Rough price ratio of components

hypochondriac · 10 Oct 2009 at 20:47

As a general rough template, what should the ratio of prices of components be for a pc for gaming, work and browsing be.
I need to buy a pc and monitor with a £500 budget, but don't want to pay too much for certain components if i'm not going to get the most out of them.

Obviously theres no definite rule to this sort of thing i just want a rough estimation. Like is it silly to spend more on the graphics card than the cpu. Or perhaps more on the mobo than the cpu etc.

cpu:mobo:ram:graphics

Also there are so many parts to choose from, and I hardly know anything about which ones are good etc. So can I assume (excluding the brand new expensive items) that the price is a good indication of performance. i.e. I know the ati 4870s are good but i know nothing about 4700s so can i assume they're just a little behind the 4800s. likewise the nvidia 9800s are a similar price can i assume they produce similar results.

dangerstat · 10 Oct 2009 at 20:53

Unfortunately this differs too much between the platforms at the moment, so for example with i5 it makes sense to pretty much spend as much on an MB as the CPU itself, where as with AM3 platforms that'd be all sorts of silly.

PermaBanned · 10 Oct 2009 at 20:53

CPU: £100
Mobo: £75
RAM: £85
PSU: £65
Case: £30-£50
HDD: £40-£60
Optical Drive: £20
Graphics: Whatever's left.

JonJ678 · 10 Oct 2009 at 21:32

The last time I thought about this I concluded that I tend to spend roughly equal money on each part. Psu/cpu/ram/motherboard/storage/case/graphics all about the same. £50 on each gets a solid office pc for £350, £100 on each puts you around mid range, and £150+ is high end.

However I overspecify the psu and underspecify graphics. This probably doesn't hold up under analysis.

PermaBanned · 10 Oct 2009 at 21:46

JonJ678 said:
The last time I thought about this I concluded that I tend to spend roughly equal money on each part. Psu/cpu/ram/motherboard/storage/case/graphics all about the same. £50 on each gets a solid office pc for £350, £100 on each puts you around mid range, and £150+ is high end.

However I overspecify the psu and underspecify graphics. This probably doesn't hold up under analysis.

An interesting proposition, and while it doesn't exactly apply to everybody i think i will utilize it in future. Thanks for pointing it out

fini · 10 Oct 2009 at 21:49

Superewza said:
Case: £30-£50.

Wow, not a big case fan then?

hypochondriac · 11 Oct 2009 at 15:23

Superewza said:
CPU: £100
Mobo: £75
RAM: £85
PSU: £65
Case: £30-£50
HDD: £40-£60
Optical Drive: £20
Graphics: Whatever's left.

This fits me within budget, but I need to buy a monitor too.
At the moment, I have a roughly 1:1:1:1... ratio of prices. (obviously not the optical included in that)