< £400 Computer Challenge

Mulberry Flame · 23 Aug 2012 at 00:07

Hey Overclockers,
Its been a while since I was last here and technology has moved on so I would really appreciate your advice.

I've been tasked with making my little brother a gaming PC for his birthday but for as little money as possible. Im trying to keep the cost of the computer low because he's also gonna need a monitor, mouse, keyboard, Windows etc.

What would be the best value for money decent gaming PC I could make for ideally less than £400? advice with graphics cards is most needed as this has all changed since just a year ago when I built my PC.

Here is what I have been recommended by a friend:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £101.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) £44.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £32.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
1 x LG GH24NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £413.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

What think?

Mulberry Flame · 23 Aug 2012 at 00:50

Awesome thanks for the advice. Btw, where did you find out the 2120 is out of stock? it still says 10+ in stock when I look at it.

Mulberry Flame · 23 Aug 2012 at 09:39

So do you guys think the Pentium II processor is worth having? It doesn't have hyper threading like the i3 but I don't know in the real world how much that will affect it.

Mulberry Flame · 23 Aug 2012 at 13:54

Orcvader said:
It's based off the Sandybridge architecture so it still performs pretty well, and most games only uses 2 cores efficiently, while there are some more recent games that can use more the Pentium shouldn't have that much of a problem with bottlenecking.

Since it's for your bother, will he be willing to upgrade it later on? Exactly what sort of games is he planning to play? I could probably try do a Llano build to fit everything else into the budget, but then that will sacrifice gaming performance.

The idea is to get him a good computer that is going to last him a few years so no he wont be planning on upgrading in the next few years, which is why im hesitant about the Pentium II.

Knowing him he will almost definitely want to play all the call of booty and battlefield games along with anything else involving guns and violence.

also Llano build?

@Idleman, doomedspeed, that is the one that im leaning towards at the moment, only with the cheaper motherboard.