Building a PC For My Nephews - £300 Budget

gazzab · 3 Dec 2011 at 16:20

Yo!

My sister's asked me to build her a PC to give my nephews for Christmas. I stopped keeping up to date with hardware after Sandybridge first arrived so I'm not sure of the best route to go...

I was looking at maybe this bundle but I've never had experience with AMD systems.

I want them to be able to play games with reasonable performance... it might be better for me to give the list of what I need (there's another £100 on top of the 300 for a monitor [may be worth going for a sub-full hd res] & basic peripherals, so feel free to give recommendations

)

-Case
-Mobo
-RAM
-CPU
-GPU
-HDD

OS is sorted already.

Cheers

honosuseri · 3 Dec 2011 at 16:32

What games do they want to play?

That is a tight budget my friend. Considering the price of HDDs at the mo, a 500GB drive is £69ish taking a good bite out the budget.

gazzab · 3 Dec 2011 at 16:37

Yeah it is tight, that's why I thought maybe get a low res monitor to save on the GPU. I doubt they'll be getting many big titles on there because they've all got xboxes, but when I was living with them they all said they wish they had a gaming PC =D

All I can say for definite is Minecraft... not sure how well optimized that is now the full release is out but even on my machine I used to have issues with the framerate.

Raikiri · 3 Dec 2011 at 16:46

Do you not have a spare HDD anywhere? 'Cos right now that's killing the budget.

gazzab · 3 Dec 2011 at 16:49

Raikiri said:
Do you not have a spare HDD anywhere? 'Cos right now that's killing the budget.

Cheers for that, I completely forgot about the price of HDDs skyrocketing... I may be able to chuck a 240GB in there but it means reinstalling windows and moving all my crap over.

The capacity doesn't need to be huge if it means bumping the price down for a better CPU

Oh I forgot to mention, I've got a decent PSU I can chuck in there

fowler002 · 3 Dec 2011 at 16:58

the cheapest ocuk have is £70, the 250gb samsung f3(lowest capacity they have) is £78. so bumping down the capacity to save money is out.

Raikiri · 3 Dec 2011 at 17:02

gazzab said:
Oh I forgot to mention, I've got a decent PSU I can chuck in there

That brings the spec above to under £300 then, and honestly I doubt you'll do much better. The GTX460 is a really quick card and for games the Pentium will be fine.

honosuseri · 3 Dec 2011 at 18:25

They have the superclocked 460 on offer for £110. Couple that with the i3 2100-2120 and a h-61 mobo. 4GB of RAM is plenty, what you buy really depends what's on offer, XMS3 is about £23 i think. Seeing as you have a PSU and possibly a HDD (sata i hope) too you should be able to swing that in the budget.

That would certainly make good budget gaming rig. I'll add a link so you can compare CPUs and GPUs, hopefully it will help you in making a decision.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/406?vs=289

scrlk · 3 Dec 2011 at 18:26

Considered one of AMDs APUs?

honosuseri · 3 Dec 2011 at 18:43

Vinni3 @H|H said:
Considered one of AMDs APUs?

Certainly an option. If he adopts the 1155 socket though he has the choice of the pentium Gs, i3,i5 and i7 cpus. Obviously an i5 or i7 is out of budget but could be added much later in the rigs life.

Minecraft isnt really a demanding game. I think the real question to ask is if it can be run on an IGP. You could then omit the 460 from the spec and improve the core system then look to buy them a GPU later as another present.

Seeing as many graphics cards are also bundled with a couple of games this might make more sense. In the long run they will have a much better gaming rig and the poor old xbox will gather dust.

gazzab · 3 Dec 2011 at 19:20

Raikiri said:
That brings the spec above to under £300 then, and honestly I doubt you'll do much better. The GTX460 is a really quick card and for games the Pentium will be fine.

honosuseri said:
They have the superclocked 460 on offer for £110. Couple that with the i3 2100-2120 and a h-61 mobo. 4GB of RAM is plenty, what you buy really depends what's on offer, XMS3 is about £23 i think. Seeing as you have a PSU and possibly a HDD (sata i hope) too you should be able to swing that in the budget.

That would certainly make good budget gaming rig. I'll add a link so you can compare CPUs and GPUs, hopefully it will help you in making a decision.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/406?vs=289

Nice one, I'll give it some thought. Yeah that HDD's SATA, just not sure if I can be bothered with yet another reinstallation of Windows :rolleyes:

honosuseri said:
Certainly an option. If he adopts the 1155 socket though he has the choice of the pentium Gs, i3,i5 and i7 cpus. Obviously an i5 or i7 is out of budget but could be added much later in the rigs life.

Minecraft isnt really a demanding game. I think the real question to ask is if it can be run on an IGP. You could then omit the 460 from the spec and improve the core system then look to buy them a GPU later as another present.

Yeah the upgradeability (made up word) of the 1155 socket is definitely attractive. I can imagine them all moaning in 4 years time about how slow it is, a nice cheap upgrade would sort it by then.

I'm not 100% sure about how Minecraft functions. I've got a GTX570 and Q6600 and it's still not too happy in heavy forests and stuff. I'm guessing it's more CPU dependent, but I'd still like to include a half decent GPU so they can dip their toes in PC gaming.

Seeing as many graphics cards are also bundled with a couple of games this might make more sense. In the long run they will have a much better gaming rig and the poor old xbox will gather dust.

That's the plan, get em started early

honosuseri · 4 Dec 2011 at 00:35

Well the H67 would be preferable as it adds the USB3 support. That will be £60 though for the cheapest mobo.

When I helped my mate upgrade he ran the IGP initially. He nicked my copies of Diablo2, dungeon siege 2, the early total war games whilst he saved for a dedicated GPU and got the system setup how he wanted it.

Doing this gave him the "upgradeability" (lol) of SLI/Xfire on the mobo. That 460 for £80 was a good find in the bargain bin especially as it's the 1GB version. If you ran two of them it would smash the 1GB 560ti which would cost about the same.

Good luck with the build I'm sure the boys will love it no matter what you settle on. Any more questions or problems come build day you know where we are.

bru · 4 Dec 2011 at 00:59

its cheaper to buy a external HDD and rip the drive out to use instead of buying a internal drive at the moment, obviously a considerable drop in performance though.

ooch · 4 Dec 2011 at 09:03

Well I am looking for a system on a budget for my wife to play WoW on.
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Samsung SpinPoint F4 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322GJ) Samsung SpinPoint F4 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322GJ) £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £53.99
(£44.99) £53.99
(£44.99)
Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66)
OcUK Galaxy III Tower Case - Black (450W PSU) OcUK Galaxy III Tower Case - Black (450W PSU) £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C8 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C8 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit £19.99
(£16.66) £19.99
(£16.66)
Samsung SN-208BB/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW SATA Drive - OEM Samsung SN-208BB/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW SATA Drive - OEM £16.99
(£14.16) £16.99
(£14.16)
Sub Total : £204.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £43.24
Total : £259.44
This might fit the bill.

fowler002 · 4 Dec 2011 at 13:32

ooch said:
Well I am looking for a system on a budget for my wife to play WoW on.
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Samsung SpinPoint F4 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322GJ) Samsung SpinPoint F4 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322GJ) £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £53.99
(£44.99) £53.99
(£44.99)
Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66)
OcUK Galaxy III Tower Case - Black (450W PSU) OcUK Galaxy III Tower Case - Black (450W PSU) £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C8 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C8 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit £19.99
(£16.66) £19.99
(£16.66)
Samsung SN-208BB/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW SATA Drive - OEM Samsung SN-208BB/BEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW SATA Drive - OEM £16.99
(£14.16) £16.99
(£14.16)
Sub Total : £204.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £43.24
Total : £259.44
This might fit the bill.

that's wrong on so many levels I'm not going to bother trying to fix it

99Androidguy777 · 5 Dec 2011 at 11:15

fowler002 said:
that's wrong on so many levels I'm not going to bother trying to fix it

LOL

gazzab · 8 Dec 2011 at 11:55

honosuseri said:
Well the H67 would be preferable as it adds the USB3 support. That will be £60 though for the cheapest mobo.

When I helped my mate upgrade he ran the IGP initially. He nicked my copies of Diablo2, dungeon siege 2, the early total war games whilst he saved for a dedicated GPU and got the system setup how he wanted it.

Doing this gave him the "upgradeability" (lol) of SLI/Xfire on the mobo. That 460 for £80 was a good find in the bargain bin especially as it's the 1GB version. If you ran two of them it would smash the 1GB 560ti which would cost about the same.

Good luck with the build I'm sure the boys will love it no matter what you settle on. Any more questions or problems come build day you know where we are.

Cheers!

The B-Grade 460 has sold and the cheapest one is £40 more expensive which I can't stretch to. What's the next decent performer below it? ATi would be fine

honosuseri · 8 Dec 2011 at 16:20

Look into getting access to the members market (MM) you might find a second hand bargain in there!

They have the ATI 6850 for just under £100. Seeing as they are selling some 6770s for that price, it's not that bad i suppose. That 460 SOC is better though and I have seen it available for just over £100 (i can't link it under forum rules).

The 6850 is worse than a 5850 which was the 460s rival. The SOC 460 has the best bang for buck performance in that price range. Maybe using the IGP for now would make sense if you can't find an alternative.

*EDIT* What spec did you settle on in the end? If you are spec'ing the i3 2100 maybe drop that to the G840 to free some cash to the GPU budget.