feeble budget - strong urge to play BF3

arturski · 1 Sep 2011 at 16:31

Hi guys im in the middle of pricing up parts for my future PC which I am treating myself to only to play Battlefield 3.

ive come up with a list of parts below, which comes to around 550 is just slightly over my budget of 500 but i wont winge. Do you think it will be good enough for the game? or suggest any changes to make it a bit cheaper. Ive excluded the HDDs as I am going to port them over from my existing PC.

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £173.99 (£144.99)

Asus GeForce GTX 560 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £147.98 (£123.32)

Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98 (£83.32)

Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £52.46 (£43.72)

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £44.99 (£37.49)

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £26.39 (£21.99)

Thank you, any suggestions except for getting more money are welcome

stulid · 1 Sep 2011 at 16:36

Antec100 is cheaper and some might say better.

chrisxuk · 1 Sep 2011 at 16:37

I'm looking at exactly the same thing. Same CPU, same GPU, potentially the same MOBO for the same reason as well!

I'll be following this thread.

stulid · 1 Sep 2011 at 16:44

www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-368-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

This had a price drop yesterday, it does all the usual Z68 board features. But it also does SLI/Crossfire at 8x/8x and this board also has a mSATA connector on the pcb.

minimadmotorman · 1 Sep 2011 at 16:51

I would have had the Antec 100 however I find the looks distasteful in comparison to the 300. If only the 300 was black inside!

arturski · 1 Sep 2011 at 23:42

Cheers for the feedback guys, obviously i'll be squeezing more out of this PC than only BF3 but do you think its is worth waiting for the benchmarks before buying the HW even though it is a relatively low budget setup?

@stulid i have noticed that as ive been browsing the components for the last week or so it would also be more future proof if I want to opt for SLI later, extra features aside though would you say the Gigabyte mobo would prove more reliable than Asrock? even though it has been quite a few years back, I've seen a few Asrock boards fail after a bit of stress.

@minimadmotorman would have to agree with you on the looks and the price difference is quite minimal to go for the 100

stulid · 1 Sep 2011 at 23:45

arturski said:
@stulid i have noticed that as ive been browsing the components for the last week or so it would also be more future proof if I want to opt for SLI later, extra features aside though would you say the Gigabyte mobo would prove more reliable than Asrock? even though it has been quite a few years back, I've seen a few Asrock boards fail after a bit of stress.

It seems to be a well featured board for the money, theres a round up here - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z68xp-ud3-dz68db,2980.html

I recently acquired a Gigabyte board to use instead of an Asrock Z68 extreme4 and its a heavy well built beast with 3 year warranty and a UK service center.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18312497&highlight=startername_stulid

arturski · 2 Sep 2011 at 13:02

Cheers stulid and everyone else

advice much appreciated. Im still putting some money together...you know recession and all

but should be buying up the parts in a month or so. Will be keeping my eye on price drops