My £600 ish gaming PC question

Spudsasin

Spudsasin

Spudsasin

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21 Jul 2013
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Hi, I am looking to get into PC gaming from console gaming, I want a decent gaming PC capable of running current games on high settings at least. I want a PC that I can upgrade rather easily in the future so I've come up with this:

AMD FX-6300
MSI 970A-G46 ATX motherboard
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 2GB
Western Digital 1TB HDD
San Disk128GB SSD
Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600MHz
Casecom CS-13 full tower ATX case
Corsair 600W CX Builder 80 Plus Bronze PSU
LG 24x DVDRW

If you have any feedback or suggestions i would be very grateful :)
 
How does the Radeon 7850 compete with the GTX 660 though? Most the people I've talked to recommend Nvidia over AMD in the GPU department, but I'm not really looking for the free games I really just want to sort the PC. :D
 
This is always a good reference page for comparing products.
Benchmarking results differ between sites depending on where you look and rigs used etc but this site gives a general comparison to work from:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/783?vs=778

Not much in it between them really. the Nvidia card has the edge @ stock. Same price range but i do know from owning a 7850, and reading numerous results all over the place, most of them have a lot of head room to overclock by just sliding some sllders on a piece of software and can reach close to stock 7950 performance levels in some cases for a fraction of the price.
I cant really comment on the 660's performance as iv never used one.
Id say its gonna boil down to that age old choice:
Red Team(AMD)orGreen Team(Nvidia)
 
True it will but I'm not really looking to much overclocking in fact as little as possible, it's my first time making a PC and Im not too confident, yes I'm told it easy but I also know that it increases the heat given off and power needed. I suppose I've got a hefty PSU meaning I've got a lot of power to play with but I've not included any extra fans to cool the machine if I were they'd need to give sufficient cooling for about £10. Thanks for the suggestion :)
 
Spudsasin said:
True it will but I'm not really looking to much overclocking in fact as little as possible, it's my first time making a PC and Im not too confident, yes I'm told it easy but I also know that it increases the heat given off and power needed. I suppose I've got a hefty PSU meaning I've got a lot of power to play with but I've not included any extra fans to cool the machine if I were they'd need to give sufficient cooling for about £10. Thanks for the suggestion :)
Click to expand...

Then id say go with the 660 then. :) Thats the GPU sorted.

Quick question are you going to be building it yourself?
Will you need a monitor ,keyboard,mouse etc etc? And also will you need an operating system like windows7 or windows8?
Or is it just the tower for that price?
You will have to factor all them into that price as well if you haven't already done so :)
 
Quick question are you going to be building it yourself?
Will you need a monitor ,keyboard,mouse etc etc? And also will you need an operating system like windows7 or windows8?
Or is it just the tower for that price? [/QUOTE]

Yes Im building it myself. And this is without any perhipherals or operating system but I should be able to get this through my college.

And @pipson the fx 8320is too expensive and I don't really need an 8-core processor for gaming, most games are optimised for 4-cores. But what's the 7870 like in comparison to the 660? :)
 
RICKST20 said:
Quick question are you going to be building it yourself?
Will you need a monitor ,keyboard,mouse etc etc? And also will you need an operating system like windows7 or windows8?
Or is it just the tower for that price?
You will have to factor all them into that price as well if you haven't already done so :)
Click to expand...

Yes Im building it myself. And this is without any perhipherals or operating system but I should be able to get this through my college.

And @pipson the fx 8320is too expensive and I don't really need an 8-core processor for gaming, most games are optimised for 4-cores. But what's the 7870 like in comparison to the 660? :)
 
The 970 boards are totally fine for the 6300 (though I'd recommend Asus/Gigabyte over MSI). If you think you might upgrade to an 8 core processor later you might want to go for 990FX especially if you may want to overclock it too. They're not hugely more expensive.

Be careful with anandtech bench. It gives a basic idea, but it's comparing reference cards without the latest drivers, which might not reflect the actual cards on the market. But the 7870 would be a better choice over the 660.
 
Stick to the red team if you aren't spending £500 on a gpu, as the best nvidia card right now is the 780, as the 770 and 760 haven't lived up to expectations, and a 7970/ 50 is better than them.
 
Thanks the only reason I'm using this MSI board is that it has SLI and Crossfire and all the other boards in my price range either only have Crossfire or nothing. But I suppose if your recommending an AMD GPU then the SLI support isn't as useful.
 
Im just gonna throw an intel build into the mix for you as well here:
It wont have the ssd and only has A 500gb HDD. But it has an I5 processor and a 7870/7850.
You could save money here by downgrading to 4gb ram and also a 7850 instead of the 7870, and the case is up to you also :)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-404-IN Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-185-MS MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-202-MS MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-033-TG TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit This week only
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-252-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM HDD
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-115-CS Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply This week only
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-011-BX BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-090-LG LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEMThis week only

Sub Total : £503.
Shipping : £11.75
VAT : £102.98
Total : £617.89

With the downgraded ram and graphics card:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-203-CS Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-191-MS MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards This week only

Sub Total : £476.49
Shipping : £11.75
VAT : £97.65
Total : £585.89

Just a little more food for thought as intel processors far exceed AMD at the moment. But with this setup you do have the option if you wish later on to overclock. If and when you feel it needs a little boost or you become confident enough to do so. Just bare in mind the this week only offers!!
 
I understand that intel processors are much better than AMD but with AMD you get more bang for your buck, plus the 6300 overclocked is supposed to be quite good. Also I thought that the processor wasn't as important as say the graphics card in a gaming rig as I understood it, it was how the SSD would work with the RAM and processor which would make this build kind of nippy. If I've got this wrong please correct me. :)
 
Something like this would be my choice for £600 + shipping. I've dropped the SSD for the better CPU and the better graphics card. An SSD is a nice extra, but a squeeze on a decent £600 gaming machine.

You could add a reasonably good £25 cooler later to overclock with. If you wanted to lower costs, you could get the 6300 as originally planned and a 970 board.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (R7870-2GD5T) £167.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £109.99
1 x XFX Pro 650W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £48.95
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £43.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £613.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
For a gaming rig at this price point SKIP THE SSD!

Def go AMD for graphics, mid range they do well with cards ppl have mentioned.
Overclocking an AMD card is very easy if you use MSI after burner etc.

I think your ok with either intel or AMD tbh i would go with 3570k, buy a refurb H100 for 40 pounds when you have it and overclock that. also very easy

i've heard good things from AMD piledriver though

(i'm on 6950s UL WC)
 
teppic said:
Something like this would be my choice for £600 + shipping. I've dropped the SSD for the better CPU and the better graphics card. An SSD is a nice extra, but a squeeze on a decent £600 gaming machine.

You could add a reasonably good £25 cooler later to overclock with. If you wanted to lower costs, you could get the 6300 as originally planned and a 970 board.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (R7870-2GD5T) £167.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £109.99
1 x XFX Pro 650W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £48.95
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £43.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £613.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Click to expand...

Id go with this then if you feel you want more bang for buck.
I still dont see why you will need a 650w power supply though. Unless you plan to x-fire your graphics you will never need that much power.
Swap it for this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-034-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2463
and save your self a little extra or possibly buy a better cpu cooler?
As stated though the ssd will be a push with this budget.
Intels cost more but are better processors so thats upto you.
It will still be a capable gaming rig either way really.
 
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