Trying to spec a £550 build for a mate

TehBluebear

TehBluebear

TehBluebear

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Hey all, a mate of mine has come to me asking for ideas on a new gaming PC build. He has a monitor (I assume!), and the normal peripherals, but that's about it.

Ideally he wants to spend around about £550, but with a view to upgrade in the future. Since AMD seem to be on the up, and generally because they're cheaper, I've decided to have a crack at speccing an AMD build but I have literally no idea what I'm doing having used Intels all my life.

Come up with the below tentative build, but it is over budget. Any suggestions you can make to bring down the cost would be good. However, he does want a 1TB hard drive no matter what.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X WindForce 3X OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £155.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6350 Black Edition 3.90GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £104.99
1 x Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 650W V2 High Performance '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020038-UK) £89.99
1 x Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint M8 2.5" 1TB 5400RPM SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HN-M101MBB) HDD £62.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £59.99
1 x NH-U12S Ultra-Quiet Slim CPU Cooler with NF-F12 Fan £52.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £49.99
Total : £681.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).




Thanks all!
 
 
thanks! Had completely forgotten about other coolers like Alpenfohn, and I wasn't too sure if going to the base 6-core was a good idea or not, but it seems so.

He seems fairly happy with that current spec, so cheers.
 
The non windowed Shinobi only comes with the one fan preinstalled, the windowed variant has two fans. Maybe have a look at the Bitfenix Shadow which is also ~£50 and has two fans pre-installed.
 
You'd get much better overclocking results with the Asus 970 board at the same price, especially true if the CPU is later upgraded to an 83xx. I'd suggest the 8320 for next gen gaming anyway, it will give a nice bump for not a lot extra. Don't get the 6350 - 6300 or 8320 and OC.
 
Seeing as there is a budget of £550 I think you'd be better off getting the cheaper 6350 myself. What about this.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Boost OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card £143.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6350 Black Edition 3.90GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £104.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) £59.99
1 x Kingston 60GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/60G) £47.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £35.99
1 x Aerocool V3X Advance Evil Blue Edition Midi-Tower - Black/Blue £25.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
1 x Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler £14.99
Total : £564.89 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Slightly over budget but with SSD as well.
 
I would be looking at something like this, if the budget can stretch. The CPU will overclock to 4.5-4.8GHz with this board and cooler.

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS Radeon R9 270X IceQ X2 Boost 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Sapphire Blue" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G186C9KBL) £65.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x Alpenföhn Brocken CPU Cooler £32.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard III Windowed Gaming Case - Black £32.99
Total : £610.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Alternatively, get a 7850 (£120) and overclock it to a little over 270X stock performance.

For running the 8320 at stock (or close to) the £60 Gigabyte board is a good choice, and a cheaper £25 cooler would be fine.
 
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