Gaming Spec Advice - £650-700 Budget

Could you please give me an indication on the quality of gameplay you are getting with current games?
Also would this build be viable for recording gameplay?

Thanks
Granticus
 
Build isn't actually up and running yet, put it together and spent quite some time on cable management, finishing it off tomorrow. Will let you know how it performs
 
i5 4760 gaming pc

Would anyone please advise me about a possible gaming desktop pc so I can make an informed decision before any purchase? My ideal budget would be £650

The essentials I would like are as follows:

i5 4670 CPU
Compatible motherboard with USB 3 capability (this should also be compatible with the memory I currently own, see below for details)
256 SSD
GeForce GTX 660 graphics card
DVD +-RW

I will let you choose which Mobo, CPU fan and Case/PSU would be best within my budget but for the fan the quieter the better and USB 3 on the front of the case would be useful. I own 2 1000 GB Sata drives which I will add if the system gets the go ahead and I also have 8 GB of Kingston PC3-10700 which I would like to install as it would save money on the whole project! I already own a 1920x1080p LCD monitor, keyboard & mouse. I will however need a good 2.1 speaker set up but will set aside up to £45 for this, any advice on it will still be welcome and appreciated. I guess it would be stretching it to get 64 bit windows 8 home premium included but as I already own a copy of 64 bit windows 7 it's just a thought rather than an essential. Thanks in advance

Apologies if this reply is in the wrong place, could not find the link to start a new thread as I can only do this on my iphone ATM. If a moderator would be so kind as to move it where it ought to be I would be very grateful
 
Last edited:
ken1970 said:
Would anyone please advise me about a possible gaming desktop pc so I can make an informed decision before any purchase? My ideal budget would be £650

The essentials I would like are as follows:

i5 4670 CPU
Compatible motherboard with USB 3 capability (this should also be compatible with the memory I currently own, see below for details)
256 SSD
GeForce GTX 660 graphics card
DVD +-RW

I will let you choose which Mobo, CPU fan and Case/PSU would be best within my budget but for the fan the quieter the better and USB 3 on the front of the case would be useful. I own 2 1000 GB Sata drives which I will add if the system gets the go ahead and I also have 8 GB of Kingston PC3-10700 which I would like to install as it would save money on the whole project! I already own a 1920x1080p LCD monitor, keyboard & mouse. I will however need a good 2.1 speaker set up but will set aside up to £45 for this, any advice on it will still be welcome and appreciated. I guess it would be stretching it to get 64 bit windows 8 home premium included but as I already own a copy of 64 bit windows 7 it's just a thought rather than an essential. Thanks in advance

Apologies if this reply is in the wrong place, could not find the link to start a new thread as I can only do this on my iphone ATM. If a moderator would be so kind as to move it where it ought to be I would be very grateful
Click to expand...

With 120GB SSD (is 250GB absolutely essential?), to fit a pretty good case in:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 660 FTW ACX 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-3063-KR) £149.99
1 x MSI Z87-G43 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £76.99
1 x Corsair Graphite Series 230T Compact Mid Tower Case Windowed - Black (CC-9011042-WW) £66.95
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £53.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £657.98 (includes shipping : £11.75).




With 180GB SSD, and budget case:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 660 FTW ACX 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-3063-KR) £149.99
1 x Intel 335 Series 180GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £119.99
1 x MSI Z87-G43 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £53.99
1 x Aerocool V3X Advance Devil Red Edition Midi-Tower - Black/Red £25.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £655.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).



With 250GB SSD and cheaper video card (still a good GTX 660, just that the EVGA is better):

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £137.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 WindForce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £137.99
1 x MSI Z87-G43 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £53.99
1 x Aerocool V3X Advance Devil Red Edition Midi-Tower - Black/Red £25.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £661.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Both cases have USB 3.0.

A few examples of decent aftermarket coolers that won't break the bank (too much):

YOUR BASKET
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £26.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £17.99
Total : £84.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



You won't need an aftermarket cooler just yet unless you plan on overclocking straightaway.
 
That's great thanks Danny75 if push comes to shove I would probably go with the evga GPU. With regards to the CPU, I'm not too clued up or confident about overclocking and would rather have it done by a professional. The CPU coolers you mention sound interesting and rather exotic so this may also be worth an extra outlay. Thank you for taking the time to give me so many possible set ups within my budget or there about! I am still open to suggestion so if anyone has ideas too it will be interesting to to see what could be added to the mix, a great start to my post
 
ken1970 said:
That's great thanks Danny75 if push comes to shove I would probably go with the evga GPU. With regards to the CPU, I'm not too clued up or confident about overclocking and would rather have it done by a professional.
Click to expand...

Okay. There's only four pounds difference just now (till Wednesday morning) between the "K" and "non-K" i5-4670, though. There are a few good reasons to spend that bit extra on that CPU.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £169.99
Total : £353.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).




ken1970 said:
Thank you for taking the time to give me so many possible set ups within my budget or there about! I am still open to suggestion so if anyone has ideas too it will be interesting to to see what could be added to the mix, a great start to my post ��
Click to expand...

You're welcome. There's so many possibilities :D. Looking forward to see everyone else's ideas too.
 
I got this reply on another site which seems very interesting as the writer thinks the graphical output & framerate would be significantly better, what do you guys think?

If you're not overclocking, you can go for this:

************ part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£132.08 @ ******)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H87-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£73.00 @ ******)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£69.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card (£224.60 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£38.65 @ ************)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£49.36 @ **** PC)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.98 @ ******)
Total: £599.62
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by ************ 2013-12-31 04:19 GMT+0000)

-The R9-280X is much, much stronger than the GTX 660.
-The i5-4440 performs the same as the i5-4670 but it's much cheaper. The 300mhz difference means nothing.
-I reduced the SSD size to 120gb, but 120gb should still be plenty.
-I included a quality 550w psu with headroom to overclock the 280X and handle any upgrades (other than crossfire)

That sounds like a great alternative to my original brief and the GPU sounds superb but I'm unsure of a few things. The CPU/Mobo and GPU seem miles apart in terms of cost would the CPU & Mobo cope without bottle necking the graphics card? I am not a professional in anyway it just seems striking that a £220 GPU would be balanced in the set up you recommend. Please don't take my doubts as criticism, I just don't fully understand how it would work and I can only assume the technobabble needed to explain would only go over my head anyway, lol. I do like this is kept to budget though and would certainly make adjustments to my original plans if they are deemed worthwhile. I would appreciate other input and feel a second opinion is always valuable and may help with my understanding of the system recommended here.
 
Here is a similar spec

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Battlefield 4 PC Game £269.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £143.99
1 x Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £80.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £76.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £53.99
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - Black £39.95
1 x Akasa 120mm Piranha high performance PWM air ripper blade fan £13.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £762.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Also included a 120mm fan for the front to get some airflow. I have one of those fans in my case and they are very good.
 
Was very confused to see this thread on the 1st page!

I'm still rocking the exact spec I chose in this thread with the 4670k at 4.6ghz stable. Extremely pleased with the built!
 
Ewaf said:
Was very confused to see this thread on the 1st page!

I'm still rocking the exact spec I chose in this thread with the 4670k at 4.6ghz stable. Extremely pleased with the built!
Click to expand...

LOL don't worry :D Ken hijacked your thread as He wasn't sure how to start a new one :)
 
Oops sorry to the original poster! Hijacking your thread was not intentional and was certainly not meant to stop you getting the advice you seek. I will reiterate my sentiment here again if a moderator wants to remove my post to its own thread I would appreciate it as I'm currently limited to using my iphone which as good as they are we're not really built for the wider uses of the web. In fact I'd go so far as to say it leaves me a little infuriated at times, but the festive spirit soon kicks back in lol! Happy New Year to all ⛄️
 
ken1970 said:
Oops sorry to the original poster! Hijacking your thread was not intentional and was certainly not meant to stop you getting the advice you seek. I will reiterate my sentiment here again if a moderator wants to remove my post to its own thread I would appreciate it as I'm currently limited to using my iphone which as good as they are we're not really built for the wider uses of the web. In fact I'd go so far as to say it leaves me a little infuriated at times, but the festive spirit soon kicks back in lol! Happy New Year to all ⛄️
Click to expand...

No harm done. Seasons greetings to you too :)

Here is where you click on to create a new thread:

2zey0lt.jpg
 
D'oh!!! I looked for that everywhere yesterday lol! How silly do I feel for not seeing it, it's there plain as day! Thanks for pointing it out

I wish everyone at overclockers a happy and prosperous 2014
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom