£500 Spec Me

dk345 · 31 May 2015 at 21:27

Hi,

My brother has asked me to build him a new PC. He'll use the machine for general pottering and game playing. Nothing too intensive, but it'd be nice to get decent frames on decent games at mid/high settings for the next few years at 1080p.

Now, we already have the following:
- Windows,
- Keyboard
- Mouse
- Speakers
- SSD

Meaning I'm looking for the best bang-for-buck for the following:
- CPU/Motherboard
- RAM
- GPU
- Case
- PSU
- HDD

I'm so far out of touch with components now that it's just not funny, so any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated! All I really know is that the performance crown is still with Intel. However, at this price point, does it make more sense to go with an AMD APU?

Cheers

dacads · 31 May 2015 at 22:23

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS Radeon R9 280X iPower IceQ X2 Boost 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
1 x Seasonic M12II-520 EVO 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £61.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £59.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £44.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £43.99
1 x BitFenix Neos ATX Tower Black/Black £25.99
1 x Alpenföhn Brocken ECO CPU Cooler - 120 mm £24.95
Total : £501.98 (includes shipping : £11.75 Ex.VAT).

Danny75 · 31 May 2015 at 22:35

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 770 "NVIDIA Reference" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £104.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £49.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £43.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £41.99
1 x Cougar MX200 Midi-Tower Gaming Case - Black £23.99
Total : £504.53 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).

mahius · 1 Jun 2015 at 09:39

Danny75 said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 770 "NVIDIA Reference" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £104.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £49.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £43.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £41.99
1 x Cougar MX200 Midi-Tower Gaming Case - Black £23.99
Total : £504.53 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).

+1
i3 has hyperthreading and doesn't need an aftermarket cooler as it doesn't overclock.
I'd also recommend spending a bit more on this PSU. Best to spend just £10 more on a decent PSU as a bad one can really mess up your PC.
YOUR BASKET
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £56.99

dk345 · 1 Jun 2015 at 23:15

Thanks for the replies guys.

Would you say throwing another £50 at it to get an i5 would be worth the extra? Or is the i3 (or Pentium for that matter) capable enough?

bobbarley · 1 Jun 2015 at 23:19

If you have the cash the i5 is certainly the bet choice without a doubt. You get what you pay for. However, I have the G3258 and can tell you now, except for GTA5 it can play any game I've thrown at it.

Noxvayl · 1 Jun 2015 at 23:40

For me, I would go for the i5 because I like to play games like Total War that can use the extra CPU grunt. If you don't play games that make use of the CPU you can do very well on i3 or even Pentium. It would be good to check out different review sites to find the games you like and check how CPU intensive they are and how well they support more cores.

I still find the FX6300 to be great value for money, so that is worth looking at to give you more money to spend on your graphics card.