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New Gaming Build for £400-£600

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  • Systems
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  • New Build
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October 10, 2014 2:59:30 AM

Looking to get a new gaming system, salvaging some old parts where possible to save money.

Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: Needs to be complete by November

Budget Range: £400-£600 including VAT, shipping, etc.

System Usage from Most to Least Important:

  • Gaming (current and upcoming, battlefield, dragon age, etc.)
  • LAN parties (portability)
  • General use, software development, linux vm's, etc.


  • Are you buying a monitor: Maybe
    I have a LED/TN LCD 27" 1920x1080 HDMI monitor. If I can get an upgrade on budget id be very happy.



    Parts to Upgrade: Pretty much a new build.

    • CPU
    • Motherboard - Need new (have an AM3 board, suspect not useful)
    • RAM - Got DDR3 2x8GB 1600MHz CL11 (picked it up cheap some time ago)
    • SSD - I have a 120GB drive I can recover, forget the model, (either a Vertex3 or one of the other around there) SATA 6Gbps think its about 500MB/s
    • HDD - A single large HDD for storing my steam library. I saw some cheap 3TB ones, but lots of complaints on Amazon regarding reliability
    • GPU - Have an AMD 7870, would like to upgrade
    • Case - Want something simple, sturdy, cool, fairly compact and light. Front USB3, space for the larger GPU's should I upgrade. SLI/Crossfire ability is a nice-to-have, not essential.
    • Optical drive - Not used one for years, can borrow one if I need to to install OS and such
    • PSU - I could possibly recover an Antec around 500W that is a few years old from a retired AM3 system, but the fan bearing has worn heavily (not sure how replaceable those 120mm PSU fans are)


  • Do you need to buy OS: Yes

    Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon (have prime), Ebuyer, other UK vendors

    Location: Buckinghamshire, South East UK

    Parts Preferences: None

    Overclocking: Maybe (I have previously overlocked a 1055T CPU and a HD 5770 GPU to put off upgrading)

    SLI or Crossfire: Maybe If the stuttering problems are not such an issue (I heard improvements have been made?) and its a cost effective solution.

    Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080, will be upgrading now / as soon as can afford it. Likely wont ever go to triple display though (I suspect id go for the VR stuff first in the nearish future for the pilot games like Elite and Eve: Valkyrie)

    Additional Comments:

    • See comments on case.
    • Have a box of cables over the years, only major thing I have not got is display port cables or adapters
    • Got 2.1 speakers, mouse, keyboard, etc.
    • The new SSD interfaces look interesting, not looked into much
  • More about : gaming build 400 600

    a b 4 Gaming
    October 10, 2014 3:20:23 AM

    Re-use the SSD, Monitor and RAM, and get a new PSU. A good build:

    PCPartPicker part list /

    CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£131.94 @ Aria PC)
    Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Killer ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£55.99 @ Amazon UK)
    Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£69.99 @ Aria PC)
    Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£42.99 @ Ebuyer)
    Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£66.60 @ Aria PC)
    Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.29 @ Aria PC)
    Total: £436.80

    Also, get another HD 7870, will provide you the power close to R9 290, while being much cheaper, the PSU mentioned can take two cards with ease. With the upgrade budget, you can get R9 280X at the best, which's not a great performance boost, and actually a bit weaker than CFX 7870's, while costing more.
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    October 10, 2014 5:17:33 AM

    Regarding the HDD. The reviews on say newegg are what I was talking about http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
    29% of people left 1/5, seemingly due to (sometimes multiple/repeated) failures. Also a lot of the 2/5 and 3/5 are similar complaints as well, so that is 50% of consumers complaining...

    Is PCIe3 x16 + PCIe x4 (or x2 apparently if I was to add a wireless card or such later) suitable for crossfire? I have never tried and have nothing to test with currently, but people seem to suggest 16/16, 16/8 or 8/8?
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    a b 4 Gaming
    October 10, 2014 5:36:35 AM

    Not every person who buys it rates it. Actually, its very common to find that only the ones who have some issue or want to address about a particular feature, review the products. And having a Seagate for 7 years w/o any issues, I'm assured of its quality, and I've not reviewed it too!

    Also, if you're after reviews, then consider this for $100 and no performance gain:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

    x16/x4 is not ideal for Crossfire, but the reality is, x16 or x4 is the bandwidth for data transfer for the card, and x16 for main GPU is obviously desired, as it handles video, however, the secondary GPU is not giving VRAM in CFX or SLI, only the graphic computing power, and going by that, x8 is actually the ideal one for slave GPU under CFX. x4 will be a bit low but the performance difference is not much, as AMD has improved their CFX config and performance alot lately.

    But, if you want the optimum performance, you'd need a SLI capable MoBo which runs at x8/x8, and a good choice for that is:

    Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£85.37 @ Amazon UK)

    x16/x8 or x16/x16 is not possible with LGA1150 chips, due to 16 PCIe lanes limitation.
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    a b 4 Gaming
    October 10, 2014 4:43:41 PM

    MeteorsRaining said:
    Not every person who buys it rates it. Actually, its very common to find that only the ones who have some issue or want to address about a particular feature, review the products. And having a Seagate for 7 years w/o any issues, I'm assured of its quality, and I've not reviewed it too!

    Also, if you're after reviews, then consider this for $100 and no performance gain:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

    x16/x4 is not ideal for Crossfire, but the reality is, x16 or x4 is the bandwidth for data transfer for the card, and x16 for main GPU is obviously desired, as it handles video, however, the secondary GPU is not giving VRAM in CFX or SLI, only the graphic computing power, and going by that, x8 is actually the ideal one for slave GPU under CFX. x4 will be a bit low but the performance difference is not much, as AMD has improved their CFX config and performance alot lately.

    But, if you want the optimum performance, you'd need a SLI capable MoBo which runs at x8/x8, and a good choice for that is:

    Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£85.37 @ Amazon UK)

    x16/x8 or x16/x16 is not possible with LGA1150 chips, due to 16 PCIe lanes limitation.


    +1; this may be quite expensive but it is one of the cheapest motherboards you can find.
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    October 14, 2014 4:54:46 PM

    Ive been offered a good deal on a i5-4690K (assuming I managed to consult the HMRC correctly and its just the 20% VAT...). However it seems to greatly complicate the motherboard side of things, since my attempt to understand the motherboard vendor sites seems to suggest even most Z97 boards need a BIOS update (e.g. ASRock appear to be saying P1.10), but then I see other resources saying any H97 or Z97 is fine?
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    a b 4 Gaming
    October 14, 2014 11:47:44 PM

    Any H97/Z97 is fine, Z87/H87 may need a BIOS update. You can get the Z87 MoBo I recommended, unless its a really old piece, it'd work w/o the need to update. It also supports x8/x8 CFX and OCing, so you're all good. You'd however need an af heatsink if you want to OC, like CM hyper EVO 212.
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    October 15, 2014 12:56:28 AM

    Well for the Z87 ASRock say P2.40 BIOS, should it be coming from Amazon with that? Or are you saying it possible to update it with the CPU in question somehow?
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    a b 4 Gaming
    October 15, 2014 2:36:13 AM

    If the MoBo was manufactured after April'14 (likely), then it'd come updated and you won't need to do anything. And no, you can't update the BIOS with a non-supported CPU, you'd need a CPU which the MoBo supports without update and apply the update.
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