Please spec me a £500 pc

killianzz · 20 Aug 2011 at 17:33

Need help choosing the parts for a friend of mine. His budget is £500/ £550 max, and will mainly be using it for gaming. If he had a budget of a £1000 I could have specced him a worthy computer, but I don't have much knowledge on the more budget components. Although he mentioned amd 6 cores, im pretty sure you could still squeeze a 2500k within budget. Don't think he knows about the advantages on sandybridge yet, i'll have to persuade him.

He already has a monitor, speakers and a copy of windows 7. All he needs is a keyboard and mouse. Not entirely sure if he will be overclocking, but try and include a cheap heatsink just in case - it would seem a waste not to.

Thanks in advance for all your constructive and insightful input

Have a good weekend!

Reaper 392 · 20 Aug 2011 at 18:01

you can just about get a 2500k in budget:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £172.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £107.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Bare OEM £94.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £64.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT25664BA160A) £22.79
1 x LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x Gigabyte GK-K6800 Multimedia Keyboard £10.99
1 x Gigabyte M6800 1600DPI Gaming Mouse £8.99
1 x OcUK Value PCI Express 6-Pin to 4-Pin Power Adaptor for PCI-E Graphics Cards (RB-527) £1.99
Total : £547.80 (includes shipping : £11.75).

sadly no custom cooler, but you do have a motherboard that can cope with SLI (the PSU will have to be changed though). the standard cooler is good for ~4.2Ghz though, which isnt too bad.

i've no idea how good that mouse is, but the review on OcUK seems to be good for a £9 mouse

killianzz · 20 Aug 2011 at 19:01

Nice spec, thanks. Would it be possible to get a better gfx card in exchange for a cheaper case ie the antec 100?

Reaper 392 · 20 Aug 2011 at 19:08

killianzz said:
Nice spec, thanks. Would it be possible to get a better gfx card in exchange for a cheaper case ie the antec 100?

the antec 100 is actually more expensive. the case i chose comes bundled with a PSU, hence the £65 price tag.

if you bought it separately the case would be £37.99, and the PSU ~£40. the PSU is the bare minimum i would recommend for that card, and your not going to find a case even close to the coolermaster elite 430 for under £25

the only place you can realistically make this build cheaper is the motherboard, but then you would have to do without the possibility of going crossfire/SLI later on (adding a second graphics card to get ~95% performance increase in games)