Pick me a computer off ebay/amazon?

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itachi0125

itachi0125

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Hello all, basically i have around £300-500 lying around and want to upgrade from...

Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5300 @ 2.60GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
3072MB RAM
Radeon HD 6670

Yes i know, disgusting computer. ;/

What i would like is for someone to use their many years of knowledge and help me perhaps find a decent pc for the price i mentioned above, and that would make me a very happy person :)

Now what i would like to do on it is play latest games on atleast medium settings and be able to play minecraft with 250+ mods on it which requires insane power. I would not mind using my hd6670 with this new pc if it doesnt come with a good graphics card but can cut the price down and also if the games will work and i assume they will because currently i can play latest games on lowest settings with this trash pc haha. Thanks for your time!
 
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Sorry, I missed your comment on the i7 (not sure when you edited it). If you are OK with upping the cost, but are building a PC for gaming, I still would not get an i7. I would go for an i5. The thing is, a main part of the advantage of an i7 is hyperthreading, which allows it to run 8 tasks simultaneously on the CPU. The problem with this is that it comes at the expense of a very slight drop in single-thread performance.

Since most (all?) modern games do not make use of more than 4 threads (usually not even 4), the hyperthreading gives no advantage in games, and can even hurt. For this reason it is not worth the cost over the i5.

The two choices I would look at for the i5 are the 4670 and the 4670K. The 4670K costs a little bit...
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bluejayek

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Is your current PC a prebuilt Dell or something?

Are you open to assembling your own computer? This will reduce the price, and is not that hard.

Can you check what power supply the current PC has? I suspect it is too weak to viably re-use, but might as well see!

What resolution do you plan to play on?
 
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itachi0125

itachi0125

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ah thanks for the reply, yes the computer is prebuilt HP bought around 5 years ago, uhhm i could possibly assemble my own pc yes thats not a problem if you could possibly tell me what i should put in there and what is compatible. The current pcs power supply is 400W i think if i remember or 420.

 
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bluejayek

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If you just know it is a 400W and nothing else about it... I would say it won't cut it. Most prebuilts have low quality power supplies that nobody on this forum would recommend touching with a 10 foot pole.

Currently putting together a build for you, will post it soon.
 
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bluejayek

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The problems I would have with that build are:
1) Operating system not included, add 70 pounds to price.
2) It doesn't say what brand/model power supply it is. Some are poor quality and can fail, destroying components.
3) No discrete graphics card. Even APU included graphics on AMD cpus are never as good as a discrete card
4) The CPU isn't the greatest, although, honestly, it's not much of a downgrade from the i3 I am recommending.

Here is a build I put together on PC part picker showing parts that would work together reasonably well for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor (£76.74 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.96 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-HDS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£35.15 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£65.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£103.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix Comrade ATX Mid Tower Case (£28.79 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£61.99 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.65 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £505.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-22 23:01 BST+0100

Comes in a few pounds over budget, but includes the operating system. If we tack on the operating system price with that ebay CPU, then the one I am recommending would be 115 pounds more. The main gain you get out of this is having a discrete GPU which is very important for gaming performance. In rough terms the 750 Ti is 4-5 x as powerful as the inbuilt graphics on that PC.

If the 500 pounds is a hard limit, we can look at places to shave a few dollars off.
 
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itachi0125

itachi0125

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ah nice, the build looks great, i'd like to thank you for your time on this btw.
I'm thinking of changing the case to a black one maybe and also will i need anything else to build this pc other than the things on pcpartpicker such as anti static wrist bands and other small things maybe?

edit: thinking of putting i7 in that build maybe as i wouldnt mind upping the cost if im going to build a good pc
 
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bluejayek

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The comrade case comes in black
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HG2VDO2/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=479289247&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00HG2VOAA&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=05HRCR6P1X63V13PFJFS

The one component not included on that list that you probably will want is an optical / disk drive, if only to install windows. I am assuming your current PC has one, and you can just (temporarily) take it from that PC to install windows, and then reconnect it if desired.

Also about that list, the coolermaster 212 Evo CPU cooler may not be required. The i3 doesn't run as hot as an i5 or i7, so an aftermarket cooler is not necessarily required. It will just bring your CPU temperatures down, potentially making it less likely to die after a couple of years of use, and will also be quieter. If you want, you can hold off purchasing that, run the CPU with the stock cooler, and only purchase the 212 EVO is you are not satisfied with the noise / temperature.

Another thing that would be useful is to have some thermal paste. The stock cooler will come with pre-applied paste, but a) it's not the best, and b) if you make a mistake mounting the cooler you will need to re-apply.

Arctic silver 5 is commonly recomended.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arctic-Silver-Thermal-Compound-3-5g/dp/B000OGX5AM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411424941&sr=8-1&keywords=arctic+silver

A small bottle of isoproanol / rubbing alcohol from your local chemist/pharmacy wouldn't hurt either if you need to clean the thermal paste off when this happens.
 
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bluejayek

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Oh, I forgot to mention... A screwdriver is probably necessary to assemble things...

An anti-static bracelet to wear while assembling things wouldn't hurt, but it's not 100% necessary.

It is is important to think about static discharge however. The best advice is:
1) Try to avoid working on a carpet with socks on. Rubbing sock feet against carpet will build static charge up in your body.
2) Either wear an anti-static wrist band (clip connected to metal part of case), or frequently (and before touching components) touch a metal part of the case to discharge static.
3) Cats are fluffy static deathballs. Keep away from open computers.
 
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bluejayek

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Sorry, I missed your comment on the i7 (not sure when you edited it). If you are OK with upping the cost, but are building a PC for gaming, I still would not get an i7. I would go for an i5. The thing is, a main part of the advantage of an i7 is hyperthreading, which allows it to run 8 tasks simultaneously on the CPU. The problem with this is that it comes at the expense of a very slight drop in single-thread performance.

Since most (all?) modern games do not make use of more than 4 threads (usually not even 4), the hyperthreading gives no advantage in games, and can even hurt. For this reason it is not worth the cost over the i5.

The two choices I would look at for the i5 are the 4670 and the 4670K. The 4670K costs a little bit more, and will require a more expensive motherboard, but will allow overclocking which can boost performance. If you do not want to overclock, get a 4670 non-K. This would be a decent setup:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£151.20 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.96 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H87M Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£54.44 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£65.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£52.18 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£103.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix Comrade ATX Mid Tower Case (£28.79 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£61.99 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.65 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £651.30
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-22 23:47 BST+0100

You'll notice I added an SSD to the setup. Since you were willing to up the budget a bit, I figured why not. An SSD really is a noticably pick up in comptuer speed for programs instaleld on it. 128GB isn't huge, but it is plenty to install at least your OS, minecraft, and maybe a couple other commonly used games/programs. They will all load much faster then they otherwise would, adn your system will likely feel more 'snappy'. I have a laptop with an SSD currently, and a desktop without and I really should get around to updating the desktop... The reason i haven't yet is that SSD prices will always be 20% cheaper in 6 months!

 
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sora

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If your job requires use of programs such as AutoCAD than hyperthreading may be useful.
 
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itachi0125

itachi0125

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Oct 10, 2011
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thanks very much bluejayvek, the build looks epic, i'm going to uni now and when i get back i shall start ordering this perhaps, got more money coming in soon and may wait to get the other half of the build later. Thanks again for your time!
 
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