£450 budget build

chickendance · Feb 21, 2014

Any suggestions for what parts I need? would like to be able to play the sims 3 and expansions on high. Also if budget allows me to run skyrim at all that would be great.

Os is needed and I won't be over clocking (too much of a noob lol).

lmaonade200 · Feb 21, 2014

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor (£79.19 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£38.78 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£52.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£33.98 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£113.70 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£29.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£36.79 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.83 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£73.99 @ Dabs)
Total: £471.23
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

If you don't mind going a little bit over budget, this can play pretty much any game out there on decent settings

HiTechObsessed · Feb 21, 2014

You could drop the RAM to 4GB to get you under budget and still be fine for now. The Sims won't run up too much of a RAM bill lol

lmaonade200 · Feb 21, 2014

true that, drop 1 stick of RAM and make it a 4GB instead

that should put you close to 450

chickendance · Feb 21, 2014

is the Intel CPU better than an amd one? what about this build??

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2XC1j Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2XC1j/by_merchant/ Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2XC1j/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£77.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£49.49 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£58.43 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video
Card (£76.24 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£29.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£36.79 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.83 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£73.99 @ Dabs)
Total: £453.73 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.) (Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-21 23:39 GMT+0000)

lmaonade200 · Feb 21, 2014

that would also work, AMD processors are alright, it's advantage is that it has more cores, but Intel processors have stronger cores, quantity vs quality. AMD processors run multithreaded applications better while Intel runs single thread applications better.

overall it's a pretty good build tho, the only thing I'm concerned about is that Skyrim generally runs better on Nvidia GPUs better than it does on AMD GPUs, other than that though it's not too big of a deal.

HiTechObsessed · Feb 21, 2014

That, and the 750 Ti destroys the 7770 in gaming applications. I would still go with the first build, but it's up to you.

sora · Feb 22, 2014

HiTechObsessed :

True, the first build is great for a 450 quid build!

lmaonade200 · Feb 22, 2014

sorry about that, I was randomly clicking my page and accidentally clicked the button :x

AshyCFC · Feb 22, 2014

Good build but avoid SCAN.CO.UK if you can, they charge like £10 for delivery when I was looking at a 750ti

I'd get this EVGA 750 TI http://www.ebuyer.com/621485-evga-gtx-750-ti-2gb-gddr5-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-card-02g-p4-3751-kr

It's cheaper than the MSI one at SCAN because it has free delivery.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£55.84 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI A55M-E33 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£33.35 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£58.43 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£115.11 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£29.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£36.79 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.83 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£73.99 @ Dabs)
Total: £454.31
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-22 10:55 GMT+0000)

I'd still get the i3

Stevemeister · Feb 22, 2014

GBP450 equates to around $650~700 - you could do a budget build with new stuff but IMHO its probably worth checking out Kijiji or eBay for parts. I just sold a QX6850+MB+RAM combo for $170 - not the latest technology but certainly more than adequate to run games like Skyrim with a semi decent graphics card is added. My kids computer has an old single GTX460 and will run Skyrim quite happily but the monitor is only 1280 x 1080. You may be able to find an i7-2600K with appropriate MB at a good price - it may be 3 generations old in terms of technology but honestly the last two generations have not improved on it that much. If you can run to an SSD as well as a HDD the former will make a huge difference to how you system will feel in terms of speed to start etc.

13thmonkey · Feb 22, 2014

AshyCFC :

Good build but avoid SCAN.CO.UK if you can, they charge like £10 for delivery when I was looking at a 750ti

I'd get this EVGA 750 TI http://www.ebuyer.com/621485-evga-gtx-750-ti-2gb-gddr5-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-card-02g-p4-3751-kr

It's cheaper than the MSI one at SCAN because it has free delivery.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£55.84 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI A55M-E33 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£33.35 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£58.43 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£115.11 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£29.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£36.79 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.83 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£73.99 @ Dabs)
Total: £454.31
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-22 10:55 GMT+0000)

I'd still get the i3

if you join hexus and meet certain criteria you can get free shipping over £20.

AshyCFC · Feb 22, 2014

Ah, I see. ^^

13thmonkey · Feb 22, 2014

AshyCFC :

but ebuyer does offer slower free delivery.

Gracodana · Feb 22, 2014

chickendance :

this is a slightly twicked build I did for a friend

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2XUD4

four gigs of ram should do you fine and the great thing about the MOBO is it has four slots so you can get up to 8+ really easilly. the PSU is 500 watts and well above what is necessary so upgrades in the future are supported. The processor is a beast and will do everything great and the GPU is really power effiecient and strong. the 1TB of storage should be better then the 500gb some people recommended. The case and motherboard also have USB 3.0 support which is a nice feature in something this cheap!

Gracodana · Feb 22, 2014

Stevemeister :

it's around the 550 mark remember you get it a lot luckier in America with parts being so much cheaper

James Longridge · Feb 22, 2014

Amd Athlon x4 750k is an amazing processor At the moment

chickendance · Feb 22, 2014

thanks guys, think I will go for the first build- the idea of a smaller case is an added bonus for me

AshyCFC · Feb 22, 2014

Go for this PSU instead: http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Edition-Bronze-Wired-Supply/dp/B005FPT38U
http://www.ebuyer.com/621485-evga-gtx-750-ti-2gb-gddr5-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-card-02g-p4-3751-kr - GPU(unless you're a scan member)

The PSU is a similar price but higher quality than the CX430 but the CX430 is modular.

Gracodana · Feb 22, 2014

chickendance :

it's a good build but get a 1TB hard drive 500gb wont be enough, seriously the elder scrolls online is 60gb alone think of other games like watch dogs and the like!

lmaonade200 · Feb 22, 2014

true, if you have enough money in your budget definitely get a 1TB, I have some music, some movies and like 6 games (includes GW2, BF3, and BF4 which are each over 20GB) and I've already used up 400GB off of my own 1TB hard drive.

HiTechObsessed · Feb 23, 2014

Wow, I have 72 games installed and only used up 240GB. I don't have any music or movies though.

lmaonade200 · Feb 23, 2014

haha, yeah my space usage is pretty crazy, I honestly didn't know how much music I had until I checked my folder and found out it was over 100GBs worth @_@, probably a similar case with my movies too

RCFProd · Feb 23, 2014

Gracodana :

This guy has actually provided the best setup so far for 450 quid. The FX6300 beats the i3 and Athlon x4 750k and there is still a GTX 750 Ti in there. It's only weakness is It's RAM obviously but you can simply upgrade that later on. I would've chosen this build.

AshyCFC · Feb 23, 2014

RCFProd you are right but, the FX-6300 does not have as nice of an upgrade path as the intel i3.

That said, I think either option will be perfectly strong for the games the OP wants.

My suggested FX-6300 build, I included the CPU cooler because the stock one sounds like apollo 13.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£77.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 Evo 43.1 CFM CPU Cooler (£15.80 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£35.86 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston Blu 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.23 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£111.98 @ Dabs)
Case: Cooler Master K280 ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£34.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.83 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£73.99 @ Dabs)
Total: £459.80
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-23 10:37 GMT+0000)

£450 budget build

Reputable

Distinguished

Splendid

Distinguished

Reputable

Distinguished

Splendid

Splendid

Distinguished

Honorable

Distinguished

Titan

Honorable

Titan

Distinguished

Distinguished

Honorable

Reputable

Honorable

Distinguished

Distinguished

Splendid

Distinguished

Expert

Honorable

Share this page