Spec my mate a budget gaming PC

dav3evans

dav3evans

dav3evans

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4 Jan 2011
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Hey guys, a friend of mine is looking to make a purchase soon, and is currently eyeing up one of the Prodigy gaming systems:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-265-OE&groupid=43&catid=2385&subcat=2325

Looks pretty good to me, he wants to keep the cost to around this mark and with the i3 in there I believe he can go i7 later on when money is available. Not sure of the best value GPU for this price point though.

However I figure i would see what you can spec for him for a similar price, only thing he has is the optical bay at the moment, and will want a 128GB SSD. He will be playing WoW, BF3 and Diablo. Oh and would like to keep to something Prodigy sized so he can move it around easily.

Thanks all,

Dave.
 
 
Idleman said:
What is his budget and does he have an existing components he can reuse, including an OS?
Click to expand...

See original post for most of that info dude, he wants to stick to around the price of the linked system, only has the optical drive to use...

Operating System isn't needed either

@honosuseri, thanks for the spec, looks pretty decent. £600 is top of his budget that's for sure, be good if someone a recommends something slightly lower, though looking at that I can't see much that can be shaved off the price
 
Anything lower than the 2GB 7850 and he is wasting his money in my eyes. He could use the G850 pentium I suppose as it is much cheaper than the i3 and would be easier to "justify" writing off for an i5K upgrade. BF3 will run on it but the i3 would be better, it's the i5K he really wants to aim for but that's not possible really on this budget and having to use the mini-itx platform

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £149.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £98.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £66.66
1 x Corsair Enthusiast Series TX550M High Performance 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020001-UK) £59.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Midnight Black £59.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
Total : £579.65 (includes shipping : £11.75).



To shave a few quid off Use this 2TB drive (better than the 500GB in the prebuild), then upgrade to an SSD later. The HDD can then be used for storage purposes. You could use say the XFX 450W PSU but this isn't modular, in such a small case it would be wise to go modular to help with cablemanagement and airflow.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £98.99
1 x Intel Pentium G2120 3.10GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £73.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £66.66
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Midnight Black £59.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
Total : £537.70 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Last edited:
Thanks for the info dude, its all good help. I'm going to try and make sure he gets a decent GPU, especially as he wants to play BF3.

Out of interest, what's the issue with using this platform and going for i5 or i7? Budget aside, is it issues with cooling or compatibility?
 
Going small isn't cheap. If he could live with a midi tower then we can balance the build a little differently ;)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £66.66
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
Total : £606.70 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Mobo has more room for expansion and I got the i5K in there.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showdown PC Games £149.99
Total : £160.79 (includes shipping : £9.00).




• Quieter (when Idling according to GBs sales blurb, both cards are "knocked" for being loud at high fan speeds in their reviews)

• Clocked faster from the box (Either card will hit 1050mhz, more with a lil tweaking)

• Same price currently (Could argue the GB wins at the price point with their UK based warranty. Both cards have 3 year warranties)

or there is the Frozr IV for a little more which doesn't have the voltages locked to help tweak a higher OC

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Power Edition Twin Frozr IV OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £161.99
Total : £172.79 (includes shipping : £9.00).



The Windforce is a fine card, I prefer the styling of the MSI not that it matters if the case has no window. If I was to buy a 7850 I think I would opt for the Frozr IV but I'm not setting the budget we are trying to balance to ;)
 
I recommended the HD7850 for the builds I am doing for a few of my mates (4 in fact) they all completely ignored the Gigabyte because they said it looked tacky/cheap/horrible/awful etc. I would tend to agree with them. :p

At the moment the spec lists for thier PC's all have Twin Frozr cards. Subject to change of course :p
 
He went for that in the end too, he pretty much went for the exact spec that honosuseri posted involving the i5. As soon as I pointed out the spec difference and room for improvement he took notice.

Found that his case and PSU were still good to use as well so we swapped out the HDD for an SSD, and the RAM up to 8GB as well and he is now like a little kid at Christmas, looking forward to his delivery tomorrow.

Thanks for all the help everyone. Top notch as always ^_^
 
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