Skyrim on a budget

 
As I am posting you go and change the budget... :)

here's the revised. a tenner over budget though :(
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £95.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x SanDisk Extreme SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDX-120G-G25) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £69.98
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 (MB-364-GI) £50.00
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £29.99
1 x **B Grade** Xigmatek Pantheon Mid Tower Case - Black £29.00
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £509.03 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3450 3.10GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £149.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x Samsung 64GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC064D/EU) £55.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £517.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Or with a better graphics card:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Club3D HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (CGAX-69548A) w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £169.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Samsung 64GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC064D/EU) £55.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
1 x Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £39.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £503.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
UXB said:
Good news guys misses has agreed (after some major convincing) a bigger budget £500 but that is the absolute maximum no more, less is better of course haha

So i am thinking a better GPU and maybe more memory what do you think ?
Click to expand...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £95.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM £55.00
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless-N USB Adapter (TL-WN821N) £12.98
Total : £490.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).



This case is great and should be seriously considered. Stick with the i3 (i used the faster i3 2120), you can't overclock it but you can OC the 6850 (download MSI afterburner), remember lucidMVP can give that 6850 a boost too :) 8GB of RAM in there aswell which is ample for gaming.

A 60GB SSD isn't big enough in all honesty. I used the 1TB HDD as the i3 supports quicksync, you could rip your DVD collection to the HDD..... quicksync makes this happen quicker if you have software that supports it ;) We discussed the 120GB sataII SSD, a 128GB sataIII SSD instead would put the cost just over at £510ish........the speeds are great but you could add one much later. The bigger the SSD capacity the better the write speeds and obviously you can install more games to it so they get the benefit of shorter load times.

Keep the thread alive and post as you build, we can talk you through and offer assistance. It's worth the effort there are bonuses to being a loyal forum member ;)
 
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honosuseri said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £95.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM £55.00
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless-N USB Adapter (TL-WN821N) £12.98
Total : £490.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Click to expand...

I'd go with that. Not worth getting a better GPU at the expense of the rest.

I would probably spend the last tenner on a brand new HDD, warranty and all.
 
Things just got interesting guys, after many hours deliberating, convincing, arguing, and promising that i will sell one of my PS3's and over 100 games :eek:

I am now in a position to add a little extra to the budget, well quite a bit extra lol new budget £650 :D convinced her it was either that or i was gonna buy an X51 for a grand lol

Although she is not convinced that i will be able to assemble it and i will blow something up, and i must admit i am a bit apprehensive myself, having never built a PC before, but i am confident and eager to learn ;)

Heres the new proposed build, i am liking the look of that GPU seems like a bargain :confused:



YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Club3D HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (CGAX-69548A) w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x SanDisk Ultra SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA II Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDH-120G-G25) £62.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless-N USB Adapter (TL-WN821N) £12.98
Total : £668.89 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
The 6950 at £170 is a bit expensive, considering for a little more you can get 7850, which is not only faster, but can overclock much further as well (6950 typically would only over clock by 20-25%, but the 7850 can overclock by around 40-45%. And I've seen Sapphire Twin-fan 6950 2GB on sale on here a few times for £150...IMO that's the only price (or less) worth considering getting a 6950 now.
 
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Dude, is it your money or what? :)

The GPU looks good.

Think you would have been OK with a 6850 for the games you play. Then adding a hard drive.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Notebook/Apple Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128N/EU) £85.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ / ST1000DM005) £65.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £664.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).




 
Last edited:
olivier renault said:
It's still 1080p.
Click to expand...

Exactly!

The nvidia 460 is better than the 6850 not sure the HDAO lighting and CUDA is worth the extra £40. The real problem with these cards is the VRAM, ideally looking forwards you want 2GB. This makes the 6950 attractive but as Olivier rightly says the 7850 is overall a better GPU.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £194.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM £55.00
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £678.92 (includes shipping : £12.50).



I'm over slightly. There is no real right or wrong answer. I like Oliviers spec with the 6850 but you will outgrow the GPU sooner rather than later. I have the better GPU but you will want to add a SSD and at some point add an aftermarket heatsink so you can overclock higher.

The video Olivier linked is great to get you started. Any questions please ask and we can help you through the build aswell if it helps :)
 
Good luck with the build mate! as already said post up in these forums and all your questions will be answered. Do loads of research, watch loads of videos and you will be fine.

Well anyway here's my offerings not sure wheter or not you want to venture into overclocking just yet, but the first system wont overclock and the second one will!
NO SSd's though.
But both these systems will run skyrim on high settings and many other games as well.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £191.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £155.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ / ST1000DM005) £65.99
1 x Asus P8H61-M Intel H61 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £49.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £629.92 (includes shipping : £12.50).




YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £191.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard with FREE 16GB USB 2.0 PEN £74.98
1 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D 500GB SATA 6GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM (0F13178) £59.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £31.98
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939/AM2/AM3/775/1155/1156/1366) £15.98
Total : £665.88 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
Not a bad crack at the whip rick.

To be fair, for a H-61 mobo we would suggest this. It supports sata III and USB 3 and is cheaper than your offering.

The MSI 7850 i used is only a couple of quid more, it's clocked faster than your offering out of the box (both should OC well anyway) but the real bonus is the 3 year warranty (2 years on your sapphire).

Nothing really wrong with the 2500K but the 3570K is better (uses less power,better IGP,enables PCI-E 3). The z77 mobos have lucidMVP over the Z68, I appreciate you are trying to balance it to the budget but a Z77 mobos isnt much more. I'm not attacking your spec, just pointing out the differences to help the OP understand.

It's very much a case of balance, I think Olivier is right and the 6850 would do. I use the nvidia 460 (@850-900mhz) in my HTPC for gaming on a 40 inch 3DTV......although as i said earlier I'm finding that 1GB of VRAM isn't enough. For £80 though, the 6850 is bettering current consoles considerably and shouldn't really be sniffed at.
 
honosuseri said:
Not a bad crack at the whip rick.

To be fair, for a H-61 mobo we would suggest this. It supports sata III and USB 3 and is cheaper than your offering.

The MSI 7850 i used is only a couple of quid more, it's clocked faster than your offering out of the box (both should OC well anyway) but the real bonus is the 3 year warranty (2 years on your sapphire).

Nothing really wrong with the 2500K but the 3570K is better (uses less power,better IGP,enables PCI-E 3). The z77 mobos have lucidMVP over the Z68, I appreciate you are trying to balance it to the budget but a Z77 mobos isnt much more. I'm not attacking your spec, just pointing out the differences to help the OP understand.

It's very much a case of balance, I think Olivier is right and the 6850 would do. I use the nvidia 460 (@850-900mhz) in my HTPC for gaming on a 40 inch 3DTV......although as i said earlier I'm finding that 1GB of VRAM isn't enough. For £80 though, the 6850 is bettering current consoles considerably and shouldn't really be sniffed at.
Click to expand...

Yeah some very good points there! It depends on how much the op decides to stick to budget i guess.
Tbh iv had an asus 6850 in the past coupled with an i3 2100 and it struggled to play skyrim @1080p with high settings. And even more so after installing various mods like The HD mod for one. That's just from personal experience.
This was probably more down to the CPU though, dipping in fps at intense moments. So in any case the i5 whichever of them is chosen is definatley the way to go.
Now i'm not sure how that is translated to a tv but i would imagine the tv down scales somewhat. I'm sure i read somewhere that monitor resolutions differ from tv's, though i could be wrong.
There are pros and cons for all the setups shown.
It is most importantly down to the budget, as ever where do you stop. A few ££s here a few ££s there adds up. Lots of info ans ideas to help out though in any case!
 
^ i was able to play skyrim on at 1080p mediocre settings on a far more inferior system.
It's the texture mods that make it demanding requiring a lot of vram. For that reason i'd drop the ssd for a 7850 over the 6850 because of the 2gig vram and overall performance. You can always plop in an ssd later, they've been going down in price, relativlely, a lot faster than other parts.
Good luck with your build.
 
Today i dismantled 2 old PC"s and retrieved the hardrives, not sure if they will be of any use in the new build, but could i use them as external drives,

Seagate Baracuda 7200.7

Western Digital WD800
 
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UXB said:
Today i dismantled 2 old PC"s and retrieved the hardrives, not sure if they will be of any use in the new build, but could i use them as external drives, heres a couple of ebay links to the same drives, they are both in working order
Click to expand...

If they are sata bud thats good.......edit out the links though it's against forum rules
 
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oops sorry didn't realise, links now gone, anyway as far as i can tell the Western Digital one is IDE, and the Seagate one is Sata :confused: could i use them ?
 
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