Ok here goes...£500 max budget Gaming PC for Diablo 3/ MMORPG's and Games like Arma 2/ Battlefield 3

KaiserDJG · 25 Jul 2012 at 12:59

OK so...

I think i'm going to knock the Xbox on the head and plow some money into a PC, I would like this PC to be clockable and developable in long the long run... I have an initial max budget of £500 but i'm open going to upgrade slowly.

I need an OS (7 pro) and a HD monitor although a can wait for the monitor and run what i have now without HD.

This is primarily for Games but i will be developing Digital Photos on it and maybe some 3d rendering so i would like an SSD at probably around 100-150Gb maybe more.

What do you think i could actually get away with and maybe get some stuff second hand off ebay...

Thanks for your help in advance

olivier renault · 25 Jul 2012 at 13:33

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.95
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £94.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £78.98
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £62.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 320Gb SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD3200AAKX) £59.99
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £39.95
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x LG GH24NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £500.93 (includes shipping : £11.75).

Or a second hand 2500K.

Win 8 developer.

It's a bit tricky with that budget. Win 8 when released, plus a £80 SSD. Total of £160 or there about.

KaiserDJG · 25 Jul 2012 at 14:56

This sounds good, i might spring for a more expensive case as id like to upgrade in future to something nicer looking with a more advanced cooling system as my room is a heat trap.

Or maybe something a little different as i've seen some pretty awesome desk builds with interior cooling so maybe i wouldent even need the case.

Indy500 · 25 Jul 2012 at 15:48

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-006-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1497

The above PSU is fine for the vast majority of single card setups, the money saved can go on a better GPU such as:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-205-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

honosuseri · 25 Jul 2012 at 15:55

Needing an OS is going to kill your budget. Using the developers copy of windows 8 (as Olivier has mentioned) allows you to concentrate the cash on components now and you can worry about the OS come October when windows 8 is officially released.

Do your software suites utilise CUDA?

YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked FTW 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P3-1363-KR) £124.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC128B/WW) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £78.98
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £54.95
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £39.95
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x LG GH24NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £508.93 (includes shipping : £11.75).

KaiserDJG · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:03

I saw this article pushing a £500 PC against a £3000 and they said that the £500 PC wins out because of affordability and little difference in Visual appearance in games and speeds.

Ive updated their Harddrive for an SSD but this is basically what they came up with... what do you think? I have a copy of XP that i would run until i got Win8 or yes i'd use the Dev copy it's a good idea

how do i input a basket ? sorry i don't post in forums at all

Your basket

**B Grade** XFX HD 6850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99

G.Skill TridentX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-2400C10D-8GTX) £99.95

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £94.99

Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 2 620w '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £89.99

Gigabyte 970A-UD3 AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard ** FREE NEXUIZ GAME ** £86.99

Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £79.99

Total : £573.90

Indy500 · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:14

That PSU is overkill (and not the best in it's class anyway) if you're just running one HD6850. Please refer to my earlier post in the thread

KaiserDJG · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:18

sr4470 said:
That PSU is overkill (and not the best in it's class anyway) if you're just running one HD6850. Please refer to my earlier post in the thread

I understand that but i will update the rest to suit over the following year... Boosting most aspects and especially the Graphics card as my ideal monitor is a 27" LED Full HD which i'll buy around christmas.

For the sake of £40 i might as well prepare with this part and if their is a better alternative could you suggest what i could use?

Indy500 · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:22

KaiserDJG said:
I understand that but i will update the rest to suit over the following year... Boosting most aspects and especially the Graphics card as my ideal monitor is a 27" LED Full HD which i'll buy around christmas.

For the sake of £40 i might as well prepare with this part and if their is a better alternative could you suggest what i could use?

If you want futureproofing, I would suggest either the Antec High Current Gamer 620W or the XFX Core 650W.

Also, why a B-Grade HD6850 when a brand new HD6870 is £10 more from the store? The GTX460 is also a better option for marginally more.

honosuseri · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:22

sr4470 said:
That PSU is overkill (and not the best in it's class anyway) if you're just running one HD6850. Please refer to my earlier post in the thread

There is only one XFX PSU in stock, it pays to have an alternative. I used the CM 600W as it's modular (i know you hate the CM PSUs but it's not a bad unit) and no much more than the OCZ ZT modular supply.

I'd avoid AMD as it's a dead socket. The CPUs consume more power than the current intel solutions and run hotter. The i3 is better than the phenomII quadcores. I used the G840 to save them some cash. The nvidia GPU has cuda to make up for the loss of quicksync which you get on the i3. The B grade GPU you spec'd is more than the full warranty retail one :/ The 460 is already overclocked for you and is nigh on 6870 performance but you get HDAO lighting,PhysX and cuda support. The 6850 is an option I suppose but you'd want to OC it to narrow the gap to the 6870.

AMD 965 vs G840.....quite a difference in price too remember

Indy500 · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:23

honosuseri said:
There is only one XFX PSU in stock, it pays to have an alternative. I used the CM 600W as it's modular (i know you hate the CM PSUs but it's not a bad unit) and no much more than the OCZ ZT modular supply.

I'm not saying its terrible but there's no way it's worth £90

I just posted a couple of alternatives above your post.

As for the rest of the spec, olivier renault's one looks good to me (except the PSU and GPU which I've already discussed).

honosuseri · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:26

sr4470 said:
I'm not saying its terrible but there's no way it's worth £90 I just posted a couple of alternatives above your post.

As for the rest of the spec, olivier renault's one looks good to me (except the PSU and GPU which I've already discussed).

£90? It's £65.99 :/

Indy500 · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:28

honosuseri said:
£90? It's £65.99 :/

"Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 2 620w '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £89.99"

That one.

honosuseri · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:32

sr4470 said:
"Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 2 620w '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £89.99"

That one.

Ah I see, I'm with you. I thought we were discussing my spec, good suggestions by the way. I think we've made our point now. The OP should go intel and we have suggested plenty of components to help him balance the budget.

I have a feeling his next spec will be much better

Indy500 · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:36

honosuseri said:
Ah I see, I'm with you. I thought we were discussing my spec, good suggestions by the way. I think we've made our point now. The OP should go intel and we have suggested plenty of components to help him balance the budget.

Sure, it's just that after the Q-tec\Tagan\Thermaltake\Hiper issues and the over-recommending of expensive Corsair PSUs, I thought I'd offer an alternative take on speccing units. I'm basing my recommendation on reviews at Jonnyguru, [H]OCP and Hardware Secrets as well as talking to people that work in the industry (like "Phaedrus" and "Original Sin" over at OCN).

honosuseri said:
I have a feeling his next spec will be much better

Indeed

KaiserDJG · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:37

honosuseri said:
Ah I see, I'm with you. I thought we were discussing my spec, good suggestions by the way. I think we've made our point now. The OP should go intel and we have suggested plenty of components to help him balance the budget.

I have a feeling his next spec will be much better

I will be back with a much more informed and bodacious spec!

...may need to ask a few more questions though lol

Thanks Guys

honosuseri · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:53

KaiserDJG said:
I will be back with a much more informed and bodacious spec! ...may need to ask a few more questions though lol

Thanks Guys

There are no stupid questions, just stupid people who don't ask questions

Sr and myself were discussing PSUs yesterday over a few threads. There is nothing wrong with his advice, we are allowed to differ on opinion as to what balances out best in the build for the budget.

I do read reviews too lol I always suggest kit that I would buy with my own money or indeed have hands on experience with. I have personally used the CM 600W a few times. It's a quiet unit, energy efficient, the cables are flat and modular which I personally like, especially when building in midi tower cases. The included rubber strips for stopping vibration was a nice lil touch too. You will pay a premium for a modular PSU, of course there are alternatives but the CM 600W pro isn't bad at all for the price

Nothing really wrong with the 6870, however reading your uses I thought CUDA might interest you. Sr agreed the 460 is better but again it's more cash. That's why I suggested the G840 as it's cheaper than the i3, this gives you more money for the GPU......as CUDA can assist the CPU with some software, it's not such a bad idea settling on the pentium CPU......do you see what I mean about balancing?

Look forward to seeing your next spec. Of course any more questions you have or heaven forbid problems when you come to build......you know where to find us

KaiserDJG · 26 Jul 2012 at 11:56

also i've opened another thread in cases as i'm going to be putting all this in a deskbuild is there anything you would specifically suggest because of this?