Need advice, Gaming PC

sjcf1

sjcf1

sjcf1

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Joined
19 Aug 2009
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West Yorkshire/Birmingham
Hi. A friends asked me to spec him a gaming PC, for £420. He's currently got a E6700, 2GB 667Mhz ram. And a ASROCK ConRoe1333-D667 Motherboard. He uses the PC for Gaming a lot, recording games, doing some video editing, some picture editing via photoshop, general internet browsing.

I suggested either going for a Q8300 or a Althlon II X4. The Intel one comes at Just under £420, when using the ram from the current computer - idea is to re use as many parts as possible.

Anyway, the latest Idea for under £420 would be this.

A Value Radeon 4770 512MB
500W OCZ StealthXStreamPower PSU
BIOSTAR TA770E Mobo
Phenom II X4 955 BE
2x 160GB WD blue drives in RAID 0 - not sure whether this is worth it for the extra performance.
ASus TA-K51 ATX Case.
3GB 667mhz DDR2 memory.

I'm not sure if they'd be any problems in this build, or if anyones got any other suggestions. Its just got to include the tower, and to be able to be stable for the next few years.

Thanks in advance
 
I'd say that this is worth the extra 30 quid.
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Hmmm... Mostly, RAID won't give you that much of a boost.

I'd go for what Ast3r suggested. Apart from changing the motherboard over to a Gigabyte one.

This one is ever so slightly more expensive, (only £2) but its worth it. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-198-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1481

I've had trouble with asus boards with AMD. No idea if they fixed it for this board, but their support is also awful.

But you could save £20 by getting this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-249-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1328

Dual core is fine for gaming, and this one runs at a higher stock speed. Given that you'll have the stock cooler, you'd be better off going for one with the higher stock. It'll still overclock nicely though.

Save another couple by getting this RAM http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-109-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1516 There won't be a noticeable difference in performance.

The rest looks fine though :)

*edit* unfortunately, that CPU is out of stock.... no idea if there's going to be any more in. The 720 is a great chip though, if your friend can splash out for it.
 
He could get the dual-core but I thought that another core wouldn't hurt and if you think that there are a couple of games out there that can take up to 4 cores.As for the RAM I would say that its worth the extra 4 pounds.Higher clock.lower voltage and lower heat levels.The mobo I suggested has a higher capability for RAM as it supports 1800Mhz and the other one only 1666Mhz....again I would say its worth the extra 2 pounds.:p:D
 
Thanks for the advice. He'll be doing speedruning on it, so he'll need to be able to record the games as he's playing them, hence the video's needs to be stutter free. Will the above setup do this?
 
So it looks like the Tri-Core and the higher clocked memory is the best choice after all.Yes the system will be capable of doing that without problems.
 
Only reason why I'm thinking the 955BE would be better is that he's got a dual core @2.66 anyway, so surely more cores would be worth it, with a higher clockspeed.
 
If you want quad-core you can try to unlock the forth core on the tri-core however its not 100% guaranteed that you'll be able to do it.
 
Ok for the mobo that I suggested you'll need 410 Official Bios.Now for the unlocking process:

1.Enter BIOS.
2.Set Automatic Clock Calibration (ACC) to AUTO and also enable "Unleashing" or change "EC Firmware" mode to "Hybrid"
3.Reboot.

If it was successful, your processor should have a new designation starting with X4.
 
aside from that if you are gaming id advise a 4870/4890 its worth the extra money s that GPU is getting quite old
 
Mate he's on a budget build and he already is over budget with 30 quid.If he was to get the 512 MB version of the HD4870 he would add another 20 quid and if he would go for the cheapest HD4890 he would go over budget with another 43 quid.But he could look for a second-hand HD4870.
 
I've taken into account what you're advice is. And I think I'm going to settle for this.

3GB of 800Mhz DDR2 Memory
Asus 4870
Gigabyte Ga-g31M-eS2l
Intel Core 2 quad Q8300
500W OCZ StealthXstream
2x 160GB WD Blue Caviar HDD's
Asus TA-K51 Atx case.

Brings it to £420.50 with cables and fans and what not.
 
I would suggest to get the Q8200 as I don't think its worth paying the extra money just for the 7.5 multiplier.You might as well go for the Q9400 for 3 more pounds.But still I say to get the Q8200 good cpu for the money.
 
The site that I'm getting it off doesn't sell the Q8200, its the cheapest quad that I can find (£104)
 
Because, its slightly cheaper there with the £10 or so store credit that I have no use for atm.
 
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