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Zr123

Zr123

Zr123

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5 Nov 2013
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I've never built a PC before but I've saved up some money and have a list of parts I'm thinking about using. Hoping that you can tell me if it is any good for what I want, which is mainly gaming.

My budget for parts (no monitor/keyboard...etc) is £650, so I'm not looking for high end, just want good fps and medium/high settings on games like Battlefield 4.

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad Core Processor (£137)

CPU cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing cooler (£24)

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 (£90)

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2×4GB) DDR3-1600 (£61)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£47)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB (£200)

Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£50)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80 plus bronze certified ATX 12V. (£38)

TOTAL: £647

Anyone have any thoughts on this build? Will it be suitable for gaming or does anyone have a suggestion for different parts? I do need to keep it below £700 MAX.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX) £61.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £49.99
1 x SanDisk Pulse 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDP-064G-G25) £44.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 412S CPU Cooler £28.99
Total : £662.51 (includes shipping : £10.50).



With SSD too. :)

Went the AMD route, the CPU is overclockable (the board is upto it too) so performance in the bag for the future.

The 7950 is better than the 760. The card is B grade but will work perfectly. :)

The PSU is a seasonic made one, so very very reliable. :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the help. Just to make sure, as I am very new to this, the parts you recommended will be able to run modern games with decent fps? You probably had what I asked for in mind, but I want to double check before I buy the parts :)
 
Yeah, the 7950 is stunning card for the Money.

B grade means it may not come retail boxed and may not have instructions present, but it is £50 (25%) cheaper than the non-B grade version. B grade components are all fully operational so no need to worry there.

You may be able to squeeze an intel build in there but it won't have the overclocking ability that this does, as you'd probably have to get a locked CPU.

EDIT: you can push it a bit more (the budget that is) and get an intel build:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £185.99
1 x **B Grade** MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX) £61.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £49.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
Total : £674.53 (includes shipping : £10.50).



Though theres no SSD.

The board comes with a free cooler.
 
Thanks for the advice, probably gonna go with that intel build as I have never used overclocking. I'll start getting the parts tomorrow :)
 
That intel spec is set up for overclocking too.. It just hasn't got an SSD.

You don't HAVE to overclock either, its just in the bag in case one day you decide you want to (that's what happened with me).

If you're doing it bit by bit, its a little risky, as the item you need to buy quick but also test is the GPU. But to test it you need all the rest of the machine.. Hmmm...

The reason is you only have a 90 day warranty on the GPU (that's another reason its cheap).
 
That MSI 7950 isn't listed as the new revision that fixed the fan issues though. Not sure I'd want to buy one unless I knew it was the revised version.

The 2GB 270X is a decent midrange GPU with plenty of bang for the buck at ~£150. It's basically a 7870LE which are well known to trade blows with stock 7950s
 
That MSI 7950 isn't listed as the new revision that fixed the fan issues though. Not sure I'd want to buy one unless I knew it was the revised version.
Click to expand...

This, I just highlighted this in another thread as well, It's a nice buy, but it's not the revised version & I'm not sure if you can RMA it for a new version.
 
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