Friend need help . spec me..

Sunny Squash · 4 Jun 2011 at 12:15

Hello,

my friend is getting a new pc I,m worried he is not getting the best for his money. I'm telling him to bulid his own as its more fun. waht he is looking at now is AMD® 760G Chipset, Quad-Core X4 640 3.00GHz CPU, Radeon HD 3000 DX10 Graphics, 4GB 1333MHz DDR3, 500GB HDD, and a 6-Port Media Card Reader.

could you great people at ocuk create a bulid which would be better bang for buck he enjoys his empire total war games so I dunno how or what parts would help him play them to the full potential

Budget £270 (he doen't need a case or windows 7)
needs:
cpu
modo
gpu
ram
power supply
hdd

DJ_Martin · 4 Jun 2011 at 12:50

It's incredibly difficult with the budget given. This is what I could come up with:

YOUR BASKET
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 Single Slot 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £74.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 620W Power Supply £49.99
1 x AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £44.99
1 x Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2 (AM3) Motherboard - Retail £39.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £33.59
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £32.99
Total : £288.53 (includes shipping : £10.00).

Getting a dual core nowadays is not advised however on such a tight budget I don't think I had a choice to be honest. There is a quite good chance though that it could be unlocked to a quad core, there is no guarantee of this though so it's just a chance he might have to take. I also managed to include a decent graphics card, a lot better than the one you mentioned. As you can see here it actually performs pretty well. The other advantage of building your own is you know what PSU and mobo you are using as often cheap, pre-built PCs have cheap ones.

I was also a little overbudget, I apologize for this but the best I could do

EDIT: If you haven't already remember to link forum account to shopping account to get free shipping which would take it down to £278

stulid · 4 Jun 2011 at 12:55

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Xenon AMD Athlon X2 255 3.10GHz Bundle - Dual Core £119.99
(£99.99) £119.99
(£99.99)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5830 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £109.99
(£91.66) £109.99
(£91.66)
Corsair Builder Series CX 430W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUK) £35.99
(£29.99) £35.99
(£29.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ) £27.98
(£23.32) £27.98
(£23.32)
Sub Total : £244.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £51.24
Total : £307.45

£293.95 with free shipping

Sunny Squash · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:04

what is you opinion on the parts he might be getting ??

DJ_Martin · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:07

I thought the specs that you posted were what was offered in the prebuilt PC. DO you mean what are our opinions on those?

stulid · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:20

Sunny Squash said:
what is you opinion on the parts he might be getting ??

Well you mentioned HD3000 graphics which is part of the 760G chipsets inbuilt GPU, which is just naff for games.

Sunny Squash · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:26

DJmartin said:
I thought the specs that you posted were what was offered in the prebuilt PC. DO you mean what are our opinions on those?

yer i mean what do you think of the pre-built system

DJ_Martin · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:29

As Stulid said, the main problem is the integrated graphics. It doesn't include a dedicated graphics card which is really bad for gaming. If he could stretch to the £290, I would recommend going with Stulid's build. It's probably better than the one I spec'd when it comes to bang for buck.

Sunny Squash · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:35

will show my friend this he is quite stubborn. it is him to choose anyway thank you guys

honosuseri · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:50

You'll quickly learn DJ that Stulid is very good at this spec'ing lark, it's good to have him back. (Might be worth asking him to spec you if you havent ordered yet)

Sunny that has to be a pretty low spec mobo to only have a radeon HD3000 but still use DDR3. The 5830 really is what I'd consider the bare minimum for a budget gaming card.

I'd suggest you tell your friend he needs £300ish. The 5850 I think is on offer and only £5 more than the 5830, well worth going with this option. It would be nice to get a slightly more powerful psu, the Bequiet 530W is only £10 more an £45.

Stulids spec is about as good as you are going to get. I think many would agree it's worth adding £15 for a better GPU and to have a psu with more power for future needs.

I'm assuming you have a DVD drive to reuse? Is it IDE or SATA? If you are reusing an old IDE drive it's important to check the mobo DOES HAVE an IDE connector.

Good luck with the build, any probs come back to us

*edit* if you want to swing the argument stulids machine should run TW Shogun 2 fine, the one in the original post doesnt stand a chance

panyan · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:52

Friend need help . spec me..

you need help getting a friend, and you want us to spec you a new one?

DJ_Martin · 4 Jun 2011 at 13:58

panyan said:
you need help getting a friend, and you want us to spec you a new one?

Ohhhh, I totally misunderstood this thread. If it is a friend he wanted I'm sure we can find him someone.

@honosuseri
And yeah Stulid is pretty good, still I enjoy trying to spec up machine within certain budgets, I should make a disclaimer before my posts "Please note: This spec is for entertainment purposes only and as such should not be followed. Wait for Stulid"

I'm going back and for with what I can get for my money and stuff so I might make a new thread in a few weeks when maybe prices have changed and the weekly offers will apply, I think I was a little hasty with making my thread.

fleming222 · 4 Jun 2011 at 15:15

Just tell him that with integrated graphics, playing empire total war will be a horrible experience, bordering on unplayable.