Budget gaming rig

chris182008 · 4 Jun 2013 at 20:55

I have a friend at work who is looking to make the move from a 360 to a pc, he was going to buy a 'gaming pc' from argos so I've offered to build him one, well help him anyway so he can get a better system. I've been given a budget of £700 but that needs to cover everything apart from an OS, the main game he plays at the moment is battlefield 3 and he likes the total war games so I'm thinking he needs a decent cpu, anyway this is what I've come up with but it's £100 over budget and I can't think of a way to get it down and still be a decent system, I'm considering AMD but would the older total war games struggle on an amd if they are single threaded? any suggestions welcome because I'm stumped.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £167.99
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x BenQ GL2450E 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £119.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £73.99
1 x Thermaltake Smart Series 530w Modular '80Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £49.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £47.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Windowed Case - Black £32.99
1 x Zalman ZM-GM1 6000 DPI Laser Gaming Mouse - Black/Blue £22.99
1 x Logitech S-220 2.1 Speaker System - OEM (980-000022) £21.98
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £19.99
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
1 x OcUK Black Gaming Keyboard - With Free Gaming Mouse Pad (5105GU) £10.99
Total : £810.98 (includes shipping : £20.10).

rich.searle91 · 4 Jun 2013 at 21:13

argos do gaming pc's?? would love to see them!

Build looks fine, im sure someone will tweak it to be better suited for BF3 as i dont play im not sure on how everything runs and save you that extra £100

Jay Blizzay · 4 Jun 2013 at 21:29

Might as well go for Haswell..only a few quid dearer

chris182008 · 4 Jun 2013 at 21:30

Thanks for the reply that was my thoughts didn't even know argos did pc's. I think a 660 will get higher fps in battlefield but the motherboard only supports xfire if he wants to get another gpu in the future, or he could get a 8000 series as an upgrade especially if it comes with battlefield 4 all depends on how he gets on with gaming on a pc and if he gets hooked on upgrading.

chris182008 · 4 Jun 2013 at 21:31

I was thinking haswell but adds to the cost of a motherboard as well unless he downgrades the GPU as I can't see anywhere else to save money.

chris182008 · 5 Jun 2013 at 13:54

Does anyone know how this would hold up for a gaming rig? would the CPU bottleneck the 7850 at all? thanks
YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x BenQ GL2450E 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £119.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £95.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3 AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £53.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £41.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Windowed Case - Black £32.99
1 x Zalman ZM-GM1 6000 DPI Laser Gaming Mouse - Black/Blue £22.99
1 x Logitech S-220 2.1 Speaker System - OEM (980-000022) £21.98
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £19.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
1 x OcUK Black Gaming Keyboard - With Free Gaming Mouse Pad (5105GU) £10.99
Total : £697.93 (includes shipping : £20.10).

medseven · 5 Jun 2013 at 14:04

The FX-6300 wouldn't bottleneck the gpu at all... I would recommend one of the 900 series motherboards however. They generally tend to be built with better components and offer better overclocking potential if your friend ever wanted to go there in the future!

chris182008 · 5 Jun 2013 at 14:14

That's good to know, I thought the motherboard was a 900? its under the 900 chipset boards. My last AMD build was with a athlon 64 so its been a while and I haven't kept up with the chipset changes.

Stoner81 · 5 Jun 2013 at 14:19

chris182008 said:
I have a friend at work who is looking to make the move from a 360 to a pc, he was going to buy a 'gaming pc' from argos so I've offered to build him one, well help him anyway so he can get a better system. I've been given a budget of £700 but that needs to cover everything apart from an OS, the main game he plays at the moment is battlefield 3 and he likes the total war games so I'm thinking he needs a decent cpu, anyway this is what I've come up with but it's £100 over budget and I can't think of a way to get it down and still be a decent system, I'm considering AMD but would the older total war games struggle on an amd if they are single threaded? any suggestions welcome because I'm stumped.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £167.99
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x BenQ GL2450E 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £119.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £73.99
1 x Thermaltake Smart Series 530w Modular '80Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £49.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £47.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Windowed Case - Black £32.99
1 x Zalman ZM-GM1 6000 DPI Laser Gaming Mouse - Black/Blue £22.99
1 x Logitech S-220 2.1 Speaker System - OEM (980-000022) £21.98
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £19.99
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
1 x OcUK Black Gaming Keyboard - With Free Gaming Mouse Pad (5105GU) £10.99
Total : £810.98 (includes shipping : £20.10).

Does he want to over clock because if not then you could swap the CPU for the non K version which would save money, could also save about £4 on the ram if you get the Crucial stuff on offer at the moment. Also don't forget that the price there includes the £20 shipping costs too

Stoner81.

chris182008 · 5 Jun 2013 at 15:07

I was planning on overclocking it for him need to do some research and see if a overclocked piledriver is better than a non overclocked ivybridge or haswell and no free shipping for me yet unfortunately.

T345 · 5 Jun 2013 at 17:00

Stoner81 said:
Does he want to over clock because if not then you could swap the CPU for the non K version which would save money, could also save about £4 on the ram if you get the Crucial stuff on offer at the moment. Also don't forget that the price there includes the £20 shipping costs too

Stoner81.

That spec, but haswell i5 and the Gigabyte motherboard with a free cooler