Gaming PC for £700

batfkn · 22 Aug 2011 at 18:09

Hi,

I am looking for advice on a PC with decent monitor, keyboard, graphics card and sound card for about £700. Haven't really kept up with recent developments in CPU and GPU and so uncertain as to the relative merits of the various iterations. I don't feel competent enough to build my own pc but would very much appreciate any help.

Cheers.

toon_mad · 22 Aug 2011 at 19:07

What types of games do you plan on playing and at what resolution?

You can get a PC built for around £500 that will handle most of the latest games easily, maybe even cheaper.

But depending on what you want such as monitor size, cooling (water, air etc), tower, overclocking capabilities etc the price can easily get bigger.

olivier renault · 22 Aug 2011 at 19:55

YOUR BASKET
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Dirt3 & Shogun 2 PC Games £149.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £146.99
1 x OcUK V-Line 221V2SB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £83.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £70.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £30.98
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £37.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
1 x Logitech UltraX Premium Keyboard - OEM (920-000189) £16.99
1 x Gigabyte M6900 3200DPI Gaming Mouse £12.98
Total : £720.97 (includes shipping : £14.75).

Not overclockable, but decent CPU, can save some money on keyboard and mouse maybe. If you don't need the OS, then a 2500K + MSI GP53.

batfkn · 22 Aug 2011 at 21:21

toon-mad: I would like to run the latest Total War game, Fallout NV with lots of improved graphic mods, GTA 4, Borderlands 2 (I hope) etc - so reasonably demanding games.

Olivier - that looks very good although probably want a larger HD, a sound card of some type, a dvd drive and would I need more RAM? Also, this looks like something I would have to build myself? Not sure that I could do that but maybe it is easier than I imagine - I've changed graphic cards, sound cards and put in extra ram but that really has been the limit of my ambition.

So still interested in a pre-build but prepared to look at screwing it all up myself!

seandog · 22 Aug 2011 at 21:29

On board sound is very decent nowadays and unless your very very into how it sounds or using for music progs I'd stick with on board and use the cash for the rest of the build.

4gb is more than enough for any game out there atm and very rarely will you even use all of that anyways.

With your experience in adding items to you build your more than skilled as that's pretty much as complicated as it gets and there's plenty of how to's and video guides floating about you can view just incase PLUS it will keep your build cost down about 10-15%

olivier renault · 22 Aug 2011 at 22:35

batfkn said:
toon-mad: I would like to run the latest Total War game, Fallout NV with lots of improved graphic mods, GTA 4, Borderlands 2 (I hope) etc - so reasonably demanding games.

Olivier - that looks very good although probably want a larger HD, a sound card of some type, a dvd drive and would I need more RAM? Also, this looks like something I would have to build myself? Not sure that I could do that but maybe it is easier than I imagine - I've changed graphic cards, sound cards and put in extra ram but that really has been the limit of my ambition.

So still interested in a pre-build but prepared to look at screwing it all up myself!

oups forgot optical.

TBH, with 700, you will struggle, but how about this...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £172.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x OcUK V-Line 221V2SB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £83.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £30.98
1 x Lepa W-Series 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply £46.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £37.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
1 x LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £718.80 (includes shipping : £13.75).

Do you need OS? It's eating up a lot of the budget

olivier renault · 22 Aug 2011 at 22:37

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £172.99
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Dirt3 & Shogun 2 PC Games £149.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £107.99
1 x OcUK V-Line 221V2SB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £83.99
1 x Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Lancool First Knight K56 Tower Case - Black £54.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
1 x LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £718.39 (includes shipping : £13.75).

olivier renault · 22 Aug 2011 at 22:39

olivier renault · 22 Aug 2011 at 22:40

It's just a bit hard to fit in a decent gaming spec for £700 with OS and display. GTX460 is quite decent. I'm not a fan of the P8P67LE, so I changed it to a better board (also the MSI GD53). It's all a bit minimum spec. Maybe we'll get better deals next week (on Wednesday) to shave off a tenner or so.

review of the cyclone (18 months old).

batfkn · 22 Aug 2011 at 23:21

Thanks to all and particularly Olivier for taking the time to help out. I have decided to build the computer myself (against my better judgement) so will delay purchase for a month or so hoping to save some more money whilst destroying my poor laptop by demanding impossible things from the 310M graphics card - have to say that my Samsung R580 has been a really terrific purchase. So, if you can give me another build that is not quite so minimum spec for closer to £800-859 including the monitor it would be much appreciated.

seandog · 22 Aug 2011 at 23:27

Well with a 22-24" monitor and olivers build that would kinda bring you up to £850ish bud. Best bet would be to wait til you have your total budget to hand and then ask for a spec on Wednesday morning as soon as the latest deals are out to get your most realistic build

olivier renault · 22 Aug 2011 at 23:31

batfkn said:
Thanks to all and particularly Olivier for taking the time to help out. I have decided to build the computer myself (against my better judgement) so will delay purchase for a month or so hoping to save some more money whilst destroying my poor laptop by demanding impossible things from the 310M graphics card - have to say that my Samsung R580 has been a really terrific purchase. So, if you can give me another build that is not quite so minimum spec for closer to £800-859 including the monitor it would be much appreciated.

yup, see you in a month. A bigger budget will mean better components

Say if you need the OS as it's often overlooked. And peripherals which can take up a fair chunk of the budget. Have a look at these videos in the meanwhile. Most thorough and clear tutorial I've seen about building a computer from scratch. And don't bend the motherboard like he does

That was a bit too much :eek: