Building in a Corsair Obsidian 250D

[simonfc]

Hi,

I have been looking at building a new PC for casual gaming. And looked at a few other cases. I like this one as it's not too massive, looks nice, and seems to be pretty easy to fit components into.

I have been looking and found the following components:
Antec TruePower Classic 550w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply
MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

I am not sure to go for AMD or Intel (although Intel seems to be very popular). Also would I really notice much difference between an i5 and i7? Also are the bundles a good deal? or is is better to buy a processor and motherboard separate?

Please can you let me know what you think? I am trying to build for £500 in total, I already have hard drives, I will need RAM!

 

[Telecaster]

For gaming then i5 is plenty. There are no ITX AM3+ motherboards, plus AMD are pretty far behind at the minute when it comes to performance.

Just check the height of that GPU, I can't remember if it's the 250D or the 240 Air that has limitations on GPU height, some of the larger aftermarket coolers can prevent the case side/top from fitting.

 

[Danny75]

When you say £500 total, is that including the case as well?

Without including case:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Z97I Gaming ACK - Devil's Canyon i5 4690K CPU & Mini ITX Motherboard Bundle **£12 Saving** £297.98
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 770 "NVIDIA Reference" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x EVGA Supernova GS 550W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £64.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £47.99
Total : £570.55 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).




Reference GPUs are ideal for small cases due to exhausting through the rear more effectively. That 770 outperforms the 280 and will be on offer until Monday morning.

As you can see, with an i5-K it's already over budget. You can get cost down by going for a non-K i5 and a cheaper motherboard. Also by keeping an eye out for B Grade GPU offers, making sure they will fit before purchasing as Telecaster pointed out.

PSU is modular and made by Seasonic, like the Antec. £5 extra for modularity and what should be at least as good* a PSU, seems worth it.

* In theory it should be slightly better as it's a newer model, but that's not always the case.

Are there any other components you need? Do you have an SSD, CPU cooler, operating system, optical drive needed?

There are MSI Z87i AC's out there for a ridiculous price. Unfortunately OcUK don't stock them.

This case is awesome and cheaper if you need to cut costs:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Mini-ITX Chassis with Window £44.99
Total : £54.59 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).