£550-£650 Gaming PC

mtjdavis · 25 Apr 2006 at 06:49

At the moment im shopping for an entirely new PC, ive got £550-£650 and about £60-£70 for the case (depending)
But im pretty much lost cause' most things ive tried doing come to about £800 or so, but i am a bit of a noob at this.

I saw an Opteron 146 combo and it looked pretty good:

Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS NF4 SLI, S939, PCI-E (x16), DDR 400, SATA II, SATA/IDE RAID, ATX

AMD Opteron 64 146 Socket939 , Venus Core, 2.0GHz , 1MB Cache, Retail

1GB (2X512MB) Corsair TwinX DDR, PC3200 (400), 184 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 2-3-3-6

All for:£263.78

Is this a good starting point?

Thanks for any help

Sandmaster500 · 25 Apr 2006 at 07:38

Just a heads up you can't mention competitiors on this forum so i'd edit that out before a mod see's it.

You should be able to get a very good gaming PC for that price mark

something like a 3200 or 3800 X2 (maybe?)
1gb overclockers RAM or 2gb of value ram depending on what your going to be doing
cheap nForce 4 ultra or 6100 motherboard
250gb hard drive (samsung, western digital, seagate are my personal choice)
Case - Lian li PC 7+ is a great one if you like the looks
PSU - Seasonic 430W if you want quite otherwise tagan are a good one, but not quite as quite.
Nec DVD drive
Not sure about graphics myself depends what would fit in (not clued up enough to give advice tbh)

That bundle looks pretty good but i believe the more recent opterons are not clocking "that" well, but would still be a good option has has the extra L2 (1mb rather than 512kb) cache over something like the 3200.

Hope that helps

mtjdavis · 25 Apr 2006 at 08:51

Yeah, i was looking at lian-li cases.
Cause' mine is in a rather bad state, also gets hot easily.
Thanks though.

Anyone got an idea for the graphics?

mtjdavis · 25 Apr 2006 at 15:43

Would the Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (on this week only) be good for my budget?

booyaka · 25 Apr 2006 at 15:49

do u need a monitor? keyboard, mouse etc?

liam72uk · 25 Apr 2006 at 16:17

CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£124.95 £124.95

MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£59.95 £59.95

MY-030-CS Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-030-CS)
£61.95 £61.95

GX-121-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-121-SP)
£144.95 £144.95

HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£41.95 £41.95

CD-049-SO Sony DWG120A 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-049-SO)
£23.95 £23.95

CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£69.95 £69.95

Subtotal £527.65
VAT £92.34
Total £619.99

mtjdavis · 25 Apr 2006 at 18:52

booyaka said:
do u need a monitor? keyboard, mouse etc?

Yeah i need a monitor, but im ok on keyboard mouse.
However i can probably spend on top of £650 on the monitor

P.S thanks liam

mtjdavis · 25 Apr 2006 at 21:36

bump!

mtjdavis · 27 Apr 2006 at 17:04

any ideas on a monitor?

Klo · 27 Apr 2006 at 19:07

What sort of size are you aiming for. 17, 19, 21 inch?

mtjdavis · 27 Apr 2006 at 19:12

probably 17 or 19 depending on price

Mr Mag00 · 27 Apr 2006 at 23:50

I've just bought the acer al1916w fro OCUK. Fantastic,vv pleased with it,don't really think you can go wrong, favourable reviews from here!

Gun9 · 28 Apr 2006 at 10:27

Mr Mag00 said:
I've just bought the acer al1916w fro OCUK. Fantastic,vv pleased with it,don't really think you can go wrong, favourable reviews from here!

is it as good as the viewsonic?

pcAnywhere · 28 Apr 2006 at 10:39

The spec from Liam is pretty similar to mine - I wanted a slightly less "high end" GPU and more memory.

Which games are you thinking of playing? What resolution would you like (as this affects both the TFT size and the GPU choice)? Love detail or could do with out?

mtjdavis · 28 Apr 2006 at 15:59

Thanks ill check out that monitor.

Um, im thinking of playing stuff like EVE, empire at war, oblivion, ET:Quake wars, UT2007 etc
But im happy playing at any resolution (im playing oblivion at 640x480, due to old graphics, and it runs fine and look (fairly) good.)
But id like to be able to have some pretty decent amounts of detail

SiriusB · 28 Apr 2006 at 16:04

I can run Oblivion at 800x600 on my ATi 9600 TX and thats over 3 years old! So I reckon any graphics card from the last 12 months will be more than capable of fulfilling your gaming needs. The X1800 is a damn fine card so I would recommend sticking with that.

SiriusB

booyaka · 28 Apr 2006 at 16:30

samsung 913N - £185 total bargin - superb monitor- 8ms reposnce time. no ghosting, don't let the lack of DVI fool you - the VGA chip on this monitor is superb!!!!

Top notch monitor

Monstermunch · 28 Apr 2006 at 17:34

How about this....Cheap as Chips Bargain Hunters!

CL-006-AS **B Grade** Asus A8N-SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (CL-006-AS)
£30.00 £30.00
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£183.95 £183.95
GX-121-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-121-SP)
£144.95 £144.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£94.95 £94.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£41.95 £41.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£63.95 £63.95
Subtotal £584.70
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £104.07
Total £698.72

mtjdavis · 29 Apr 2006 at 08:46

Thanks guys, does the fact the mobo you listed is **B Grade** mean anything serious?

SiriusB · 29 Apr 2006 at 09:47

B Grade stuff is stuff that is most likely second hand. Some of them may be refurbished etc. One thing to remember tho is everything you get from B Grade *should* work. However, I think OcUK give you two weeks in which you can send it back in case anything is wrong with the item.

SiriusB