New build for £450?

bannrikae

bannrikae

bannrikae

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24 Nov 2013
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Hi

I haven't built a PC for a number years and as it would take me a lot of reserch to get me back up to speed, I was hoping someone could help.

I'm looking at buying a gaming pc for my son for christmas and have had a look at this from overclockers

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-344-OE&groupid=43&catid=2475

I was going to upgrade to 1gig of ram and a Geforce GTX 650Ti. would also need wifi conectability and a wireless keyboard and mouse.

This would take the price to around £450.

Would I be able to build a better spec machine myself for the same price and if so, could you help me with a list of parts?:)

Thanks

Brian
 
£450 is a really tight budget tbh and you'l get far better life span and performance if you can up the budget or find a way to save money by re-using any parts you already have like power supply or hard drives.

The rig you have linked would struggle on games fairly soon. The CPU is a bit on the weak side for many modern RTS games or large multiplayer FPS'. Unfortunately going for a better CPU would require a better motherboard as 6 and 8 core versions are power hungry and need a half decent board to deliver stable power.

Also 1gb of Vram was outdated a while ago, so buying anything under 2gb of Vram is a no go! I have even been recommending 3gb minimum for recent builds due to recent game requirements.

The rig also only comes with 4gb of ram. While you might get away with 4gb now, you will run out sooner or later, so its best to just pay the extra £15-£20 and grab 8gb of RAM.
 
I kind of guessed it was not going to set the gaming world on fire, but was hoping that a self build would at least allow him to play most games at a lower
resolution for maybe a couple of years;)

I may have a 500gb hard drive I could use, LukieBoy007 recently priced a basic gaming machine for just under £400 so i was hoping that the extra 60 odd pounds plus the saving on a hard drive could buy me something with a few more fps?

Any ideas?

Brian
 
Hi Brian,

This is an Intel Haswell (latest socket) foundation-build option, which could be an alternative to cramming as much stuff in straightaway, and provide room for upgrading in stages to a really good gaming PC over the next few years (birthdays/Xmas'):

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Z87I Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £104.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £86.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £83.99
1 x BitFenix Colossus Mini ITX - Black £74.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £39.95
1 x Patriot Viper 3 "Venom Red" 4GB DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Single Module (P34G169UR) £34.99
1 x Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard & Mouse Set £19.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM £17.99
Total : £473.47 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Mobo already brings WiFi, Bluetooth and WiDi.

The SSD is quality to have the OS on and other favourite games/programs, and its price will be coming down tomorrow as part of the "This Week Only" offers. You could put an OS on it, and use the 500GB HDD you already have as a separate storage drive.

Dual core processor with onboard graphics to get him started. Processor can be upgraded all the way up to an i7-4770k in future (or even newer socket 1150 models that Intel may release).

Nice mini gaming case. There are more budget alternatives but I picked this one out as I reckon most kids'll love this one with the pulsating colour-changeable leds on the front and side panels. You'll know his taste better of course.

4GB of RAM to get him started, can add another identical 4GB stick for Dual Channel later on.

So the order of things to upgrade as budget allows over the next few years would be:

1. Add video card for better gaming experience (whenever).
2. Add another 4GB of RAM (whenever).
3. Add better processor (whenever).

There'll be better AMD builds but they probably won't be as upgradable. This build could last a long time as you keep improving it every birthday or Xmas. Don't know if you needed optical drive but I've added it. If you or a friend/family already have a spare one, that'll save a few quid.
 
Last edited:
Got a few builds for you:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R7 260X OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £113.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-17066C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (KHX21C11T2K2/8X) £71.99
1 x Seasonic S12II 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x BitFenix Shadow Tower Case - Midnight Black £54.98
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £53.99
1 x Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard & Mouse Set £19.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x Asus PCE-N10 Network Adapter 150Mbps - PCI Express £14.99
Total : £496.50 (includes shipping : £8.00).



The build a above will have a decent CPU and the Graphics Card isn't too bad but you would be paying a bit more money.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-6800K Black Edition 4.10GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor (AD680KWOHLBOX) £109.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XN-WIFI AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £86.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-17066C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (KHX21C11T2K2/8X) £71.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Arctic White £69.95
1 x Seasonic S12II 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard & Mouse Set £19.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £449.99 (includes shipping : £11.75).



This build is a Mini-ITX so it will be fairly small and the CPU has build in Graphics which will perform decent performance but you will have to run the settings a bit lower. You can also add a discrete GPU in the future so you will have more performance.
 
You get a 6-Core AMD Chip and a R9 270 with this all for £485;

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £134.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £53.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £53.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £47.99
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - Black £39.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £38.99
1 x Gigabyte KM7580 Wireless 2.4GHz Keyboard & Mouse Set £19.99
Total : £484.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).



As said above you'd need to get a full copy of windows in three months.

For another £25 or so you could get a R9 270X instead of the R9 270(non-x). Would provide a few more frames per second here and there.
 
Last edited:
This would be my suggestion. Comes in under budget leaving room for the keyboard and mouse. If you could push the budget a little you could upgrade the 270 to a 270x.
YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £134.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £83.99
1 x Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £80.99
1 x Avexir MPower Yellow Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CM) £49.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £29.99
1 x TP-Link 150Mbps Wireless PCI Express Adapter (TL-WN781ND) £10.98
Total : £437.41 (includes shipping : £11.25).

 
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