Spec me a gaming PC (£400)

krelm · 17 Feb 2009 at 15:39

I need

PSU
MOBO
CPU
GFX
RAM
HDD

I know i wont get anything great for £400. I will be playing at 1280x960 and mainly looking to upgrade for Diablo3, i hope it will be enough to play it (any guesses?)

Thank you.

Bleek · 17 Feb 2009 at 15:44

AM3 720 X3 Black Edition £120
MSI K9A2 Platinum - £80
ATI 4850 - £115
2x1GB DDR2 £20
Good quality 500w (most you'll need) psu - £40
HDD of your choice.

~£400

That would easily run the latest games at full detail 1280x as the Phenom 720 is a tour-de-force in games!

Kennysevenfold · 17 Feb 2009 at 15:56

how about...

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11147-00-20) £101.19
(£87.99) £101.19
(£87.99)

Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £80.49
(£69.99) £80.49
(£69.99)

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £62.09
(£53.99) £62.09
(£53.99)

Seasonic Silverpower 500W Power Supply £57.49
(£49.99) £57.49
(£49.99)

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX6400D2K2/4G) £42.54
(£36.99) £42.54
(£36.99)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99) Sub Total : £333.94 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.99 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £51.44 Total : £394.37

Bleek · 17 Feb 2009 at 16:43

Why? The AMD Tri-core will strip the pants off of the Intel in games!

Bleek · 17 Feb 2009 at 16:48

Exhibit a) http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-phenom-ii-x4-810-and-x3-720be-review-am3/25

Matching and then beating the Intel i7 920 (twice the price of the AMD) in Crysis Warhead, and it does the same in all the game benchmarks.

Wipster · 17 Feb 2009 at 16:52

In my experience you can overclock intels a lot more thus getting more performance/price...

Bleek · 17 Feb 2009 at 16:58

People are hitting 4GHz on air with the Tri-Core Phenom II, most reviews of it are at 3.8GHz and beyond, for a first revision that's good.

What can you expect to overclock the Intel too?

Also check that review with overclocked versus stock volts and notice the FPS difference is nominal, the graphics card becomes the bottleneck with the cpu around 3GHz, so in other words the AMD X3 720 BE is still the right choice for a budget gamer.

Killwerty · 17 Feb 2009 at 16:58

But the Phenom X3 has such a big cache, it's amazing for gaming. It also overclocks a lot too.

Kennysevenfold · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:13

Edleake said:
Why? The AMD Tri-core will strip the pants off of the Intel in games!

You fail

am3 needs ddr3 ram and with a budget of £300-400 the idea fails

ro55o · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:16

AM3 is backwards compatible, so will work with AM2+ platforms, so can be used with either DDR2 or 3.

I have to say it does look good, first time looking at the benchmarks for it and I'm impressed.

Bleek · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:17

Kennysevenfold said:
You fail

am3 needs ddr3 ram and with a budget of £300-400 the idea fails

Erm, you major fail.

AM3 works in AM2+ motherboards and is backward and current tech compatible. It has both a DDR2 and DDR3 memory controller.

And his budget is £400. Not £300 to £400. How many fails do you need to prove your wrong?

:rolleyes:

Kennysevenfold · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:20

Edleake said:
Erm, you major fail.

AM3 works in AM2+ motherboards and is backward and current tech compatible. It has both a DDR2 and DDR3 memory controller.

And his budget is £400. Not £300 to £400. How many fails do you need to prove your wrong?

i am never wrong, my spec wins

Bleek · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:24

Your spec would get bent over and shown a good time by the AMD X3, what planet are you on?

Exhibit b) http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3512&p=8

AMD 720 is about 50% faster than the Intel 5200!

You're WRONG again.

OneTime · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:28

Break it up lads. Back on topic. Help the guy out with his £400 budget.

AMD would be the best option as seen from those reviews.

ro55o · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:30

krelm said:
mainly looking to upgrade for Diablo3, i hope it will be enough to play it (any guesses?)

Got a little wait for that me thinks, I don't see it coming anytime this year, which is poor as I was really looking forward to it, but good things comes to those who wait

As for the spec, the one shown by edleake seems your best bet. Spend a little more on the PSU though, £50-£60 will get you a decent make (It's something you don't want to skimp on). Also for the price of DDR2 get 4gb, only an extra £20.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-086-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

You could always drop the 4850 for something less powerful especially since your gaming at a low resolution, the 9800gt is at a great price and will play any game at that res. Although if you can stretch the 4850 is a great card, just not needed for what you want.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-009-ZT

Kennysevenfold · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:36

Edleake said:
Your spec would get bent over and shown a good time by the AMD X3, what planet are you on?

Exhibit b) http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3512&p=8

AMD 720 is about 50% faster than the Intel 5200!

You're WRONG again.

well hit out with an on budget spec then smart *** :cool:

Fade2po · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:37

what are your current PC spec's? if you have one (presuming you do as not asking for a case, keyboard etc.)

ro55o · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:39

A 400W PSU will be enough to power the above, this saves you a bit of money instead of going for a 500W PSU.

I'm not up on my AM2+ boards, last amd I had was socket 939

So someone can help out if the above is any good.

It's a little bit above budget, so if you need to get it closer to £400, then go for 2gb just now, you could always get another 2 later down the line.

Kennysevenfold · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:44

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £124.19
(£107.99) £124.19
(£107.99)

Asus M3A78 Pro AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £80.49
(£69.99) £80.49
(£69.99)

Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (471846200-9689) £74.74
(£64.99) £74.74
(£64.99)

Seasonic Silverpower 400W Power Supply £45.99
(£39.99) £45.99
(£39.99)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £39.09
(£33.99) £39.09
(£33.99) Sub Total : £351.94 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : Free
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £54.14 Total : £406.06

Kennysevenfold · 17 Feb 2009 at 17:45

^ ^ better graphics card, £9 cheaper