Help me with a spec

korgtronix · 13 Dec 2013 at 10:55

Soooooooo

My fiance has decided her laptop isn't cutting the mustard gaming wise and wants a proper rig so she can play games along side me, she has a very strict budget of £550 and needs everything minus speakers and windows. I have found some specs that would do what she wants however she has added a caveat that the cases I pick are boring and she doesn't really want a black on so now I am stumped.

She mostly plays Skyrim, Tomb Raider and Batman Arkham City and her performance she wants was to be able to play Skyrim on Ultra and the rest on reasonably high settings now with the ability to only have to upgrade her card when she wants to get nicer visuals.

Any help with meeting her requirements would be great, as I am officially lost when it comes to finding this sort of thing at this budget.

DaleTheWhale · 13 Dec 2013 at 11:04

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X WindForce 3X OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with BattleField 4 PC Game Included £164.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £85.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 530W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £65.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi Midi Tower USB 3.0 German Edition Windowed Case - Black/Red/Gold £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G1600HC9DC01) £59.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £30
Total : £560.44 (includes shipping : £11.25).

Bit of colour for the case?!

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 11:13

Nice spec Reaper, though i have some bad news... The AMD piledriver chips perform very badly in skyrim, they are just coded wrong for the games (or vice versa)..

in some Skyrim benchmarks even the new pentiums out perform the 8350/6300..

You're much better off going intel..

The problem is you need an intel build on an AMD budget..

korgtronix · 13 Dec 2013 at 11:20

Doomedspeed said:
The problem is you need an intel build on an AMD budget..

Now you see my issue, I want her to get the best performance she can across all games but Skyrim is her big one as she gets frustrated that the enemy can see her first on her laptop due to that graphics settings she has.

That spec is nice reaper and similar to the spec I had however she needs a monitor as well.

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 11:28

You considered going secondhand. You can pick up a 2500k for around the same price as the 6300. Z68 motherboards can be picked up silly cheap too.

korgtronix · 13 Dec 2013 at 11:35

Doomedspeed said:
You considered going secondhand. You can pick up a 2500k for around the same price as the 6300. Z68 motherboards can be picked up silly cheap too.

I had but fleabay doesnt seem to be the greatest source of 2500k atm and I can't use MM

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 11:43

korgtronix said:
I had but fleabay doesnt seem to be the greatest source of 2500k atm and I can't use MM

or if youre not worried about overclocking a 2400/2500/3330/3450/3570 ect.. (non-K varients)..

DaleTheWhale · 13 Dec 2013 at 11:44

Doomedspeed said:
Nice spec Reaper, though i have some bad news... The AMD piledriver chips perform very badly in skyrim, they are just coded wrong for the games (or vice versa)..

in some Skyrim benchmarks even the new pentiums out perform the 8350/6300..

Did not know this! - But does make sense, Bethesda and their programming!

Is the £550 budget completely static? A few more pounds and you can get something reasonable, it is christmas afterall!

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 12:04

ThaReaperGuy said:
Is the £550 budget completely static? A few more pounds and you can get something reasonable, it is christmas afterall!

Like this maybe:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X WindForce 3X OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with BattleField 4 PC Game Included £164.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3470 3.20GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £149.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 530W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £65.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy M MATX Cube Case - Arctic White £64.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £56.99
1 x **B Grade** MSI Z68MA-G45 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £40.00
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £24.00
Total : £581.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).

korgtronix · 13 Dec 2013 at 12:11

Doomedspeed said:
Like this maybe:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X WindForce 3X OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with BattleField 4 PC Game Included £164.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3470 3.20GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £149.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 530W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £65.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy M MATX Cube Case - Arctic White £64.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £56.99
1 x **B Grade** MSI Z68MA-G45 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £40.00
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £24.00
Total : £581.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).

Damn thats a nice spec. What monitor would you suggest? If I could find a decent monitor to suggest alongside this spec I might be able to convince her to stretch her budget.

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 12:27

korgtronix said:
Damn thats a nice spec. What monitor would you suggest? If I could find a decent monitor to suggest alongside this spec I might be able to convince her to stretch her budget.

THis looks a nice monitor for the money:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Iiyama Prolite E2483HS-B1 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £119.99
Total : £129.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

DaleTheWhale · 13 Dec 2013 at 12:43

Doomedspeed said:
THis looks a nice monitor for the money:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Iiyama Prolite E2483HS-B1 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £119.99
Total : £129.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

I've seen it in the flesh, it's a very nice monitor for the price! £120 is a steal for what Iiyama's can provide.

Morfinel · 13 Dec 2013 at 12:45

Doomedspeed said:
Nice spec Reaper, though i have some bad news... The AMD piledriver chips perform very badly in skyrim, they are just coded wrong for the games (or vice versa)..

in some Skyrim benchmarks even the new pentiums out perform the 8350/6300..

You're much better off going intel..

The problem is you need an intel build on an AMD budget..

Not true, only on ultra setting and high resolution that intel perform better. Fx 6300 would perform better than intel cpu for the same price. Getting 2fps less is not really bad performance.

korgtronix · 13 Dec 2013 at 12:46

Doomedspeed said:
THis looks a nice monitor for the money:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Iiyama Prolite E2483HS-B1 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £119.99
Total : £129.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

ThaReaperGuy said:
I've seen it in the flesh, it's a very nice monitor for the price! £120 is a steal for what Iiyama's can provide.

Brilliant, now I get the joy of having a conversation with my fiance that starts
"Well darling, I have found you a great spec, however........."

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 13:12

Morfinel said:
Not true, only on ultra setting and high resolution that intel perform better. Fx 6300 would perform better than intel cpu for the same price. Getting 2fps less is not really bad performance.

Tell that to these guys: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427-6.html

DaleTheWhale · 13 Dec 2013 at 13:12

korgtronix said:
Brilliant, now I get the joy of having a conversation with my fiance that starts
"Well darling, I have found you a great spec, however........."

I recommend starting this conversation near a suitable exit point, just in case.

Morfinel · 13 Dec 2013 at 13:37

Doomedspeed said:
Tell that to these guys: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427-6.html

Morfinel said:
Only on ultra setting and high resolution that intel perform better

ehhh

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 13:54

korgtronix said:
she wants was to be able to play Skyrim on Ultra

Morfinel said:
ehhh

ExRayTed · 13 Dec 2013 at 14:31

I agree with Doomedspeed, for Skyrim on ultra there can be no substitute for Intel.

Doomedspeed · 13 Dec 2013 at 14:54

Is she a girly girl, if so.. PINK:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-110-BX

It should fit the prodigy M.. though im not 100%..