Advice on building a new Gaming/Media Machine

malb84 · 14 Jul 2012 at 10:28

Hi all,

This is my first post on the OCUK Forums.

I'm looking at building a media/gaming PC for as close to £500 as possible.

I've been looking at an i5 3rd gen motherboard bundle (£240), GTX 560ti (£150), a 120Gb Agility 3 SSD (£70) and Windows OEM 7 64bit (£72). But I'm struggling to find a suitable Case and PSU (I was thinking an ATX Tower with 500 PSU??? £26) and get it all in budget?

Any suggestions for what hardware configurations would be better value for performance, or if anyone knows what Case size and PSU output I would need, that would be a great help.

Cheers

mickyflinn · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:07

You will not get a good enough case and psu for £26 , you will need a quality psu to run that graphics card.

malb84 · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:10

Any suggestions on what Case and PSU to go for? I think I need at least a 500w PSU (maybe 650w would be better)

mickyflinn · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:12

YOUR BASKET
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
Total : £101.27 (includes shipping : £10.25).

Bacon? · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:25

mickyflinn said:
You will not get a good enough case and psu for £26 , you will need a quality psu to run that graphics card.

Agreed, buy cheap, buy twice.

malb84 · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:29

I will probably need to look at changing some of the hardware as I need to keep it as close to £500 as possible. Maybe an i3 2nd gen motherboard bundle might be more suitable?

mickyflinn · 14 Jul 2012 at 13:39

malb84 · 16 Jul 2012 at 09:02

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be a better spec for about the £500 mark?

Bacon? · 16 Jul 2012 at 09:35

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3450 3.10GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £149.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD2500AAKX) £47.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £31.98
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £511.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

malb84 · 16 Jul 2012 at 12:40

Thanks for the advice guys, much appreciated