What do you guys reckon?

Shashman

Shashman

Shashman

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7 May 2012
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Location
Bournemouth
A few weeks ago I asked for opinions on a budget gaming rig for my girlfriend. Budget at the time was around the £450 mark. Now it's gone up to between £500 and £600.

This was the original build agreed on, back then:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £95.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £91.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
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 £44.99
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £37.99
1 x Thermaltake VK90001N2Z Element T Case - Black £34.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £470.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

Click to expand...
This is the new one:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.95
1 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £89.99
1 x OcUK E2250SWDA 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 "Dual Fan Edition" 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.98
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £38.39
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Logitech K120 Keyboard (920-002524) £9.98
Total : £543.34 (includes shipping : £11.75).




Case isn't included on purpose, being a bit of a difficult choice haha.

What do you reckon? Overclocking and Crossfire/SLI aren't requirements. Just a system that'll run most modern games at decent graphics settings well :)
 
I get your point, but upgrading the CPU means upgrading the motherboard, bringing costs up which I'm trying to keep as low as possible.

Hmmm, well it's not for me so I don't have the final say, but I came up with this alternative:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x OcUK E2250SWDA 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x MSI HD 6850 "Dual Fan Edition" 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £77.38
1 x OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £59.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £25.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Logitech K120 Keyboard (920-002524) £9.98
Total : £620.33 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Last edited:
I'm playing World of Tanks right now. Might go back to World of Warcraft. Also getting sniper elite 2 soon and Borderlands 2 when it's released.
 
The offers change on wed. so this spec won't be "valid" for long.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x MSI HD 6850 "Dual Fan Edition" 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £77.38
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £74.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 700W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £64.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £38.39
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £594.76 (includes shipping : £11.75).



That Z77 mobo will allow you to overclock the i5K if you wanted to. It's lucid MVP makes clever use of the CPUs IGP to boost the 6850s performance. Intel quicksync uses the IGP to help "turbo boost" video encoding tasks if the software supports it. Paired it with 8GB of 1600mhz RAM which is the ideal speed for this socket and all you will ever need for gaming.

Case is budget but you are welcome to change it, the PSU is overkill however, it is modular and quiet. Quite the bargain when the 600W unit is the same price give or take a quid ;)

I added a good speed and reasonably sized HDD. At 1TB it will make a decent storage drive should you want to add a SSD much later for the OS and games to be installed to.

The 6850 is a great budget GPU and remember you can OC it to close to 6870 performance very very easily.

Hope this helps
 
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