another spec request, and some questions

[MrSmall]

Hi dudes,
Been out of the loop for a little while so need a hand.

Budget is 350.
No bells, whistles, overclocking ability, crossfire/sli support etc.
No preference between AMD, Intel, Nvidia, ATI.

I do play games but I'm a realist, I have a 3 year old laptop with a 9600m gt, and a desktop athlon 64 3700+ with 7800gs agp graphics, which plays them better than the laptop, so obviously even the budget of the budget will outperform this pair by a lot.

no need for SSD obviously. not too fussed for futureproofing but obviously a bonus. I am buying quite soon so feel free to put anything from the week's deals in.

how is AMD vs INTEL these days? how are the ocuk range of products? coolermaster psu's any good?

thanks in advance

ps: this is the second time I post this I think, so feel free to delete either thread if it appears

 

[Matterez]

how is AMD vs INTEL these days? how are the ocuk range of products? coolermaster psu's any good?

AMD vs Intel:
AMD - better value, better socket names
Intel - more power, 32nm out, more efficient, more expensive

Coolermaster PSUs are fine, I'd still prefer a Corsair or OCZ over them though.

If you wanted a £350 spec, for gaming, I'd pick a Phenom II x2 or look second hand. Sorry, I haven't done a full spec, but I'm in a hurry

 

[Jony27]

do you need OS,peripherals or monitor?

at £350, youd be looking at a Llano setup, give me a couple of minutes to spec one for you.

Llano, could up the HDD to 1TB to use up all of the budget

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Llano A8-3850 2.90GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor (AD3850WNGXBOX) with FREE DIRT3 PC Game £99.98
1 x Asus F1A75-M AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM1) DDR3 Motherboard £60.00
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £53.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £24.98
1 x Samsung SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £334.92 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Sandy Bridge

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM £83.99
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £53.99
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £53.99
1 x MSI H61M-E33 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £46.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £24.98
1 x Samsung SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £359.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 

[Reaper 392]

AMD vs Intel:
AMD - better value, better socket names
Intel - more power, 32nm out, more efficient, more expensive

Coolermaster PSUs are fine, I'd still prefer a Corsair or OCZ over them though.

If you wanted a £350 spec, for gaming, I'd pick a Phenom II x2 or look second hand. Sorry, I haven't done a full spec, but I'm in a hurry

intel is far better value for money across the entire range, especially if your talking gaming:

1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £167.99
1 x AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1100T Black Edition 3.30GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £151.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £89.99
1 x AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 450 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £59.99
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £53.99



intel pentium G620 vs athlon II X3 450
intel i3 2100 vs AMD Phenom II X4 955
intel i5 2500k vs AMD phenom II X6 1100T

with that in mind i'd go for something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM £83.99
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £53.99
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £53.99
1 x MSI H61M-P23 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £44.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £19.18
1 x Samsung SH-S222AL/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £352.09 (includes shipping : £12.50).

*edit*
wow, just noticed how similar it is to Jony's sandybridge recommendation, but i;d take this one simply because you wont be able to use the extra speed of the RAM in Jony's build