Budget gaming build

ZZZAC

ZZZAC

ZZZAC

Associate
Joined
28 Dec 2010
Posts
1,543
Hi everyone, I'm new to the forums so first ill introduce myself.
My name is Zac Smith, I'm 14 years old and I live in the U.K.
I have been interested in computer's since spring 2010
and have gone on to rebuild broken computers I have been kindly given.

I have now decided its about time to build my own high spec gaming computer, but i only have a £350 budget.

Since Christmas I have bought several parts, some being second hand, a few being brand new. I am now just waiting for post to arrive.

The spec so far price

CPU's

* 2x intel XEON E5345 2.33ghz quad core cpu's ^ £55 ^

Motherboard ^ ^

* HP XW6400 Dual XEON lga 771 board ^ ^

ram

* 6GB pc-5300F ram £35


GPU'S
* ATI Radeon HD 4650 £60
* Unknown ATI graphics card Free

Hard drives

* W.D 250gb sata HD Free
* Hitachi 300gb HD Free

PSU

* Icute 850w modular psu £70

Case

* Akasa eclipse A-62 £20

EXTRAS


* 3.5" fan controller £10
* 2x dvd rw free


Simply its a 8 core with 1gb radeon gpu a sound card 6gb ram and it cost me less than £400.
i know 8 cores isnt necessary but the motherboard and cpu's bundle only cost £55 on ebay, and in that case 8 cores was cheeper than 2. and we would all prefer 8 cores to 2 cores XD.
I know there will be comments telling me i picked the wrong cpu's and gpu, But im inexperienced and try to make your criticism's constructive so i can learn how to improve in the future.

I hope everyone thinks ive done well with my budget because i do.

Pictures will be uploaded when ive finished the build
advice welcome.

Thanks for reading, Everyone have a great new year
 
Last edited:
psu

I chose the Icute psu because it was cheep and i didnt want under 800w. the psu i chose also had the 8 pin motherboard power, it was the cheepest that ticked all the boxes.

I am also sorry if my build logg was in the wrong section, im new to the forums.
 
Last edited:
I didn't realise it was really that bad?
i ordered it on the 27th and got validated tonight, i think asking now would have been a little late.
oh well, ill see when it arrives broken.
in all seriousness what problems do the icute psu's have?
oh well at-least i didn't push my budget and go for the 1000w icute for £100 that i was eying up


those components i posted will pass 400w, the stock psu for the wx6400 is 575w. anyway its better being overpowered than underpowered.
 
damm.
oh well i do agree i wont use all 8 core's, but itll be good for multi tasking, i also have the full adobe cs5 and have all the programs i need.
any advice on an operating system?, and dont say linux.
i have win xp pro or windows 7 pro. there may be some hardware conflicts, but hopefully not.
 
Seraph said:
icute psu's are cheap or in your case expensive trash, i wouldn't trust one to power a typewriter, let alone several hundred pounds worth of kit :)
Click to expand...

I got it cheep, but your right, all in all the resale value is rocket high, the 2 cpu's would fetch £500 alone.

I know not to buy Icute for next time, but ill see in my own opinion if its cheep trash
 
Seraph said:
care to show any game on the market which would use 8 cores of xeon muscle?

OP would have been better off buying a new budget system, also the gfx in the OP's build are below standard, and the mobo prolly offers no option to crossfire or upgrade cpu's
Click to expand...

What do otyou mean by OP?
anyway, im proud of myself for buying what i bought, exept the psu. lol
evan if i dont use all 8 cores on one game, i was going to buy the value primo barebone's and use a 1.86ghz core 2 duo and 2gb of ram. i think my creation is far more exiting
hopefully some parts will arrive in the post today
 
well.

i dont intent playing many very demanding games, and i know i shouuld have saved my money if that's the case. i also want something that's quick and responsive.

Graphics cards are something i need to leant a bit more about, i bought the HD 4650 because it had 1gb of gddr2 memory. it cost me £60 and looked quite nice.

my other at car came from a old broken core 2 duo i was given, i try i found it had a fried motherboard, or possibly the cpu. the dell had 2gb of ram installed, therefore i belive it was mid range spec.

the ati card has a green motherboard, s-video vga and dvi with a big black heatink covering it, it remains untested.

i will test both cards and find the model of the unknown at card when its built, then i will consider upgrades.

first i was thinking of a sli or crossfire system, and have found that the hd 4650 supports crossfire x.
my motherboard has 2x pice express ports for graphics cards.. but the chipset used on the motherboard is not on the list of compatible crossfire x chipsets.
if i find it is compatible i may buy myself another hd 4650 and run it on a crossfire x system, if it isnt i will sell a few parts and save up for a sli or normal crossfire set-up
 
Last edited:
Psu due to arrive tommorow
heatsink's due to arrive tuesday
ram due to arrive tuesday
case, not sure when it will arrive :(
Im bored, i cant do anything with it until i get more parts
 
ashatron said:
If i were you id sell those CPUs and put that £500 towarda new system.

£500 could probably build you a pretty dam good gaming system.
i5 760, gtx 460, 4 gig ram, not too shabby at all.
Click to expand...

i dont understand this

i5 760 vs 2x xeon?

xeon wins with more cores and cache

4gb ram vs 6gb ram

6gb wins for obvious reasons

hd4650 vs gtx 460

gtx 460 wins with better speed and stuff

so all in all i don't feel its worth selling what ive bought and starting over, the only places i feel i went wrong was the graphics card and the Icute psu

After ordering all of my parts can anyone think of any reason to start over and but the machine he speced me?

im pretty proud of myself, id like to see anyone else build a 8 core for a budget of £350.

cut me some slack, yes im in experienenced, im 14
yes i made a couple of mistakes but im in experienenced

i asked for some constructive ideas not for anyone to freely spec me a new computer because im a total F*CK up

sorry im in a bad mood, i just feel ive had people pick on me because i made a couple of mistakes
 
Seraph said:
care to show any game on the market which would use 8 cores of xeon muscle?

OP would have been better off buying a new budget system, also the gfx in the OP's build are below standard, and the mobo prolly offers no option to crossfire or upgrade cpu's
Click to expand...

know i know what you mean by op
yes my cpu's are top spec and un upgradeable (exept for over-clocking)
but really do i need to upgrade 8 cores at 2.33ghz with 16mb chache?

the motheboard supports crossfire and sli. it has 2 pci express ports. i dont think it supports crossfire x (internal without a bridge)

i should got better graphics but the games im playing will not be demanding.

so to end this event full message, how'd you like them apples?:p:p:p
 
thingemajib said:
seriously, ditch the psu. Go for something of less wattage but better quality. If your icute decided to go pop, it WILL take the other components with it.

Besides, why no less than 800w? those components you specified will struggle to pass 400w, even if you (somehow) overclocked

other than that, i kinda like what you're doing. If you want it to last longer though, i would look for something a tad beefier than the 4670.
Click to expand...

Aretenon said:
Can I have a model number for that iCute PSU? I suspect I know something about it, but it only applies if it is the model which is actually featured on the 80plus website.

You're philosophy for power supplies sounds like it is all wrong. Firstly your system will never use anywhere near 800 watts, so making 800W or above a requirement was a flaw. Plenty of power supplies have the 8-pin EPS12V connector. Another box that you need to add to your criteria is high quality, even if the wattage number does not seem to you to be very high, because, as I said, most systems don't use much power, and yours certainly doesn't. Also having a high quality power supply means that everything in your system is much more likely to work without problems.

I'd say you could have done that system on a 550W PSU, and there are plenty of 650w PSUs around, of known, high quality that around the same price of £70. And that's what we all would have suggested to you.
Click to expand...

ill give you the model number when it arrives, hopefully tommorow.

Just to let you know, the original psu for the xw6400 board is at 575w, and there mostly only 2xdual core versions.
i found that the standard psu makes 575w and thought its better being overpowerd than having a system that wont turn on.

if my psu does go pop i doubt itll bring the rest of my compnents with it, the first time i took apart a computer i pluged it back in and the psu exploded, the rest of the pc was fine though :p
 
thingemajib said:
ah, i read your first post as one 4650 and two unknowns
Click to expand...

sorry, it was ment to show

hd 4650 (main)

uknown (extra)
anyway

im not trying to commpete with ocuk, im simply sharing what everyone seems to think was a huge mistak.
i dont care weather a "skulltrail was soo last year"
last year an 8 core build would have cost over 1k, you have to remeber im 14, will not play any highley demanding games (topps black ops)
and this is a low budget build, remember the amount of money you get when your 14 sucks.
im open to advice and learning, i thought i new a lot for my age but obvisuly i know next to nothing.

i admit i was hoping for a little more congrats than telling me 90% of what i bought was a mistake.

i regret jioning this forum now, i thought it was a freidnly place wear people helped each other.

i know i made mistakes, again money is a bit of a bummer.
just because i made mistakes it dont meen i can afford to fix them at the momnet, its exepeerence and i will learn from it, not that i dont trust anyone just i would like to see how it performs first before i decide i made mistakes.

as for it being unusal im sure itll be far better than my 1.8ghx p4.
 
thingemajib said:
depends on what resolution we're talking here. i agree that something more powerful would be preferred, but the 4650 aint that bad. Hell, my laptops 5450 (with 80sp vs the 4650s 320sp) can play source games at around 45-50fps on a 12" 1200x800 screen, and even then i suspect that the 1.2ghz pentium ulv is holding it back just a tad...
Click to expand...

SouthEastBlue said:
For 60 quid though your best bet would have been a second hand GTX260/4870.
Click to expand...

anyway, i didnt feel llike wanting to go for a second hand gpu.

my reason is i sometimes fix xbox 360 console's
all there problems relate to solder overheating and breaking

and once broken once perminantly fixing them is a huge problem
solder flux esapes when they overheat and break. then the solder oxidises and becomes weeker and weeker.
nex thing you know reflowing the solder doesnt work any more and you have to order a replacement.

so for once i thought it would a good idea getting a little less quality brand new with warrenty.

sound fair enough to you? :o
 
i know, last night i was tired and frustrated.
today hasn't been much better.
my second heatsink came in the post, the motherboard cooling fitting is not standard therefore i had to make my own fitting bracket.

also 4 of my 6gb ram arrive, it was listed as 4gb ram, it turned out to be 1gb 2x 512mb, so now im getting a refund and trying my luck a second time.

later i may upload a picture of the parts i have at the moment so everyone can see how its going, it will be an untidy D.I.Y pc.
but if i can find a way to use all 8 cores onne one program i cant Imagen it will let me down.

i would buy more parts and replace some stuff but at the moment i gaze into a wallet with only £45 in.

i was open to criticism but i didnt expect to be told to scrap my ideas and start over, if i start a job, i finish a job.

thank you for everyone's comments so far, i look forward to some more (just as long as your not to harsh) Happy new year
 
psu

hellarda said:
hi zac,

i built my first pc when i was 14 (im now 16), i though i knew everything (seriously i thought i did). I had saved up untill i had around £550 to spend on a PC.

So i bought everything that i thought was perfect (which it was far from) all arrived, so excited and i built it. everything went perfectly, installed windows settled down to play some age of empires III ( :p ) then my cheap crappy PSU died (cant remember exactly what make it was, but i had bought it for £50 and it was 850W), turns out it took my CPU and mobo with it. I was gutted. the money i had spent the best part of a year savin up for had pretty much burnt in front of my eyes.

So i started saving up again, and this time i came here, the amount of advice i got was amazing (along with the criticism). anyways enough of my story :p was just trying to get my point across about how good research is before you buy. (EDIT: sorry if that sounded a bit patronising it wasnt meant to)

Basically im trying to say that we live an learn, especially about PSU's, again, as everyone else has said, using that PSU may kill your whole PC, but if you want to take that chance then its up to you.

In regards to the rest of your build, i admire you for what you have managed to pull together, yes it may be a 'strange' gaming build, but as you say your not doing much serious gaming so it should be fine :)

and yes the 8 cores will definately help with photoshop and the fact you got them for that price is even better.

i would think that 10gb RAM would be over kill, but depending on how you develop your experience with PC's (if you decide to play around with VM's for example) then the extra RAM will be of great use......so if you can get it cheap and you can afford it then there will be no harm in buying it :)

I think everyone else on here got a little edgy because of the fact it was such an unorthodox pc for gaming and then the PSU just set the alarm bells ringing :p

also i would stay on this forum, the amount of help and advice i have got from here is huge, and (most of the time :p ) it is always friendly :)

good luck with your PC and i hope it doesnt decide to blow up on you
Click to expand...


Well my PSU arrived in the post today.
i cant see a problem with it, it has over current protection so i don't think it will kill the rest of my pc.

it is quite heavy and beefy, also a huge 14cm blue led fan in it.
i was surprised to see it brand new and sealed.
it also comes with a lifetime warrenty.
im happy with it, but i suppose there is still room for it to got wrong.
i am now eagerly awaiting my case so i can build it (FINALY)
i think ill see how my computer runs with only 2gb-3gb of ram but its cheep-ish and i could buy an extra 8gb for around £80
thanks for everyone wishing me good luck, im probably going to need it
 
lol.
im happy with myne anyway. its better than what i planned to use.
i was going to use a storm 500w psu, i bought it new for £20. so see my psu as an improvement to what i was going tot use.

i decided to run a test to bios (open planed without case)
to my amazement it went to bios first time, i doubted it would evan get that far before i had to replace something.
i am now only waiting for, my case, my fan controller,fan exetension leeds and thermal compuond.

i am unbelivebly happy it works. i cant wait.:):D:):cool::p;):):D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom