£350 gamer system

NathanT

NathanT

NathanT

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Joined
11 Jun 2009
Posts
813
Had a request from a friend to make him up a system for £350.
looking to play games on it (Team Fortress 2, Aion when it arrives, Dawn of War, Bloodbowl and Left For Dead are the ones he's mentioned)

Not sure if I would go down the AMD route or the intel.

A quick spec as AMD, any suggestions or improvements anyone can give please

screengrab.jpg
 
Definitely AMD I think, though I don't know much about lower end AMDs or their mobos so can't adise you there. Otherwise I would say it's a pretty good build for £350. Perhaps worth going for 4GB ram for £15 extra, which will stop it from being a bottleneck for a couple of upgrades.

PSU is a little overkill but I guess it leaves room for upgrades
 
Seconded. I'd invest in a bit more RAM and potentially 10-15 quid on an after market heatsink (Xigmatek if possible) and overclock it to 3.0Ghz+ which will definitely help games.
 
I dont know how well the 4850's clock but maybe get an aftermarket cooler with that also, eek out a few more Hz which again will help with gaming? Zalman VF1000's are my favorite air coolers for gfx cards but i havent a clue if they are transferrable from Nvidia to Ati cards.
 
Lemin said:
Id go for the 1gb version..

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM
£79.99 inc VAT
£69.56 ex VAT


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-111-HT&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938
Click to expand...

Why? You have no idea what res he's planning on using so how can you advise him to spend more on a 1gig version which may be completely unneccesary and therefore a waste of money.
If you game at or near 1920*1200 (or even ebove) then yeah go for 1gig, otherwise save the money a half gig board will do just as well
 
95thrifles said:
Why? You have no idea what res he's planning on using so how can you advise him to spend more on a 1gig version which may be completely unneccesary and therefore a waste of money.
If you game at or near 1920*1200 (or even ebove) then yeah go for 1gig, otherwise save the money a half gig board will do just as well
Click to expand...
Except for the fact that the 1gb board is only 1p more :D

Im sure it could be overclocked to match the specs of the 512mb xxx edition
 
looks like a good spec for the money the extra ram could come in handy also you might want some extra fans for that case if it doesnt come with any if you are finking of overclocking anything
 
;)

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
GX-111-HT_60.jpg
HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM £79.99
(£69.56) £79.99
(£69.56)
CP-246-AM_60.jpg
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7850+ Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail £51.68
(£44.94) £51.68
(£44.94)
CA-026-OC_60.jpg
OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent Power Supply £48.99
(£42.60) £48.99
(£42.60)
MB-195-GI_60.jpg
Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2P nForce 430 (Socket AM2/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £34.99
(£30.43) £34.99
(£30.43)
CA-155-CM_60.jpg
Coolermaster Elite 330 Midi Tower Case - Black (No PSU) £34.99
(£30.43) £34.99
(£30.43)
HD-057-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £34.99
(£30.43) £34.99
(£30.43)
MY-190-CS_60.jpg
Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel (TWIN2X4096-6400C5C) £33.99
(£29.56) £33.99
(£29.56)
CD-122-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£14.77) £16.99
(£14.77) Sub Total : £292.72 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £45.67 Total : £350.14
 
Well spotted, didn't even think to check the modules, kind of took it for granted its all 2x2... thought it was cheap :)

Regards to monitors, just called him.

He's currently using a on 17" at 1280x1024 (hahaha) but he's putting some money aside for a 22/24" at 1920x1080 which he will be getting in the next month.

I'm pretty sure his budget is non-negotiable (or rather his wife whop holds the purse strings are), so I could probably drop the psu and HD down a wee bit to fit the 4g memory in.

I was going to try and clock it a little, but to be honest I dont think the case is that much cop (would rather try and squeeze an antec300 with some additional fans and an aftermarket cooler in to the budget so at least it has a bit of room to upgrade) but cant see it happening.

Thanks, Back to the drawing board :)

Edit:
Nice spec Kenny, pretty much what I'm aiming at
 
Cru54d3r said:
Except for the fact that the 1gb board is only 1p more :D

Im sure it could be overclocked to match the specs of the 512mb xxx edition
Click to expand...

As you've alluded to, whilst there is little price difference in actual fact, my point was its clocked slower, therefore the money was better spent on a faster clocked card rather than extra memory, but if he's making the move to 24" then yeah go for the 1gig
 
kieves1 said:
It might be enough for him to manage with.He might not want to play games at the highest settings.
Click to expand...

what's the point of that? he might as well buy a console and have a much larger library of games he doesn't need to run in crippled mode.
 
Maybe I should have said he wants a new PC for £350, he uses it for everyday things such as a little photoshop, WMP and browsing but likes to play some games on it in the evening so would tend to choose the spec based on getting the most out of it in this area.
 
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