Spec me PC for light gaming

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Building my friend a PC
They already a GTX 680 to use.
They need an OS and a monitor

The build I came up with is below, but I have a feeling it may be a bit too expensive for them as They want to keep the cost down. Only going to used for light gaming really, nothing extreme.
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So if anybody could spec me a cheaper one that would be great, have no preference to either AMD or Intel, long as its a good PC with a good bang for buck
 
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No point getting a samsung ssd, get one Of the cheaper ones.

Also no need for z97 mobo on non k cpu...but maybe not much to be saved as itx.

Can they not trial windows until 10 comes out. It should be cheap early doors.
 
If you want to keep the cost down the first thing I would recommend is getting a cheaper case and motherboard. Unless your friend really needs a higher end motherboard i'd recommend getting a cheaper one such as this one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-467-GI.

Case wise, I wouldn't recommend going super cheap but something in the £40 range would suffice and it would cut £20 off the overall cost.

I do absolutely love SSD's but they are more expensive than hard drives. If your friend doesn't need an SSD you could change that out for a 1tb HDD. Alternatively you can get some 250GB SSD's on Amazon for significantly less than the one you chose such as this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-250..._2?ie=UTF8&qid=1425484499&sr=8-2&keywords=ssd.

Only other thing I could suggest is looking at AMD. The FX 6300 is a great budget CPU for around £85 but could bottleneck the GPU. However if your friend only wants to do light gaming then that may not be a problem. If it is you could look into getting the FX 8320 or for a little extra the FX 8350.
 
Have decided that the AMD would be the best route to go give my friends budget.
Ive changed to a lower motherboard and a different case (friend likes the idea of smaller cases and doesn't want a massive tower) he also heartset on going for windows 7 too, he also needs wifi too, but i think i have a wireless card knocking round he can have.

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Couple of bits and pieces are cheaper elsewhere (windows 7 license is 60 elsewhere)

So all in all if works out at around £580 which is a lot better.
 
Kaveris need fast RAM, its reliant on it to get ok frame rates (but with a discrete card its a mute point)

Case and PSU are a bit expensive?


YOUR BASKET
1 x AOC E2460SH 24" Widescreen 1ms Gaming LED Monitor - Black £113.99
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail **PROMO** £99.95
1 x SK Hynix 256GB SSD SH910A SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (HFS256G32MNB-2201A) £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02733) £84.95
1 x Antec ISK600M mATX Cube Case - Black £56.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £52.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £44.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
Total : £601.25 (includes shipping : £17.85).



Notice the stronger APU on offer.


YOUR BASKET
1 x AOC E2460SH 24" Widescreen 1ms Gaming LED Monitor - Black £113.99
1 x SK Hynix 256GB SSD SH910A SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (HFS256G32MNB-2201A) £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02733) £84.95
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £62.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £52.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £44.99
1 x Xigmatek Mach Midi-Tower Black £24.95
Total : £540.83 (includes shipping : £12.50).




An overclockable Pentium.
 
kaveri plus mid to high end discrete graphics is a bad idea. it's main selling point, the igp, would be redundant.

the athlon 860k would give you the same performance and would be cheaper.

Stullid's build is very good.

edit: Stullid's I5 build I mean.
 
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Have decided that the AMD would be the best route to go give my friends budget.
Ive changed to a lower motherboard and a different case (friend likes the idea of smaller cases and doesn't want a massive tower) he also heartset on going for windows 7 too, he also needs wifi too, but i think i have a wireless card knocking round he can have.

U%5D%20the%20way%20to%20go%20when%20you've%20already%20got%20a%20GTX680%20waiting%20to%20drop...jpeg
 
Would a 6300 be the best option with the 680 or would the 7700k be better?

Only issue is, theres not mATX motherboards for the am3+ socket, I need to keep the space down as my friend didnt want a full blown tower.
 
A FX6300 is better than a 7700K, but why the 7700K when I have shown you a 7850K for the same price?

Apologies, i did mean the 7850k, i wasnt aware of the deal on that untill your other post.

The only small motherboard i can find for the am3+ socket is the Asus M5A78l-M, is that any good?

it appears its down to either the 7850k or the FX6300, opinions?
 
If your concerned about money and cost, well you can get a Fractal Core 1000 USB 2 case for £20 if you google it, fantastic budget case, add a side and rear fan later if temps worry you. Micro ATX only though.

For something with more options though, I recommend sticking with ATX, an NZXT S340 looks superb if you are prepared to spend £60 and later add some lighting, but for low cost and getting started.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Raijintek Arcadia Mid Tower USB 3.0 Case - Black £24.95
Total : £34.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).






Then go for something along the lines of,
YOUR BASKET
1 x AOC E2460SH 24" Widescreen 1ms Gaming LED Monitor - Black £113.99
1 x SK Hynix 256GB SSD SH910A SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (HFS256G32MNB-2201A) £84.98
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £52.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £44.99
1 x Gigabyte H81M-D2V Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
Total : £408.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).



To save a little more money you could sign up for a Windows 10 trial, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso , give it a go and if it is not good enough then buy a retail copy of Windows 7.

For more future proofing a Z97 motherboard would be a better option, if you want to spend a little extra on the motherboard it's not a huge amount more as they start off at a reasonable cost. Though if interested in futureproof I would consider an ATX build, more options new and second hand, and usually better value, cooling, compatability.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97M-DS3H Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £74.99
Total : £84.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £62.99
Total : £72.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Later add a 2tb storage drive?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £66.98
Total : £75.68 (includes shipping : £7.25).




Cool stuff like this,

YOUR BASKET
1 x SK Hynix 256GB SSD SH910A SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (HFS256G32MNB-2201A) £84.98
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £62.99
1 x NZXT Source 340 Midi-Tower Case- Black Window £59.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £52.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £46.99
Total : £378.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
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I would go with the Pentium and a better board, i5s will be cheap on ebay if he wants to upgrade later and the Pentium K overclocks very well.

There's no real upgrade path for the AMD if he wants more performance. If I was spending my money thats what I'd do.
 
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