€500-600 PC gaming build - Ireland

daithig

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Dec 7, 2013
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I know that I won't get much for this amount but I just wanted something basic to start with. No need to include any peripherals or OS with this. Also I'm living in Ireland so if anyone could reccomend where I could get the parts I would be very grateful (it may also be possible for me to have parts shipped to the UK and then on to me, depending on what's cheaper). Thanks in advance, hope I've said everything I need to, if I haven't then please let me know and I'll give you whatever information you need.
 
Solution
CPU: AMD FX6-6300 Black Edition Vishera Six Core AM3+ 3.5GHz 14MB 95W...................102.34
http://

Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P AMD AM3+ 970A DDR3 ATX........................79.71
http://

Ram: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) HyperX Fury Black Series 1866MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM..............77.02
http://

HDD: WD 1TB Blue SATA 6GB/s 7200RPM 64MB 3.5" Hard Drive....................51.16
http://

Case: Zalman Z11 Plus High Performance Mid Tower Case......................63.33
http://

PSU: XFX 550W Core Edition 80+ Bronze PSU......................58.52
http://

GPU: Sapphire Technology AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI Dual-X...

Scremin34Egl

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Nov 13, 2013
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CPU: AMD FX6-6300 Black Edition Vishera Six Core AM3+ 3.5GHz 14MB 95W...................102.34
http://

Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P AMD AM3+ 970A DDR3 ATX........................79.71
http://

Ram: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) HyperX Fury Black Series 1866MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM..............77.02
http://

HDD: WD 1TB Blue SATA 6GB/s 7200RPM 64MB 3.5" Hard Drive....................51.16
http://

Case: Zalman Z11 Plus High Performance Mid Tower Case......................63.33
http://

PSU: XFX 550W Core Edition 80+ Bronze PSU......................58.52
http://

GPU: Sapphire Technology AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI Dual-X OC...................153.22
http://

Total: (incl vat and shipping) 595.33

This is a good setup and will play most new games on high/ultra settings at 1080p. All parts are from dabs Ireland

Edit:

Forgot the optical drive, though any cheap one will do. If you need one, this looks like the cheapest
http://
 
Solution

t3nn1spr3p

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Jul 3, 2012
247
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10,710
Budget Intel alternative using UK sites.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£41.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£29.77 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£34.06 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£36.00 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£108.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Antec One ATX Mid Tower Case (£44.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£35.52 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer (£12.52 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £343.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
 

Scremin34Egl

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Nov 13, 2013
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An Intel equivalent would be an i3. An i5 would be better than the i3 and the fx 6300 but you will then have to go for a weaker gpu to fit your budget which will impact badly in gaming performance.

The benefit of going with an fx 6300 is that it is more future proof (because it has more cores) and it can be overclocked
The i3 on the other hand may perform slightly better in some games that utilize two cores while more core heavy games like crisis 3 and bf4 multi perform better on the fx 6300. Next gen games are going to most probably make use of more cores so the fx 6300's 6 cores might come in handy for upcoming games

An fx 6300 alternate would be this:
Processor: i3 4130: http://

Motherboard: http://

The price comes in around the same unless you go for a cheaper motherboard which could save you about 20 euros but comes with less memory slots and sata ports
 
Uk prices, about €600:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock B85M-HDS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£46.74 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£52.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.70 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 270 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£119.12 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.11 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.32 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £468.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
 
[PCPartPicker part list](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2vqkWZ) / [Price breakdown by merchant](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2vqkWZ/by_merchant/)

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54590) | £140.39 @ Aria PC
**Motherboard** | [ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-h87pro4) | £55.69 @ Amazon UK
**Memory** | [G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f317000cl11d8gbsr) | £76.16 @ Amazon UK
**Storage** | [Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st1000dm003) | £36.00 @ Aria PC
**Video Card** | [XFX Radeon R9 280X 3GB Double Dissipation Video Card](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-r9280xtdfd) | £189.99 @ Amazon UK
**Case** | [Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-case-200r) | £44.99 @ Amazon UK
**Power Supply** | [XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-power-supply-p1550sxxb9) | £44.11 @ CCL Computers
**Optical Drive** | [Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer](http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/lite-on-optical-drive-ihas124-04) | £11.74 @ CCL Computers
| | **Total**
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available | £599.07

blasts these appart :)

 

daithig

Honorable
Dec 7, 2013
9
0
10,510
Thanks everyone, probably going to go with Scremin34Egl on this one, considering what he said about the cores and future games and all the parts are from the same Irish site. Just one or two last things: How "Upgradeable" would this build be? Could it manage a crossfire setup for example?
Also I might also add in an SSD or replace the HDD with an SSHD. What are your opinions on these? Thanks!
 

Scremin34Egl

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Nov 13, 2013
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It's upgradable up to an fx 8350 which should be enough for most future games. The mobo can also do some light overclocking if you add a cooler

The board is crossfire capable but the second slot will run in x4 mode meaning reduced bandwidth and possibly performance. If you are thinking of crossfire then you should look at the 990fx boards but they are allot more expensive. You would also need a higher wattage power supply like about 800W. I wouldn't think so much about crossfire as it's too much of a hassle. Single gpu's solutions are much more stable

The ssd is a nice option for your operating system with programs and some games though I wouldn't use it as a primary storage for games as they are quite large and can fill up quite quickly

The sshd would reduce the time spent to start up programs however it is much slower in read/write speeds when compared to ssd's. It just has a small ssd chip like 8gb's that acts as cache memory which stores frequently used data and nothing else

The average size ssd is about 128gb which should be fine for your programs and operating with a few games

An ssd will not give you more fps in games but will improve loading times, program startups and boot times significantly when compared to traditional sata drives. They also have better read/write speeds
 

daithig

Honorable
Dec 7, 2013
9
0
10,510
Thanks again, you've been really helpful. My source of funding is now saying I might aswell spend a bit more if it will last a good bit longer, so I'm thinking about a better motherboard, and possibly a slightly better CPU (how much would an 8 core set me back?). Not too worried about the graphics card at the moment, as long as it's decent enough. Basically, kind of looking for the sweet spot in terms of "bang-for-buck", any ideas?

I'll probably start off with a 1TB hard drive and add in a 128gb SSD later on then. Thanks again!
 

Scremin34Egl

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Nov 13, 2013
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How much extra are you willing to spend ?, you could probably go for an i5
 

Scremin34Egl

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Nov 13, 2013
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CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.20GHz S1150 6MB............................169.45
http://

Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 S1150 Intel Z97 DDR3 ATX.....................124.95
http://

Ram: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) HyperX Fury Black Series 1866MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM..............77.02
http://

HDD: WD 1TB Blue SATA 6GB/s 7200RPM 64MB 3.5" Hard Drive....................51.16
http://

Case: Zalman Z11 Plus High Performance Mid Tower Case......................63.33
http://

PSU: XFX 550W Core Edition 80+ Bronze PSU......................58.52
http://

GPU: Sapphire Technology AMD Radeon R9-270X 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI Dual-X OC................175.39
http://

Total: (incl vat and shipping) 730.01

Updates:

The i5 is the better cpu when compared to the fx 8320 or fx 6300 in gaming
This motherboard has full dual x8 crossfire support so no bottlenecking if adding a second card later on
Slightly faster graphics card

OR, you could go with this option but with a cheaper motherboard but it includes an ssd

Just swap the mobo to this and add the ssd
Motherboard: http://
Only difference is the lack of dual x8 slots for crossfire, overclocking ability and maybe fewer features and ports

SSD: http://

Total: 750
 


Both are more than fine today, but in the future if you need a bit more power then there are better upgrade options with the i5 socket than the FX socket. In fact the FX socket almost doesn't have any upgrade options...
 

Scremin34Egl

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Intel has stronger per core performance than AMD hence intels 4 cores are stronger than AMD's 6 and 8 core chips. The intel option will probably have a better upgrade path than the AMD and an i5 should last a good couple years
 

daithig

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Dec 7, 2013
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Okay thanks all.

Thinking about the AMD setup you first mentioned with the R9-270X 2GB instead. Would this be beneficial or better to just leave it with the one you suggested? Thanks!
 

Scremin34Egl

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Nov 13, 2013
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The AMD build is much cheaper so it depends on your budget. The i5 is definitely the better processor but costs allot more

Either build would be great for gaming so if you can spend that extra go with the i5 else stick with the AMD and you will be fine