Gaming PC £500-£600 budget

Fmnova · Mar 31, 2014

Hi, I'm looking to buy a PC for gaming but am pretty out of loop and would love some advice!

Approximate Purchase Date: next week

Budget Range: £500 - £600

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Internet surfing

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: New build/all

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: amazon, ebuyer (pretty open to all uk trusted sites)

Location: England

Parts Preferences: prefer AMD FX processors and AMD 270x graphics card but I'm open to other suggestions.

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: I think it's 1440x900

Additional Comments: I need windows and would prefer 7. I want to be able to play games like the upcoming dragon age and Sims 4. I have a preference for white/white and black cases but that's not important.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: I haven't had a PC for a while, want to get back into pc gaming.

Thank you for the help!

Suztera · Mar 31, 2014

If you buy the cooler last whilst using the stock cooler, you can fit in the OS. Or add £50 to your budget.
PCPartPicker part list

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor (£104.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£57.89 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£61.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card (£155.12 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£45.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.96 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £645.82
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-31 15:13 BST+0100)

fatboyslimerr · Mar 31, 2014

I would go for this. R9 270X offers great price to performance and hopefully some of the new game releases will be optimised for AMD and have mantle support. I would add an SSD if your budget can stretch. Samsung Evo 840 120GB highly recommended.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£127.19 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£32.09 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£55.83 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Toshiba 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.97 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card (£146.70 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£28.92 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£81.97 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £557.65
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-31 15:14 BST+0100)

gorgis · Mar 31, 2014

CPU: Intel Core I5-4570
MB: GIGABYTE GA-B85M-HD3
MEMORY: KINGSTON KVR13N9S8K2/8 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 1333MHZ VALUE RAM DUAL CHANNEL KIT
GPU: ASUS GTX660-DC2OCPH-2GD5 2GB
PSU: CORSAIR VS SERIES VS550
HDD: WESTERN DIGITAL WD5000AZRX 500GB CAVIAR GREEN SATA3

pretty system
much value for money
excellent
wow

HiTechObsessed · Mar 31, 2014

You can step up to the 280x at a 600 pound budget, which I would definitely do.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£77.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£42.16 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£55.83 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Toshiba 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.97 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card (£227.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Zalman Z5 ATX Mid Tower Case (£31.04 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£81.97 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £601.93
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-31 15:37 BST+0100)

Suztera · Mar 31, 2014

gorgis :

No case, Corsair VS series is worser than CX. Not recommended.

fatboyslimerr :

Mantle has no effect as it is as DOA project. It was aimed to push out Direct X 12 which is the same thing but will be compatible with all games.

HiTechObsessed :

The motherboard chosen is not that good for upgrading to a eight core in the future. Plus that VRM cooling looks a bit thin. Also at his resolution the 280X is overkill. A 270X would suffice.

fatboyslimerr · Mar 31, 2014

Yep and DX12 won't be around till 2015 and will probably only work on Windows 9. Mantle is here now and that hardware will support direct x 12 anyway through driver updates (or so AMD say). BF4, Thief as well as Square Enix, Crytek and others have all jumped on board the mantle bandwagon.

HiTechObsessed · Mar 31, 2014

Suztera :

Overclocking doesn't really help gaming at all, so that's not a concern. At any rate, the 6300 at stock + 280x will do much better than an 8320 + 270x. The 280x is also better for future-proofing, with the 3GB of VRAM, which will help with heavily modding, or with Crossfire in the future.

The 8320 won't be much of a difference in gaming, as games are just now using 4 cores, and they are clocked the same.

The 280x is still better for future-proofing, which is why I said for future-proofing.

Suztera · Mar 31, 2014

fatboyslimerr :

Agreed with DX12 implementation but mantle is not a game changer with i5s at this cpu level. It is the optimisation of games developers allowing to use multicore of 6 or more cores.

Fmnova · Mar 31, 2014

Suztera :

Thank you all for replying!

I'm liking this setup best. Is the 8-core worth it over the 6-core?

I quite like the look of the zalman z3 plus case, anyone know if it's a decent case?

Suztera · Mar 31, 2014

Fmnova :

Suztera :

Thank you all for replying!

I'm liking this setup best. Is the 8-core worth it over the 6-core?

I quite like the look of the zalman z3 plus case, anyone know if it's a decent case?

The 8 core is worth because you won't likely have to upgrade in the future as it won't bottleneck the high end gpu

fatboyslimerr · Mar 31, 2014

Listen to the man! Also a frickin' awesome CPU cooler!

Fmnova · Mar 31, 2014

Ok I'm sold! Thanks for the help everyone!

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