Gaming on a 1600 x 900 screen

VikingPsycho · Sep 14, 2014

Hello, I'd really like to build a gaming PC. I have about £600 maybe £700 budget. The monitor I have now is 1600 x 900 though I might upgrade it at Christmas to a 1080p. What CPU and GPU would you recommend if I were going to upgrade the monitor?

Darkbreeze · Sep 14, 2014

Are you going to upgrade the motherboard as well or are you planning to reuse the one you have? If so, what is the model number? Since the PSU is the most important system component, and most important consideration when upgrading, especially if you're upgrading both the CPU and GPU, what is the brand and model number of your PSU?

Darkbreeze · Sep 14, 2014

Also, do you have a preference regarding the CPU brand or series? There are some seriously good deals on very high performance Xeon processors right now with features and instruction set support that many of the comparable i5 and i7 cpus don't offer in that price range. The Xeon is much cheaper than the I series processors that do support equivalent features but it might not leave a lot of room for future upgrades since it's an LGA 1155 based socket.

Also, if you plan to overclock the CPU it may not be a good choice since it cannot be overclocked. My understanding is that the max turbo setting can be locked at it's peak however which would be the same as a nice small overclock. For overclocking, an AMD or I series cpu would be a better choice. If overclocking is not your intention then it doesn't matter.

Darkbreeze · Sep 14, 2014

Ok, also, what kind of RAM (DDR2, DDR3, speed etc.) are you currently using?

Darkbreeze · Sep 14, 2014

If you want to use the Xeon, this build would game very well.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£173.48 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Asus Z77-A ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£92.03 @ PC World Business)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB Tri-X Toxic Video Card (£306.76 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £572.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-14 12:48 BST+0100

If you like the i7, this is a nice rig:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£230.00 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK2 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£119.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB Tri-X Toxic Video Card (£306.76 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £656.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-14 12:54 BST+0100

If you're ok with AMD I'd go with this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£124.00 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus Crosshair V Formula ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£173.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB Tri-X Toxic Video Card (£306.76 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £604.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-14 13:00 BST+0100

Of course, if you already have a motherboard that's worthwhile, we can probably do much better in terms of component performance since we could put that extra money towards the graphics card.

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Gaming on a 1600 x 900 screen

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