£550 max gaming system

[hibeesmad]

Looking for a complete gaming system including Vista 64-bit.

Don't need a mouse, keyboard, monitor or speakers.

I will be gaming a 1680 x 1050 and playing COD4.

Fire away!

Thanks.

 

[semi-pro waster]

This is just inside the budget but should offer a very capable system with some potential for overclocking.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.53GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £73.99
(£86.94) £73.99
(£86.94)
Asus P5K Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Samsung SH-S203DBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Antec NSK 6580 Super Midi Tower Case - 430W Earth Watts PSU £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Sub Total : £453.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £81.35
Total : £546.21

 

[bledd]

if you don't care about media centre and aero (desktop graphics effects), then get home edition 64

personally i'd change the board to a gigabyte p35-ds3 (R or L) R has raid

 

[hibeesmad]

Thanks, which boards are most stable and less bug free for about £75 as I don't want to have to flash to board. I will be buying 4gb RAM and would like the board to boot no problem.

 

[aproctor]

not that you need it but semi pros set up it top notch, although as mentioned raid is a feature you cannot do without, so get the gigabyte or save up anoter £25 and get a asus p5k premium.


mobo stability isn't really an issue, and you only need to flash stuff when really new stuff comes out generally i.e. anything on sale today over £50 using commonly availible parts will have no issue.
all 3 boards mentioend are fine.