarket cooler (the stock will cope with mild OC), have to concur a better gfx card is priority

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £116.99
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail£89.99
Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £64.99
MSI 880GM-E41 AMD 880G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £48.98
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £34.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £26.99
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Sub Total : £331.60
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout)
Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00%
VAT : £68.42
Total : £410.52
 
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Thank you everyone for your input its greatly appreciated to help a noob builder like me :)

Honestly I have a preference of Intel just of what i've heard and am swaying towards Stulids build and it sounds brilliant for me. Like he said I'm more about smoothness then that extra bit of gfx for a fps drop. No AA or anything for me.

Quick question how does that card compare to XFX 6870? (Im unaware how to tell which cards are better nowadays of both ATI and Nvidia.. any help? I know GTX > GTS for Nvidia but thats about it..) Thanks a lot.
 
Okay man, it looks like i'll definitely be going with either your orginal or revised build.. can't wait just need to start saving :P

thanks a lot all
 
Get your spondoolies and post another spec thread. Prices change weekly so the specs always vary as to what is the best price at the time.......in particular the GPUs!

The reason people have spec'd AMD (I tend to favour this option too on low budget gaming rigs) is that it gives you a rig capable of gaming for less than an i5. Infact you'll get a 955 and a "budget" mATX mobo for the cost of the i5 CPU. You can then redirect the funds to the GPU, which for gaming does make sense.

Stulid isn't wrong for suggesting an i5 setup. It gives you a better "core" system but you have to make compromises i.e the GPU. Stulid admitted this by saying a 5850 would be better and an uprated PSU but again this adds cost. You probably are looking the £600 mark for a decent i5 setup and capable GPU.

I would advise against the 5830. I can't see it "being much cop" for much longer especially when BF3 and COD MW3 are released. A 5850 would be better but if you can afford an even better GPU by compromising do that!

You mentioned overclocking, strange how no-one has mentioned that through simple bios changes you can make that 955BE a 965BE (saving you £10-15). You can up the multiplier by 1 to achieve this or take the time to OC the CPU properly, a 3.8Ghz OC is easily expected.

None of us are really right or wrong, these are just our opinions. In this price range you are in a catch 22 situation. Had you mentioned encoding or other CPU intensive tasks I would have sided with stulid as the intel CPU would make sense. To basically just game I would go with a cheap AMD build.

When you have saved the money, post again, I look forward to seeing what we can "swing" for you in the budget you have.
 
Thanks for your reply man and I will take it into consideration. I have mixed and matched a few things from what ive been recommended all over.

Tell me what you think of this spec. I'm not sure if links to other sites can be posted or not. If not i'll immediately edit.

CPU:156.18 - Intel CPU Core i5 2500K Unlocked Sandy Bridge Quad Core Processor OEM.
GPU:£131.62 - XFX HD 6780 Black Ed. +Shogun 2 game. Link:
MOBO:68.82 - Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3 Motherboard. Link:
PSU:£44.97 - Corsair 500W CX Series PSU.
Ram:£38.54 - Corsair Memory Vengeance 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel Desktop.
HDD:£26.99 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS).
Case:£28.71 - Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower Case. Link:
Cooling:£19.03 - Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/939/AM2/AM2+).
DVD Drive: £14.99 - OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) OEM

_________________
Total= £529.85 inc VAT. (bit out of budget but I can squeeze it)

Does everything work together? Is the PSU good enough for the GFX card etc?

Whats your opinions on how good this gfx card is ? I think its a nice deal. Think im pretty happy with this would like to hear opinions though!
 
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GWoody93 said:
Thanks for your reply man and I will take it into consideration. I have mixed and matched a few things from what ive been recommended all over.

Tell me what you think of this spec. I'm not sure if links to other sites can be posted or not. If not i'll immediately edit.

CPU:156.18 - Intel CPU Core i5 2500K Unlocked Sandy Bridge Quad Core Processor OEM. GPU:£131.62 - XFX HD 6780 Black Ed. +Shogun 2 game.

MOBO:68.82 - Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3 Motherboard. Link: PSU:£44.97 - Corsair 500W CX Series PSU. Link: Ram:£38.54 - Corsair Memory Vengeance 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel Desktop. Link: HDD:£26.99 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS). Link: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-247-SE
Case:£28.71 - Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower Case. Cooling:£19.03 - Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/939/AM2/AM2+). DVD Drive: £14.99 - OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) OEM Link: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-099-LG

_________________
Total= £529.85 inc VAT. (bit out of budget but I can squeeze it)

Does everything work together? Is the PSU good enough for the GFX card etc?

Whats your opinions on how good this gfx card is ? I think its a nice deal. Think im pretty happy with this would like to hear opinions though!
Click to expand...

i would go for retail cpu as you get an extra 2 years warrenty for very little money increase.
also, when i was looking at the arctic freezer 13, i was told that the 7 is about the same performance for less money, but only a couple of £ in it, but would help with the difference in oem/retail cpu.

Please be careful not to quote where poster has listed competitor links - Thank you
 
My first bit of advice is to remove the competitor links.


GWoody93 said:
Thanks for your reply man and I will take it into consideration. I have mixed and matched a few things from what ive been recommended all over.

Tell me what you think of this spec. I'm not sure if links to other sites can be posted or not. If not i'll immediately edit.

CPU:156.18 - Intel CPU Core i5 2500K Unlocked Sandy Bridge Quad Core Processor OEM. Link:
GPU:£131.62 - XFX HD 6780 Black Ed. +Shogun 2 game.
MOBO:68.82 - Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3 Motherboard.
PSU:£44.97 - Corsair 500W CX Series PSU. Link:
Ram:£38.54 - Corsair Memory Vengeance 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel Desktop. Link:
HDD:£26.99 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS). Link:
Case:£28.71 - Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower Case. Link:
Cooling:£19.03 - Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/939/AM2/AM2+).
DVD Drive: £14.99 - OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) OEM Link:

_________________
Total= £529.85 inc VAT. (bit out of budget but I can squeeze it)

Does everything work together? Is the PSU good enough for the GFX card etc?

Whats your opinions on how good this gfx card is ? I think its a nice deal. Think im pretty happy with this would like to hear opinions though!
Click to expand...

The RAM is too expensive, its also very tall, this can interfere with big heatsinks.

Apart from that the spec is good.

But try and buy from a single place to avoid shipping costs.
 
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