Help with a gaming pc build.

[Arti6ok]

Hi, I'm interested in building a gaming PC. But I need some
guidance in what parts to buy for it, depending on what I wanted to run on it.
I would like to run games like Bioshock Infinite at relatively high settings, but nothing extortionate.
So am unsure on what parts I will need. I am not planning to use the PC for anything but gaming, and don't want it to be over-priced, but being possible to upgrade it in the near future. I was thinking of using an intel i5 cpu, since that would be pretty reliable for the time being, so I was thinking what parts to work around that. Or any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Fulax]

Are you looking to build this yourself or buy pre-built?

Do you need a monitor? Peripherals? OS?

Do you have a budget in mind? 'Not over-priced' is quite subjective

Here's a very capable gaming system. The PSU will have you covered should you decide to add another 280X at some point.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Dual-X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card with Battlefield 4 PC Game £251.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £107.99
1 x Be Quiet Power Zone 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Fully Modular Power Supply £89.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black (CC-9011014-WW) £65.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
Total : £810.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).



And the same with Intel:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Dual-X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card with Battlefield 4 PC Game £251.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-SLI Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £97.99
1 x Be Quiet Power Zone 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Fully Modular Power Supply £89.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black (CC-9011014-WW) £65.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
Total : £890.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 

[Arti6ok]

Are you looking to build this yourself or buy pre-built?

Do you need a monitor? Peripherals? OS?

Do you have a budget in mind? 'Not over-priced' is quite subjective

Here's a very capable gaming system. The PSU will have you covered should you decide to add another 280X at some point.

I was thinking to build it myself. Won't be needing a monitor. OS Win7. Will an 128GB SSD be enough to store the OS, necessities, and some games. 800-900 is a bit steep for me for the time being, I know that that's how much a decent gaming system will cost. But what would be the downsides to the performance, if I got something cheaper. And also, what difference will the two different processors will make?

 

[Fulax]

You can get a 270X for £100 less than the 280X which will serve your needs well. Here's a review for you to look at, to get an idea of the performance you can expect and the difference between the two cards: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/59...tcu-ii-top-2gb-video-card-review/index24.html

A 120gb SSD is plenty for your OS, apps, and a few games. Do you own Windows 7? If not, I would recommend using a three month trial of Windows 8.1, then buy the real thing once you've got some more funds. At your budget, the £70 is better spent elsewhere.

An i5 is currently better for gaming than the 8320 because most games do not make good use of the 8320's extra cores. However, the 8320 is a good chip for those on a tighter budget.

Revised build with some savings made:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 270X DirectCUII TOP 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £161.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £107.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £73.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £47.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
Total : £681.50 (includes shipping : £8.00).



The PSU is enough to power two 270Xs.

 

[Arti6ok]

You can get a 270X for £100 less than the 280X which will serve your needs well. Here's a review for you to look at, to get an idea of the performance you can expect and the difference between the two cards: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/59...tcu-ii-top-2gb-video-card-review/index24.html

A 120gb SSD is plenty for your OS, apps, and a few games. Do you own Windows 7? If not, I would recommend using a three month trial of Windows 8.1, then buy the real thing once you've got some more funds. At your budget, the £70 is better spent elsewhere.

An i5 is currently better for gaming than the 8320 because most games do not make good use of the 8320's extra cores. However, the 8320 is a good chip for those on a tighter budget.

The PSU is enough to power two 270Xs.

That's more affordable. Would an i5 be able to run two 270xs ? And what would be better two 270xs or one 280 ? What's the benefit of using two of the same graphics cards? I would rather pay the extra to get Win7 because I haven't had good experience with Windows 8. xD
Also would all the reductions in price, reduce the performance significantly, I've never known a good pc, but had to cope with some not so decent laptop, so never seen high frame rates in any games.
Also thanks a lot for all the help. Greatly appreciated.

 

[Fulax]

The only difference in performance would come from the 280X being replaced by a 270X. The other savings were made on the PSU and the case. Considering the prices, the performance difference between the 270X and 280X isn't huge. As I said, reading some 270X reviews will give you an idea of the difference.

Crossfire 270X would beat a single 280X. The benefits of crossfire are higher performance (although how much you get depends on how well the specific game is optimised for dual cards). The downsides are higher power draw, more noise, as well as driver/optimisation related issues. Generally speaking, a single powerful GPU is preferable to two lesser cards. But if you can't afford a 280X now, crossfire with two cheaper cards allows you to spread the cost a bit.