Beginner - Building a Gaming PC - Budget £800-£850

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 14:49

Hello, I'm new to the hardware scene of computing and was wondering if I could have some advice please.

I've been told to go with either the Intel i5 2500k or i7 2600k.

RAM, im not too bothered either way. 4GB is sufficient as I have been told, if its slightly over budget I would go for the 8GB upgrade.

Hard Drive - don't really need SSD, although it would be nice but 500GB minimum non SD is fine.

Graphics cards - 560Ti OC 2GB, HD6950 2GB ????

I have no idea whatsoever on PSU's, Coolers, Motherboards etc. Im clueless.

So far, i've gone on this prebuilt model with the graphics card upgrade to the 560Ti OC 2GB. However, I need to build a pc myself for an assignment so I thought rather than build a poor PC that ill never use again, why not go the whole way and build a gaming PC i can use then sell the Xbox 360.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-179-OE&groupid=43&catid=2040&subcat=

Any help would be massively appreciated. Thanks.

azibux1 · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:01

i7 is only worth the extra money if you are going to utilise the hyperthreading (gaming does not utilise this).

Things that do use it are things like video encoding etc

For gaming just get the 2500K

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:02

azibux1 said:
i7 is only worth the extra money if you are going to utilise the hyperthreading (gaming does not utilise this).

Things that do use it are things like video encoding etc

For gaming just get the 2500K

Thanks for you response. So it'd be better to put the extra money on a RAM upgrade I presume?

If you don't mind me asking, how much did the setup in your sig cost?

fowler002 · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:04

is it mainly for gaming, normal usage or will you be doing lots of encoding etc? if its gaming then i2500k, if you use programs that support hyperthreading then go i2700k(if you buy by wednesday as its only a little bit more than the i2600k).

do you have any old sata hard disk you can reuse?

Reaper 392 · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:12

i've come up with this, but it could probably do with some tweaking:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £161.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £154.99
1 x MSI Z68A-GD55-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £124.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £84.98
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £69.98
1 x Cooler Master HAF 912 Case - Black £52.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £19.98
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash - Retail £18.98
Total : £869.48 (includes shipping : £10.50).
~£848 with MSI VAT back offer

you save £20 on the motherboard with the VAT off thing if you order by the 21st (check news section). i would ask in the CS if your invoice will be dated on the 21st or earlier because if it is dated any later then you will not get the money off

there is no custom cooler. i just couldnt fit a decent cooler and the big SSD in the budget without sacrificing something else

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:14

fowler002 said:
is it mainly for gaming, normal usage or will you be doing lots of encoding etc? if its gaming then i2500k, if you use programs that support hyperthreading then go i2700k(if you buy by wednesday as its only a little bit more than the i2600k).

do you have any old sata hard disk you can reuse?

At the moment I only have a Macbook Pro for university, no desktop whatsoever so unfortunately no old sata hard disk. I have a monitor i've been hooking my MBP up to in my room for watching films and so forth. I don't do anything in terms of video editing, just programming and web design.

Also, I don't need an OS as I can get Windows 7 from Academic Alliance

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:19

Reaper 392 said:
i've come up with this, but it could probably do with some tweaking:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £161.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £154.99
1 x MSI Z68A-GD55-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £124.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £84.98
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £69.98
1 x Cooler Master HAF 912 Case - Black £52.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £19.98
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash - Retail £18.98
Total : £869.48 (includes shipping : £10.50).
~£848 with MSI VAT back offer

you save £20 on the motherboard with the VAT off thing if you order by the 21st (check news section). i would ask in the CS if your invoice will be dated on the 21st or earlier because if it is dated any later then you will not get the money off

there is no custom cooler. i just couldnt fit a decent cooler and the big SSD in the budget without sacrificing something else

Thank you for taking the time to do this, much appreciated.

fowler002 · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:30

do you want xfire/sli in future? if not you can drop the motherboard down to the gigabyte z68ap-d3(£85).

while the crucial ssd is recommended you could go with the corsair 120gb for £135

xfx pro 550w £59

and get 8gb ram + gelid tranquilo £26

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:39

fowler002 said:
do you want xfire/sli in future? if not you can drop the motherboard down to the gigabyte z68ap-d3(£85).

I would like it to be as upgradeable as possible.

while the crucial ssd is recommended you could go with the corsair 120gb for £135

xfx pro 550w £59

and get 8gb ram + gelid tranquilo £26

Thanks for this too. So many options, I really don't know what to go with.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-213-OE&groupid=43&catid=2040&subcat=

I might try and spec this myself getting various parts and see if I can make a saving on it. Thanks

fowler002 · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:58

if you want possibility of sli and stick with at least 650w or better go with 750w.

azibux1 · 19 Nov 2011 at 16:03

AberystwythLAD said:
Thanks for you response. So it'd be better to put the extra money on a RAM upgrade I presume?

If you don't mind me asking, how much did the setup in your sig cost?

Hi,

I would get 8GB of RAM if I was you, you might not need it all, but for the small price difference you might aswell get 8GB rather than 4GB.

The full version of my specs:

- Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30 GHz Sandybridge
- Asus P8Z68-VLX
- Samsung Spin Point F3 1TB
- Gelid Tranquillo
- Corsair Vengeance Low Profile, Blue, 8GB
- OCZ Agility 3 120GB
- Samsung SH-B123L Blu Ray Drive
- Coolermaster Elite 430
- Antec TruePower New 550W Modular
- Akasa Bluetooth Card Reader
- GTX460 1GB

I got the GFX card from OcUK and all the other bits were from when I went to London International Technology Show and I ordered them from a competitor there (not allowed to name them) as they saved me a lot of money, so bear in mind that most of my parts included show discount (which was very very good) and the total for my PC came to £730 incl. VAT.

You can read my PC build thread here

Any other questions let me know and I will see if I can help

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 16:12

azibux1 said:
x

Thanks

This is what i've come to so far on my own spec.

Core Components Needed

MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) Motherboard = £92
8GB Corsair DDR3 XMS3 RAM = £30.19
600W Coolermaster Silent Pro PSU = £75.12
Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case = £62.50
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler = £40.97
Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD Rewriter = £14.99

Options

Intel Core i7-2600K CPU = £236.60
Intel Core i5-2500K CPU = £154.98
MSI GTX 560Ti OC Twin Frozr II = £173.47
EVGA GTX 570 HD = £263.48
64GB Crucial M4 SSD = £84.77

So...

i7-2600k + GTX 560TI = £725.84
i5-2500k + GTX 570 = £734.23
i5-2500k + GTX 560TI + 64GB SSD = £728.99

Im thinking of going with the one in bold and then adding an SSD when the prices come back down.

What do you think of this guys?

azibux1 · 19 Nov 2011 at 16:17

AberystwythLAD said:
Thanks This is what i've come to so far on my own spec.

Core Components Needed

MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) Motherboard = £92
8GB Corsair DDR3 XMS3 RAM = £30.19
600W Coolermaster Silent Pro PSU = £75.12
Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case = £62.50
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler = £40.97
Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD Rewriter = £14.99

Options

Intel Core i7-2600K CPU = £236.60
Intel Core i5-2500K CPU = £154.98
MSI GTX 560Ti OC Twin Frozr II = £173.47
EVGA GTX 570 HD = £263.48
64GB Crucial M4 SSD = £84.77

So...

i7-2600k + GTX 560TI = £725.84
i5-2500k + GTX 570 = £734.23
i5-2500k + GTX 560TI + 64GB SSD = £728.99

Im thinking of going with the one in bold and then adding an SSD when the prices come back down.

What do you think of this guys?

If you want to go SLI in the future maybe, you will probably need to upgrade the PSU then because fowler said you need at least 650W for SLI.

The other thing is that SSD prices have not been affected by the flooding, it is only mechanical drives so if you have the money you might as well get the SSD now rather than later. Doesn't really make any difference

I would save a bit of money and get the Gelid cooler instead as people say that with that you can overclock easily up to around 4.6 GHz and I don't think a 2500K will go much further than that anyway. So you could save some money there.

If you choose that option, the money saved (if you want to spend it) can be added to a little bit and you can get a blu-ray drive

fowler002 · 19 Nov 2011 at 16:20

AberystwythLAD said:
Thanks This is what i've come to so far on my own spec.

Core Components Needed

MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) Motherboard = £92
8GB Corsair DDR3 XMS3 RAM = £30.19
600W Coolermaster Silent Pro PSU = £75.12
Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case = £62.50
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler = £40.97
Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD Rewriter = £14.99

Options

Intel Core i7-2600K CPU = £236.60
Intel Core i5-2500K CPU = £154.98
MSI GTX 560Ti OC Twin Frozr II = £173.47
EVGA GTX 570 HD = £263.48
64GB Crucial M4 SSD = £84.77

So...

i7-2600k + GTX 560TI = £725.84
i5-2500k + GTX 570 = £734.23
i5-2500k + GTX 560TI + 64GB SSD = £728.99

Im thinking of going with the one in bold and then adding an SSD when the prices come back down.

What do you think of this guys?

hmm looked at the advice then threw it out the window by the looks of things

z68 motherboard over the p67, antec truepower new modular 650w over the coolermaster 600w.

are you getting the bits from elsewhere?

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 16:25

fowler002 said:
hmm looked at the advice then threw it out the window by the looks of things

No, I didn't mean to come across like that. Im trying to learn myself and get comparisons myself. This is obviously the best place on the internet to learn as many people recommend Overclockers as a place to buy and the forums for support.

z68 motherboard over the p67, antec truepower new modular 650w over the coolermaster 600w.

are you getting the bits from elsewhere?

Im unsure what to go with yet. If I can get a fully functional system cheaper with bits from elsewhere then yes I would do so but I need to an idea of the best quality build I can get.

Im not bothered with a Bluray drive or anything like that. My eyes are perfectly suited to HD at 720p or 1080p.

I just want the fundamental parts of the system.

I would rather less quality disc drives and more money spent on a better Graphics card or more RAM, if thats entirely possible.

azibux1 · 19 Nov 2011 at 17:17

I didn't notice that you had a P67 board specced, like fowler says go for Z68.

I would rather less quality disc drives and more money spent on a better Graphics card or more RAM, if thats entirely possible.

That's fine, I'm not expert on graphics cards but when it comes to RAM, from what you said that you will be using the PC for, 8GB will be more than enough

Any more than that will never really get used

I have the 550W version of the Antec PSU fowler mentioned and it is VERY good, extremely quiet and reasonably priced, so I would recommend that 650W version fowler is talking about

If I can get a fully functional system cheaper with bits from elsewhere then yes I would do so

This is the internet so there will always be cheaper parts somewhere else on the internet, but people do really recommend OcUK as they have great customer service.

The only reason I went to a competitor was because they were at LITS and gave me some really good deals (as you can see from the price and spec of my system) that I would have been stupid not to go for. If I did not go to LITS, I had already looked at this competitors site online and they were about £30 cheaper overall for my build, BUT I was still just going to buy from OcUK due to peoples recommendations, so it was only the show discounts (saved myself £116) that made me change my mind

If I was you, I would stick with OcUK

AberystwythLAD · 19 Nov 2011 at 19:44

azibux1 said:
I didn't notice that you had a P67 board specced, like fowler says go for Z68.

That's fine, I'm not expert on graphics cards but when it comes to RAM, from what you said that you will be using the PC for, 8GB will be more than enough Any more than that will never really get used

I have the 550W version of the Antec PSU fowler mentioned and it is VERY good, extremely quiet and reasonably priced, so I would recommend that 650W version fowler is talking about

This is the internet so there will always be cheaper parts somewhere else on the internet, but people do really recommend OcUK as they have great customer service.

The only reason I went to a competitor was because they were at LITS and gave me some really good deals (as you can see from the price and spec of my system) that I would have been stupid not to go for. If I did not go to LITS, I had already looked at this competitors site online and they were about £30 cheaper overall for my build, BUT I was still just going to buy from OcUK due to peoples recommendations, so it was only the show discounts (saved myself £116) that made me change my mind

If I was you, I would stick with OcUK

thank you! sorry for long time to respond, I've been out watching the football with a few mates

Thanks for all the advice.

azibux1 · 19 Nov 2011 at 19:50

AberystwythLAD said:
thank you! sorry for long time to respond, I've been out watching the football with a few mates

Thanks for all the advice.

That's fine, you're welcome