CPU vs GPU

SMed

SMed

SMed

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Hi guys. Spec'ing a PC for a friend. His budget is about £600 and wants to play high-end new games. I was thinking maybe an i3 Sandybridge with a stonking GPU, but I'm not sure at what point the CPU would bottleneck things.

What's the best GPU an i3 could handle? A little bit of bottlenecking may be ok as he can upgrade to an i5 later.

Or would it be better to get an i5 and a slightly cheaper GPU?

What's the best combo/compromise here?

Sorry if the question is a bit vague. I know nothing about GPUs so I can't help him that much. Thanks.
 
I'm waiting to hear back from him about a few things (like resolution), but I know it's a 21" LCD that I think came with his HP PC. And it's pretty much a whole system, probably including a HDD and an OS. We're students so can probably get Win7 for £45 somehow.

I was initially thinking about the 2300, but the 2400 is supposed to be a nice little bump in performance for not much more £££ than the 2300.

So I'm thinking it's kinda between the i3-2100 or i5-2400? If he gets the 2100, the money saved will go towards a better GPU.
 
Ergh, that's the thing though... the 2400 is so close to the 2500(K) that it's damn tempting to go over budget. The savings with the 2100 is so great, the temptation isn't there as much.

Anyway, I've given him the pros and cons of each, and awaiting his choice. I just wanted to get some more experienced opinions.
 
He has a lowly HP PC he bought sort of recently. When he realised he can't play MW3 on it, and that it isn't really upgradeable, he decided to build one from scratch. I don't know if he's willing to cannibalise his new HP, but I've asked him and I'm waiting to here back from him. From that he can get the 750GB HDD, optical drive and (maybe?) the Win7.
 
I'm new and inexperienced. That looks pretty good. I guess I just didn't know how much to spend on a GPU. I thought a £200+/- card was needed.
 
danewesley said:
or with a much better 2gb gpu, 3 free games, slightly over, but he can sell all games and make a wedge back, changed the cpu to the i3 to save on budget.
Click to expand...

That potentially looks good too. He could upgrade to an i5 in a year or so.
 
Reaper 392 said:
since your students you should check if your school/uni is registered to the MSDN academic alliance. if it is then you should be able to get win7 professional for free. if not then it'll be ~£40 as your students

since the HP PC is very old could you take a look inside it and see if the hard drive is SATA (small flat cable) or IDE (massive ribbon cable). if it is IDE then you'll either need a new HDD, or need to get an IDE card (~£10)
same goes for the DVD drive
Click to expand...

Yeah, our school is on the list at the site, but when I tried accessing it, it wouldn't let me. Something about my account details not being there? I guess I need to find out from my school. Anyone here done it and know what to do?

The HP isn't old, he only got it this summer so it's new, it's got a 750GB drive. He said he wanted at least a 500GB drive in the new one, I suggested he just use the old one for now and either not use the old HP at all, or get a smaller cheaper drive for that PC.

Actually, using the old HP drive, would he be able to use the Win7 that's installed on there? I know it's locked to the HP mobo but can he use the recovery partition to do a fresh install on the new mobo? It'd probably come with all the HP crap installed though.
 
stulid said:
Why are there no HDD's in Danewesleys builds?

Edit, ah Just read why.
Click to expand...

Hi stulid. What's your opinion - i3 with better GPU, or i5 and worse GPU? With the idea of possibly upgrading in a year or so anyway. Thanks.
 
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