Oblivion capable PC for £400?

King4aDay · 27 Mar 2006 at 18:10

Oblivion capable PC for £400?!

Hi guys.

Bit of a challenge for you. Mate of mine wants a PC capable of playing Oblivion, except he's only got £400 to spend and needs a monitor too!

To be honest I'm more than a little dubious, but I thought I'd throw it open to you guys. I also doubt he'd want to buy any second hand gear.

I'm going to have a go myself now, but if anyone can come up with an attempt I'd be very grateful.

fenderbass86 · 27 Mar 2006 at 18:52

Impossible. Unless he likes playing at single digit framerates.

Shiz · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:20

As said above, with a monitor as well for 400, you are budgeting 300 or so for the entire system. Very unlikley you will get anything that could play the game without driving him mad. Tell him to get an XBOX 360 instead.

King4aDay · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:58

Yeah i came up with something for about £550 which would have been alright, but any lower and its kind of pointless. Cheers anyway.

GAMEfreak · 27 Mar 2006 at 20:23

yea, if you want to play it decently i recommend £650 as a budget.

Bennah · 27 Mar 2006 at 20:31

Cant get on with a monitor but here is one for just under £400...

Sempron 3000+ skt 754
1gb generic pc3200
Gigabyte K8NE mobo
Gigabyte 6800 GS
80Gb maxtor IDE
LG 16x DVD-rom
Antec SLK1650 case inc 350w psu
Arctic Cooling freezer 64 pro

Total cost: £ 396.27

Probs the best setup you can get for £400. Taken from the latest custom pc mag

fenderbass86 · 27 Mar 2006 at 20:38

Even so, that's still not gonna be good for latest games. The sempron should be used more for everyday use, and generic RAM should never be used, chances are every stick goes buggy eventually, speaking from experience.

Bennah · 27 Mar 2006 at 21:07

The Sempron is good for games actually. Not badly priced. a lot better than same priced celery's tbh. Custom pc rate it pretty well.

I havnt had any problems with generic ram in the past. Solid as ever. Just not got the overclocking potential.

Custom pc benched the pc with Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R and Quake 4.

They could overclock, the cpu to 2.25GHz from 1.8GHz and the 6800 GS to GPU - 528MHz and 590MHz (1180MHz) - Mem from the stock speeds of 485MHz - GPU and 550MHz (1100MHz) - Mem.

All results shown are overclocked average scores.

Battlefield 2

1024x768, 0x AA, high AF = 62fps

1280x1024, 2x AA, high AF = 55fps

1280x1024, 4x AA, high AF = 52fps (Best Playable)

1600x1200, 4x AA, high AF = 39fps

F.E.A.R

1024x768, 0x AA, high AF = 87fps

1280x1024, 2x AA, high AF = 39fps (Best Playable)

1280x1024, 4x AA, high AF = 27fps

1600x1200, 4x AA, high AF = 19fps

Battlefield 2

1024x768, 0x AA, high AF = 53fps

1280x1024, 2x AA, high AF = 47fps (Best Playable)

1280x1024, 4x AA, high AF = 38fps

1600x1200, 4x AA, high AF = 32fps

Pretty decent results if you ask me for a rig under £400. Overclocking the cpu a little more and pushing the GPU more with a little better cooling.

King4aDay · 27 Mar 2006 at 21:38

Yeah best I could do was

AMD Sempron 64 2600+ 1.6GHz (Socket 754) CPU
£41.95
Crucial 1GB DDR PC3200 CAS3
£47.95
PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO16 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express)
£104.95
Asus K8N4-E nForce4 4X (Socket 754) PCI-Express Motherboard
£44.95
Hyundai ImageQuest Q770S 17'' Perfectly Flat CRT Monitor
£64.95
Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 80GB ATA-133 2MB Cache
£29.95
LG GSA-4167BAL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter
£22.95
Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU £51.95

Subtotal £409.60
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £14.95
VAT £74.30
Total £498.85

Bennah · 27 Mar 2006 at 21:55

Near enough the same kind of setup and I would imagine it would yeild the same scores or there abouts but inc a monitor.

Defnatly a budget machine based around a Sempron skt754 cpu is a must tbh.

Back to the original question, I think that your mate has set his goal too high for the budget he has set himself.

Anychance of him going higher on the budget?

Lanz · 27 Mar 2006 at 23:09

You could probably get 2nd hand bits that will play it ok for £400.

lewism · 28 Mar 2006 at 00:07

Lanz said:
You could probably get 2nd hand bits that will play it ok for £400.

was just about to say, surely if hes wanting all that then second hand is the way to go

BigDom · 28 Mar 2006 at 01:10

Ooo a challenge.. I love them..

I NEVER spec 754 as to me it's pointless being old technology.. and what do you know.. a 939 spec which ought to play Oblivion reasonable enough.. and only £30 more than the Sempron options..

.. I allways go Geil ram out of habit but I think the OcUK ram may save a couple of quid.

CP-117-AM AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3000BPBOX) (CP-117-AM)
£84.95 £84.95
MB-119-AS Asus A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-119-AS)
£49.95 £49.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£44.95 £44.95
MO-006-HY Hyundai ImageQuest Q770S 17'' Perfectly Flat CRT Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-006-HY)
£64.95 £64.95
GX-053-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-053-PC)
£49.95 £49.95
HD-025-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD040GJ 40GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-025-SA)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-023-AN Antec SLK1650B Black Quiet Mini Tower Case - 350W SmartPower PSU (CA-023-AN)
£39.95 £39.95
CD-002-SA Samsung SH-D162 DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM (CD-002-SA)
£10.95 £10.95
Subtotal £371.60
VAT £65.03
Total £436.63

Zefan · 28 Mar 2006 at 01:13

Sempron would be fine, although he will have to forget about upgrading anything without blowing more cash on a newer 3dcard, cpu and mobo.

BigDom · 28 Mar 2006 at 01:22

Zefan said:
Sempron would be fine, although he will have to forget about upgrading anything without blowing more cash on a newer 3dcard, cpu and mobo.

To me it's not a case of the Processors capability more future upgradability.. No point going for a really old form factor IMO.. ok 939 will be replaced soon but it's still got a longer life than 754.

Sparky191 · 28 Mar 2006 at 01:31

I find this kinda spec much more interesting that the mega rigs that are usually quoted. I'm tempted to put together a cheap 939/PCIe rig now.

Spyhop · 28 Mar 2006 at 07:52

Best bet.. bribe a worker at the Alienware warehouse.

HEADRAT · 28 Mar 2006 at 08:25

Xbox 360 IMHO! (if he only wants to play games, a PC for £400 is going to give pertty megre performance).

HEADRAT

oweneades · 28 Mar 2006 at 08:44

HEADRAT said:
Xbox 360 IMHO! (if he only wants to play games, a PC for £400 is going to give pertty megre performance).

HEADRAT

Agreed! The 360 will play it fine and it looks good through a normal TV as well.

In fact your could build a basic pc and get the 360 as well for a little over budget. (albeit with no monitor and it would be very basic but would still me fine for office stuff and browsing the internet).

BigDom · 28 Mar 2006 at 09:01

HEADRAT said:
Xbox 360 IMHO! (if he only wants to play games, a PC for £400 is going to give pertty megre performance).

HEADRAT

Don't think my spec would be 'meagre' performance.. It's not going to be bleeding edge performance but it should do plenty good enough. Reduced settings of course and at this level little money can make a big difference but I don't agree it's meagre performance.