Gaming PC, bit of help?

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14 Jan 2013
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6
Hey everyone,

My nephew has asked me to spec him a gaming PC. £450-£500 budget excluding peripherals.

I've been out of touch a little since I built my Sandybridge machine, and could really do with some ideas and setups.

Any help is appreciated :D

Thanks.
 
Sorry yeah probably should have provided some more information there.

I'm fine building it yeah, just thought I'd get some opinions advice on newer parts (haven't got a clue on the new AMD chips re performance vs Intel)

Just the tower needed, got an OS.
 
I did see that, don't need mouse + keyboard and the case is too expensive for what's needed. Plus there's so much rambling on there, didn't really help!

I've used intel for a while so I'd probably got with that personally. I'm not sure of current CPUs vs AMD though, so I'm open minded on that one.

He would only need the case, psu, mobo, cpu, ram, gfx card and HDD. Plus extra cooling if necessary. No overclocking happening, for the time being at least!

Thanks again
 
1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785QN2G2M) £155.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £89.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £59.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £36.98
1 x Antec One Gaming Case - Black £36.98
1 x OcUK Value 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Single Channel Module £34.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £516.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).



m/b would take a i5 or i7 later, case in on order now but will be in a few days, memory is low end but 8 gb for now can change to faster when needed as its cheap, small hd but in budget, psu on the low side but would do for now, could do with 500w later but all i use are out of stock, only £10 more as well but went over budget now.

1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785QN2G2M) £155.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £89.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £59.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £49.99
1 x Antec One Gaming Case - Black £36.98
1 x OcUK Value 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Single Channel Module £34.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £529.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).



case and psu out of stock now, a few days max
 
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Hmm, that seems pretty reasonable.

In terms of graphics cards, I got the GTX 580 when it came out, so a little behind again on that one. Is it worth spending the extra or could I stay in budget and still be able to play Skyrim, Crysis 2, on high (ish) settings?
 
card selected would play above game fine on high, not on ultra on standard res screen size 22" etc, anything above that then you would have to alter settings down etc
 
yes you did, bit i didnt. my build sacrifices 500gb of hdd space for 2 good 4gb sticks of ram. which he will make more use of than the hdd space for now.

Depending on how much space his nephew needs of course.
 
Single Channel RAM zak? Behave lol

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785QN2G2M) £155.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £89.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (S (HD-256-SE) £50.00
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £41.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £511.98 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Slightly over but that's what I would shoot for. Sadly no B grade GPUs to save the day :( The HDD is a bargain but there is a good 1TB version for the same price if that 3TB sells ;)

Sorry probably didn't explain that very well, he's only going to be on 19" monitor for now. So would the 7850 be overkill? The more we go under £500 the better.

Didn't see that before I posted......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x **B Grade** XFX HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £79.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (S (HD-256-SE) £50.00
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £41.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £513.98 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Last edited:
Sorry probably didn't explain that very well, he's only going to be on 19" monitor for now. So would the 7850 be overkill? The more we go under £500 the better.

7850 is for me the lowest i'd go for a add in card, with 2gb etc, you could pick a 1gb model for less, but tbh i wouldn't use a 1gb now days

and only picked the single channel ram to keep it under budget with card picked :(

sorry hono, i'll slap myself now
 
I agree Hono, that first one is quite the pimp setup. Cheers!

The 6870 isn't to be sniffed at fella and helped me get the i5K in the spec. My 1GB 460 is OC'd to 875mhz and that is roughly on par with the 6870. It's still very capable for gaming especially below 1080P but it can cope with "high rez"
 
Hono's first spec is £1.98 more than mine and for an extra 2 terabytes of hdd space god thats like 99p for each terabyte totally not worth it... :D
 
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