Need help speccing a PC for a friend

tangledmonkey

tangledmonkey

tangledmonkey

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16 Nov 2012
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A friend of mine is looking to get a new PC for gaming, as his is just useless now. He's shown me a PC he's found for £250 (a HP of some sort), and he intends to buy a GPU to add to it. I've told him he'd be able to get something nicer for the same sort of money. So guys, what do you think would be the best he'd get for his money (say up to around £300). Excluding any peripherals or OS, so just mobo/cpu/ram/case/psu. Any help much appreciated.

Thanks
 
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Sounds like an APU.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7700K 10 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 6 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £109.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £65.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £39.95
1 x Antec VPF350 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £34.99
1 x Xigmatek Mach Midi-Tower Black £23.99
Total : £284.51 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Add a HDD/SSD and thats £300 and over.

APUs have a built-in GFX card, its say around R7 240/250 performance.

Because it has built-in GFX and relies on system RAM, that's why you add fast RAM to APUs as they benefit greatly from it.


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YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 750 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750-1GD5/OC) £82.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001104G-2CW) - Blue Light £59.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-4 Quad Core 4300 3.80GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £50.99
1 x Antec VPF350 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £34.99
1 x Xigmatek Mach Midi-Tower Black £23.99
Total : £322.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).



If you could get a 2nd hand card that would be ideal, I have seen 7870 go for £60.
 
He's looking to spend up to around £150 on a GPU in mid Jan. To be honest, since building my own rig about 2 years ago I've not really taken much notice in the advances of hardware. What sort of GPU would be recommended nowadays for that sort of money?
 
So you want £300 for this lot? still no storage drive?

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001104G-2CW) - Blue Light £59.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £50.99
1 x Xigmatek Mach Midi-Tower Black £23.99
Total : £284.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).




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YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £109.99
1 x MSI 970 Gaming AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £69.95
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x Avexir Core Red Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001104G-2IR) - Red Light £59.99
1 x Xigmatek Mach Midi-Tower Black £23.99
Total : £333.50 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Free shipping till the end of the year - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18630207

tangledmonkey said:
He's looking to spend up to around £150 on a GPU in mid Jan. To be honest, since building my own rig about 2 years ago I've not really taken much notice in the advances of hardware. What sort of GPU would be recommended nowadays for that sort of money?
Click to expand...

That is R9 280 money - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-251-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

But the AMD FX CPU has no in built GFX, so it will need some sort of GFX card just to get it up and running.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated.

He's got a HDD already, not sure if it's SATA, but I've got plenty of HDDs so I can give him one if need be.

Looks like it's going to be an R9 280 then!
 
Is there an available Intel cpu/mobo available for the same sort of price that would be worth considering? I put together a spec the other night for him with an Intel cpu, but with only 4gb RAM, which came to about £310. What should be considered more important, Intel CPU or 8gb RAM?
 
Or the Pentium-K route if you want Intel.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £53.99
1 x Avexir Core Red Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001104G-2IR) - Red Light £49.99
1 x SK Hynix 128GB SSD SH910A SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (HFS128G32MNB-2201A) £44.99
1 x Aerocool GT Advance Black Edition Mid tower - Black £29.99
Total : £310.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Add the 280 he's planning on buying, and he can manage his storage carefully till he gets a mechanical drive. Pretty good base to build on. When he gets more cash, sell the Pentium and upgrade to i5/i7.

Case looks decent for the money. 2 x 120mm fans, side-panel fan option, PSU dust filter.

8GB RAM. Bargain price for that set just now.
 
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