Cheap gaming build

llwayneio

llwayneio

llwayneio

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Joined
3 Nov 2007
Posts
389
Hello everyone, I could use some help deciding what to buy as an upgrade to my now dead pc (RIP buddy). I'm hoping I can use the case and psu from my dead machine but I'm not sure if I can or not. Essentially my pc turns on (lights, fans etc) but there is nothing on the screen and no beep. I'm thinking it's the cpu that's died as it was overclocked all of it's life but maybe it's the psu?. I'm pretty sure the psu is a Cooler Master Real Power M520W. It is around 5-6 years old. Now I don't have a great deal to spend at the moment, £300 would be my maximum. I was thinking of getting a trinity build but I'm worried that it wouldn't be very upgradeable, so now I'm thinking of waiting till haswell and seeing if the price of 2nd hand i5 2500ks come down. If anyone has some suggestions I'd really appreciate it. I'd like to be able to play Day Z mod, metro, battlefield 3 etc. My monitor is 1680x1050 and I'm not too bothered about turning down some gfx settings if need be.

Thank you guys
 
£300 is a lowish budget but things can be worked on, do you have anything you can salvage from the old tower? Hard drives, case?

I think I good route for this would be a AMD Phenom/Bulldozer with a 6970/7850 along with a motherboard will come to around £200 if you can get a decent deal. Grab a Corsair builder 500w and go from there. It will be on the AM3+ socket so you can upgrade up the chain and will provide good performance.

I have a Phenom 965 BE running @ 3.4Ghz, with a 6950 2GB and that handles the games you have spec'd perfectly fine with ultra/high settings 40 fps+
 
Hey, Thanks for the reply. The case is a Lian li pc7 which can be salvaged. I could do with a new hdd but for now my old one can be used. likewise my dvd drive can be reused too. The rest of the pc is a p5k, e2180 (probably dead) and a 8800gt. Like I said I hope my psu can be reused but judging by it's age I'd assume not. I haven't looked into the current AMD offerings to be honest, how do they compare? I'm okay with getting some pieces 2nd hand as well if that will make my budget stretch a little further.
 
I have this thus far and AMD fair just as well as Intel, granted they do slip behind slightly but it's not as if AMD have no foothold in gaming. My Phenom chip has held steady for all the current titles and that's many generations behind!

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £89.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x **B Grade** Asus M5A78L LE AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £56.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
Total : £324.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).



The above will allow you to play at your desired resolution quite well. It's isn't the best of the market but for budget it isn't bad at all.

Overclockers don't have any Phenom chips in stock so if you wanted to save even more cash, I'd suggest grabbing one as they pack a punch! Tis a shame you don't have access to the MM.
 
Thanks guys I'm going to spend some time looking over your recommendations now. It's good to know that my psu should be okay with some of the modern hardware stil. And TheReaperGuy I think I do have access to the MM :)
 
llwayneio said:
Thanks guys I'm going to spend some time looking over your recommendations now. It's good to know that my psu should be okay with some of the modern hardware stil. And TheReaperGuy I think I do have access to the MM :)
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Definitely plan your money wise, as you can definitely get a gaming build out of it if you budget correctly. I bought some parts for my build off the bay to keep things cheap.

And you do? I thought you wouldn't cause of you needing 1k posts?
 
The AMD route is looking tempting with the new consoles coming out and so perhaps better utilisation of their 8 core cpus, but I'm also thinking that with haswell just days away I might be better off going for a 2nd hand intel i5 when the prices drop.
 
ThaReaperGuy said:
And you do? I thought you wouldn't cause of you needing 1k posts?
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The 1k post requirement was only recently instituted, if you had access previously you still retained access. Similar to myself I don't post all that much but I do have MM access and I used it a lot when I still lived in the UK.
 
Yeah I must have had access for a while. I used to post here back when I was building my first pc and now that it's died I'm back :). I'm really considering the AMD route at the moment as I believe the new AMD chips will use the same socket, is that correct? What do people think of the 8 core piledriver chips?
 
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