Sub £500 gaming PC

timboellis · 9 Dec 2013 at 18:37

Looking to build my son a gaming PC to handle Battlefield 4 and others.

Any suggestions on what to go for , I was looking at the motherboard bundles any suggestions AMD or Intel?

Last time i built a machine was a AMD Athlon 2500 so well out of touch.

Doomedspeed · 9 Dec 2013 at 18:46

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS Radeon R9 270X IceQ BOOST 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £56.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £56.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 430W '80 Plus' Power Supply £43.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £42.95
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £499.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).

timboellis · 9 Dec 2013 at 18:47

Brilliant thanks, and this would be upgradable in the future and and is is worth overlocking the chip or not?

Doomedspeed · 9 Dec 2013 at 18:53

No worries. I wouldn't advice overclock it..

Firstly, the stock cooler is pants, you really need an aftermarket one.

Also the motherboard hasn't got great power regulation, and as the Piledrivers uses a lot of Wattage (sometimes over their rating) it can cause problems..

Though with an aftermarket cooler 4ghz should be okay.. But i think itll be grand at stock.

Its very tough to get an upgradable PC on that bufdget to make it upgrade you really need to be looking at this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS Radeon R9 270X IceQ BOOST 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £56.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £47.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £42.95
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £549.47 (includes shipping : £8.00).

£50 more, put a better motherboard, you can throw a 8320 and overclock it to high heaven on that.. (you need to get an aftermarket cooler too.

)

Case with better airflow

and a bigger PSU for beefier GPU's.

POerformance wise itll be the same as above (though will OC better) but it is much more upgradable.

timboellis · 9 Dec 2013 at 18:57

Thanks will well go for the latter option , so suggestions on a aftermarket cooler?

ExRayTed · 9 Dec 2013 at 18:58

Both good specs. If it was my money I'd take the motherboard from the second spec and add it to the first. A half decent motherboard allows for much more flexibility later.

timboellis · 9 Dec 2013 at 19:00

Well the plan is to get the basics without the GFX card initially then get that later

Fallen god · 9 Dec 2013 at 19:03

YOUR BASKET
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £17.99
Total : £23.96 (includes shipping : £4.98).

Stulid (forum member) had a nice round up of CPU coolers that included this but I can't find it, either way I have read some really good reviews.

Doomedspeed · 9 Dec 2013 at 19:03

timboellis said:
Thanks will well go for the latter option , so suggestions on a aftermarket cooler?

For the money the Ereboss (say it in a funny cockney accent) is incredible value..

It will just fit in your case (160mm vs 160mm) and you will need to use the outside RAM slots (use 2 and 4). The cooling is exceptional for £30ish..

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS Radeon R9 270X IceQ BOOST 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £56.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £47.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £42.95
1 x Raijintek EreBoss High Performance CPU Cooler £31.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £581.46 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Fallen god said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £17.99
Total : £23.96 (includes shipping : £4.98).

Stulid (forum member) had a nice round up of CPU coolers that included this but I can't find it, either way I have read some really good reviews.

It was actually the Ereboss he reviewed, as above.

Fallen god · 9 Dec 2013 at 19:07

Ahh, thanks for that Doomedspeed, I have also read good things about Themis.

Found the round up.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18512639&highlight=username_stulid

Doomedspeed · 9 Dec 2013 at 19:09

Fallen god said:
Ahh, thanks for that Doomedspeed, I have also read good things about Themis.

Found the round up.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18512639&highlight=username_stulid

And here is the Ereboss review: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18556058

No worries, I have heard good things too, for £18 its a great little cooler, though personally i'd go for the Ereboss.

Fallen god · 9 Dec 2013 at 19:14

Thanks for the correct link haha. Ereboss is really impressive, keeps up with the big boys really well.

timboellis · 10 Dec 2013 at 12:33

1 last question before i buy.

I seen this motherboard bundle much the same as speced however is this work the extra £30 to get it overclocked I assume that is what has been done?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-179-OE&groupid=43&catid=2512&subcat=2683

Thanks

Tim

Doomedspeed · 10 Dec 2013 at 12:40

timboellis said:
1 last question before i buy.

I seen this motherboard bundle much the same as speced however is this work the extra £30 to get it overclocked I assume that is what has been done?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-179-OE&groupid=43&catid=2512&subcat=2683

Thanks

Tim

Thats a good bundle, it does come asembled (apart from the cooler, IIRC) and pre-overclocked. The cooler is similar to the Ereboss (maybe a little under it). Good bundle really.

timboellis · 10 Dec 2013 at 12:41

So well worth the extra £30 for them to overclock it?

timboellis · 23 Dec 2013 at 17:06

Got all the kit home connected it up all fans going HDD going , GFX card going but nothing on the sscreen and then i see there is a plug i miised on the board a 12v ATX however the only thing that will fit into it is the PCI-E cable but that leaves 2 holes free any suggestions?

Idleman · 23 Dec 2013 at 17:21

What Psu and Gpu do you have?

Akagi · 23 Dec 2013 at 17:31

I'd look at these PSU's before getting that basic 430W 80+ BeQuiet.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seasonic S12II 430W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Akasa Venom 550w Modular '80 Plus' Power Supply £49.99
1 x EVGA 600W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0600-KR) £49.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £39.95

timboellis · 23 Dec 2013 at 17:43

Its a BeQuiet Pure Power L8 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply

the only think i dont have is the memory I am using Integral
Integral memory - 2 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR3 i had laying around, tried this in another machine and it works.

timboellis · 23 Dec 2013 at 17:45

Checked all connectors all connected just lost why its not bring the GFX up even used an old PCI-r GFX card still the same