New Gaming PC - £500-600 budget please

aoaaron

aoaaron

aoaaron

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19 May 2012
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Hi, I need a new rig. I'm thinking of buying it now for this summer rather than wait till december. My current rig is:

Antec Sonata 3 Super black Mini Tower Case
4GB Corsair DDR2
1TB Western Digital Caviar Green
Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H AMD 790GX
Pioneer DVD-216DBK
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Denab 3.0 Ghz+
1GB Sapphire HD 4870




I want a new rig because this current one is very loud and is not performing well with PCSX2 and Dolphin emulation (of legally owned games btw)

my main needs are:
1. Dolphin/PCSX2 emulation
2. PC Gaming (GTA IV w/mods, etc.)
3. HTPC
4. Quiet
5. HDMI
6. Fractal Designs Titanium Grey Case (i love how good this looks unless someone can suggest a better looking one)

I'll be hooking this baby up to a 50'' Samsung LED so I need it to connect through HDMI for an easy life. Also any wireless keyboard/mice combinations but don't include them in the budget please as I already have wired.



Finally, I need it to be "upgradable" but ready to do what I want now. By this, I mean that I'm prepared to splash £100-300 next year or so on an upgrade if needs be, but ATM my current rig is really failing in my PCSX2 requirements and a few graphically intensive games/mods (fallout 3 high res textures fail) and the lack of HDMI output
 
What about something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785Q2G2M) £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £103.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £92.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 530W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £67.99
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £64.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £49.99
Total : £561.95 (includes shipping : £10.00).



G/Card gives you £150 of games, so you can sell them to recuperate some of the money back
Z77 gives you upgrade option to 3570k/3770k
Use the 128gb SSD for your OS and the 1TB for games, or take a 60gb SSD.
Modular PSU as space can be tight in HTPC cases.

You could alternatively use your current g/card and upgrade to a 7870/7950 later on. I'd recommend an MSI TwinFrozr as they are seriously quiet even under serious load. My SLI MSI's are silent.

Cooler wise, you could use your stock cooler of get a H80 and fit to a 120mm fan mount in the case.

If ITX isn't your thing:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785Q2G2M) £169.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £92.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £85.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 530W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £67.99
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £64.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £49.99
Total : £543.95 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 
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mattdunnapoo said:
he will probobally need a cooler too snips , stock cooler will die when his playing games
Click to expand...

I did think about that but since he cannot overclock, it should last him until he can get something a bit more robust.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 140 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £34.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 140 BW Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £34.99
1 x Alpenföhn Brocken CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £32.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £32.99
1 x Raijintek Ereboss High Performance CPU Cooler £31.99
1 x Silverstone Argon SST-AR01 CPU Cooler - 120mm (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1150 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £28.99
Total : £208.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 
600 including case? is that possible guys?

i do have a cooler boxed ATM in my apartment.. i think its called the "silver arrow" but it wouldn't fit in this current computer's case. would it fit in the fractal designs one? with that mobo?


also i just want to make sure, would this new rig cause a significant boost in performance or PCSX2 etc.?

also im terrible at re-selling anything so is there a better graphics card which doesn't include free games (i have all my games on steam i think.. unless they're offering new titles such as bioshock infinite etc)
 
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Thanks, yup i looked at that it and it did look very sweet in terms of size but the actual case.. i don't like the look of compared to the fractal R4 titanium grey!

However im pretty new to PCs still and I have a few concerns. Like will a smaller case cause more heat = more noise and shorter life span?
and If i get a bigger case, doesn't that mean I have more options for expansion or not? I don't want to fall into the trap of small form factor for less functionality (my friend did this with his recent server) .

Also I'm fairly uneducated but what would be the benifits to haswell vs ivy bridge for my requirements?


Once again thank you for all your help and sorry I seem so muddled/confused in my posts.. the truth is I am fairly confused!
 
 
thank you guys, i guess i'm definitley going with the HIS HD 7850. can someone tell me is if its a 7870 or a 7850 tho? the name and description confuse me!

also haswell vs ivybridge. is haswell better future proofed or will the sockets change again in 3-4 years time? and does haswell give a significant boost in performance (specifcally PCSX2/dolphin/emulation?)
 
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