£400 For High Spec Rig?

wentalong

wentalong

wentalong

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Joined
3 Mar 2011
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626
Hey all,

Looking at getting a new tower however have 'fallen out of the loop' the past few years due to being so busy, but thankfully i know the BEST place to come to have a rig Specced and the best advice :')

So then as the title says im in need for just a new tower for £400, and will be used purely for gaming, what do we recommend guys? :)

(P.S: Need everything from case to GPU as i want to build a new tower ground up, wont need any fans, DVD Drives and just one small HDD (300GB Is fine, no SSD) )

Many thanks guys!
Curtis :)
 
 
RJC said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte HD 7770 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £99.95
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £92.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £47.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £40.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX) £39.95
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
Total : £417.84 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Click to expand...

That's about as good as you'll get for the cash. Although check with OCuk that it's the Rev 2 H61-D3V, be a bummer if it didn't support the Ivy CPU out of the box.

Personally I wouldn't get a 7770. I'd rather try and source a 2nd hand 1GB 460 or 6850 (let's say ~£50) then put the rest of the cash to a i5 3330. Buying new the 650Ti Boost would be the minimum GPU I'd consider if not a 7850.

Best of luck with the build. Look forward to seeing what you settle on in the end :)
 
Hey guys & thanks for the replies! :)

the rig looks great and thank you for the spec up, was thinking about second hand parts as maybe i will have better luck with parts for cheaper, maybe a 6950 as they go for around £130 and then in time upgrade the i3 to something happier? or wait out and get the extra funds to get a 6950 and 2500k? or an i5 3330 if it is a better choice as they both seem to float around the same price?
 
wentalong said:
the rig looks great and thank you for the spec up, was thinking about second hand parts as maybe i will have better luck with parts for cheaper, maybe a 6950 as they go for around £130 and then in time upgrade the i3 to something happier? or wait out and get the extra funds to get a 6950 and 2500k? or an i5 3330 if it is a better choice as they both seem to float around the same price?
Click to expand...
If you are not in a hurry for getting the rig up, I would suggest you keep an eye on OcUK's clearance section for the B-grade Z68 motherboards...they pops up from time to time for under £50, and then try grabbing a 2nd hand i5 2500K for under £120, so you have the option to overclock it.

As for graphic card, I wouldn't pay £130 for a 2nd hand 6950 2GB, when you can get a 2nd hand/B-grade 7850 2GB for simliar cost but faster than the 6970 by some margin.
 
Last edited:
It might help if we clarify something:

What games?
How much do you care about quality, or do you just want "playable"

"Gaming" is a very wide topic - some games love memory bandwidth, some love CPU, others love GPU. If you have a few games you play most of the time, a couple of current/future "target" games that you'd like to play but can't now because of your rig, or even just some general genre's, we can get a better idea of what suits you.

For example, a 7770 will handle most current games reasonably well on medium settings, but if you're going for something very multi-threaded/CPU bound, you might be better off going even more budget and putting the money into CPU. On the other hand, if you play graphically heavy FPS games, you'll want more GPU but less CPU. If you prefer old games (I'm a big CS:S player, with a bit of WarThunder thrown in) then we might even be able to save you money.

£400 will get you something that handles pretty much all current games reasonably well, and all 360/PS3 era console games. It should also handle most of the next-gen consoles' games, or at least the early ones, although we can't be sure until we actually see them.

But yeah, knowing what you play makes a big difference.
 
Apologies for the late reply all, just got back from holiday :D

Sorry for not specifying on the PC's usage, It will mainly be more intensive games being played for example Metro Last light, Metro 2033, Far Cry 3, BioShock Infinite, Skyrim etc, so my choice in games are the more demanding than others, and as you would expect i'd like to play them on highest settings but i dont expect that from a £400 rig,

would a Z68 Board, 2500k and 7850 be the best option for money right now as suggested?

Thanks in advance :)
 
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