£600 build budget for Intel and AMD (choices choices)

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My neighbours son is looking to build his first pc and has a budget of £600.

He specifically wants a cool looking case, of course, but doesn't want to spend a fortune on that end of the build (I've tried to persuade him that looking good won't make it run faster without success).

This will be a system that'll be upgraded over the next year or so but he wants it to play the games right now so is wanting a graphics card in the GTX770 class which obviously affects the budget.
I've suggested he go with this

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3x OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N770OC-2GD) £251.99 inc VAT (for the 3yr warranty, uk based rma stuff and I'm a fan after getting the 780 for myself).
I think the 760 windforce oc will be a better budget conscious choice without hitting the gaming ability of the system so consider that please.

I'm leaning towards an I5 as his cpu but as in the title, it's a case of seeing which comes out best in terms of budget for now and long term upgrade paths.

Help us OCUK forums please :)


(ps there'll definitely be some overclocking at some point in this systems life)


Edit: no monitor required, also will be using a 3mth trial of windows to get him started and save on initial budget
 
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The 770 is a massive chunk you're not wrong. I'm pushing him towards a the Gigabyte 760oc which is on This Week Only and that frees up some pennies so lets try that way first. I'm still looking at "cool" cases. The Aerocool line appear to fit the bill but I know nothing about them.
 
I came up with this so far...

It's lacking an ssd but is pretty cool, has a nice board with lots of features and matching ram, you can get a windowed side for the prodigy.

I have another idea though will try now.

image.jpg
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming Edition OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £110.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-UD3P AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £67.99
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 £49.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £47.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £41.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £604.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
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Second try, went for itx with a boss case, ssd in there now but £30 over and the itx board from clearance really is amazing, has wifi, good for overclocking.

image.jpg
 
I was going to suggest this as an alternative to the 770. Whats better than a UK based RMA? A UK based OCuk RMA with 48-72hour turnaround and freedom to remove the coolers.

Gibbo said:
Hi there

Its being a long time since Overclockers UK sold Powercolor and some of you more keener lot noticed we had started selling them again before Christmas and this is why:-

  • 2yr Advanced Warranty: OcUK 48-72hr turn-around which OcUK deal with
  • Removal of cooler won't invalidate warranty
  • New Black PCB / Cooler designs in mostly black/red colours
  • Exclusive on Devil Range to OcUK
  • LCS Range also available

In short you can now buy Powercolor with confidence in the UK with no RMA issues and the added benefit of cooler removal, bear in mind these terms are only with OcUK. :)
Click to expand...

Still a fair amount of the budget though but the GPU grunt is worth it!
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 WindForce 3x OC Rev2 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Black PCB** £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £91.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £82.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £61.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2133HC11ADC01) £53.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £41.99
1 x Zalman Z3-Plus Midi-Tower - Black £39.95
1 x NZXT Hale Power 90+ 550W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £39.95
1 x LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £622.82 (includes shipping : £12.50).




Upgrade path on this would be switching out (selling) the i3 for the i5 and an aftermarket cooler for overclocking.
 
Thanks for all the responses chaps, plenty of food for thought there so will see what he thinks.
That Zalman case looks like it should slip in as a smart enough looker. It can definitely survive without an SSD this early in it's life. He'll get to enjoy that speed boost further down the line so a 7200rpm drive definitely fits the bill.
 
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Thanks for the replies chaps. This is what we've come up with today following a few budget tweaks. Going for the trial version of windoze for now to keep the budget flexible (to the point that this is now how it looks)

Any thoughts? Changes or tweaks you'd suggest?

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 WindForce 3x OC Rev2 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Black PCB** Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 WindForce 3x OC Rev2 2048MB GDDR5 £179.99

Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
£169.99
Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99

SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £61.99

TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G2133HC11ADC01) £53.99

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £43.99

Zalman Z3-Plus Midi-Tower - White Zalman Z3-Plus Midi-Tower - White £39.95

LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99

£674.88
 
 
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I've sold him on the I5 and 760 after checking reviews of current and previous games that he likes the look of. I wasn't completely sure on the motherboard, even though I'm using it in my own system without issue, as there's a few choices in that price range.

Other than that, what do you make of the spec we've come up with? A good base to upgrade on later, in terms of ssd and graphics in a years time.
 
The 280 pushes us over the top on an already extended budget. He's also happy with the reviews on the 760 which of course includes shadowplay which is a feature he's interested in.
So no thoughts on anything else in there? PSU is up to the job? Upgrade path will be an aftermarket cooler for the cpu to enable overclocking, an SSD and then lastly the graphics card.
I'll assume that since the only comments are regarding the gfx (and hdd but he loves wd) that overall it's a very capable spec?


Don't think the replies aren't appreciated chaps. We spent nearly 6hrs going through various specs today before getting to this point and it all started as a very different AMD spec of around £500 so the budget has been murdered but within reason ;)
 
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PSU is up to it and can be brought down a notch to save cash.

The reason why people are suggesting alternative GPU's and CPU's is because £675 is a lot of money to end up with a 760 in a gaming build which also has no SSD or aftermarket cooler. If those are the components your mate wants though, then there isn't really any issues with your suggested build.

danewesley said:
*Cough cough* 8320 and a 290!!!!
Click to expand...

Wouldn't want to run that set up on a 550w amazon PSU. The NZXT gold 550w are good for it though! Can pay an extra £20 and get an aftermarket cooler 290!
 
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