1st Build Gaming System £400 Budget

Attention: Suggestions Closed parts have been ordered and post updated just incase this can help anybody else.

Hello ill keep try and keep this short and sweet, I'm looking for some opinions and a heads up if i got anything wrong.

I'm looking to build a cost effective (aka cheap) gaming system to meet my particular needs for abour 3 years i think my buget is a little low but ill be building the same system twice.

Approximate Purchase Date: 22nd december 2011

Budget Range: £350 - £450 / Final Cost: £470

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, HD movies and Image Editing (Photoshop CS4)

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS, HDD

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon or Scan

Country: England

Parts Preferences: AMD

Overclocking: No (But considering it with a Bulldozer CPU)

SLI or Crossfire: Not in initial build but would like to add at a later date

Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050 & 1920x1080

Additional Comments: The key areas i would like recommendations is my power supply and graphics card choice

Notes: this is a section ive added after to give some tips for any fellow noobs that happen to come by this thread.

1. no matter what mobo you get or where you order it from always check the maufacturers site for the list of compatable parts (Memory/CPU/GPU)

2. use http://www.hwcompare.com/category/gpu/ for a quick comparison on GPU abiltiy to see if the incease in performance matches the increase in price

3. Amazon and Scan where the best sites i found amazon almost always came up cheaper however scan had loads more information on the products
as well as SCAN PARTS INSURANCE which covers your parts against installation damage so if you F*** up and fry something while trying to build
your computer they will just replace the part which is pretty awsome for the £6 price tag it carries

4. and finally set your price range lower that what you may have to spend as you will probably go over

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Parts In Final Build

Motherboard:
ASRock 970 Extreme3 AM3+ £77 (AMD FX Supported)Amazon

CPU:
AMD Bulldozer FX4100 AM3+ £92 Scan

CPU Cooler:
Cooler Master GeminII Ultra Slim CPU Cooler AM3/AM3+ £30 Amazon

Memory:
Kingston HyperX Genesis Memory 8GB:2x4GB 240-pin DDR3 1600 MHz 1.65V £35 Amazon

Hard Drive:
I will be using my current hard drives

Video Card:
XFX Radeon HD 6850 £115 Amazon

Power Supply:
Corsair GS700 700w PSU £70 Amazon

Case:
CiT Mars ATX Red Gaming Case £32 E-bay

Disc Drive:
Samsung DVD-RW £16 Amazon

EDIT: 11/12/11
Added new parts being considered and prices.
Dropped Nvidia Gpu (AMD own Radeon & Radeon offer more cost effective GPUs)
Dropped Foxconn Mobo (They haven't kept up to date with latest AMD CPUs but have kept up to date with Intel)
Replaced RAM with Corsair XMS3 8GB (only a £10 increase from 4GB)
Replaced Case (found a better one)

EDIT: 21/12/11
Final parts decision
Another new case
Budget increase to £450

EDIT: 28/12/11
Final Update to reflect parts ordered and prices including delivery

The best gaming cards in that price range are going to be ATI

Ref:
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 085-2.html

There are many good Nvidia cards, but not in your budget.

6670
http://www.ebuyer.com/290511-xfx-h [...] -667x-zhf2

6770
http://www.ebuyer.com/266983-asus- [...] c-2di-1gd5

Even a GTS 450, a much stronger card than the one you listed, can't compete in this price range.

May I suggest Scan? It's easier to sort through cards there
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb [...] -mini-hdmi

does the Amazon CX600 include tax? If not perhaps this is a better deal for you
CX500
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500 [...] an-atx-v23
That's all the PSU you need.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd [...] 95w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gig [...] -(x16)-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb [...] -9-24-150v

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/xcl [...] -and-fan-c

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550 [...] v-queit-fa

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb [...] l-dvi-i-mi

Best you will get for under 400 quid mate

All gigabyte boards need bios update to run FX CPU. So you need an AM3 processor first to get the board to work.
This board has FX enabled in all bios versions according to the website. I have the mobo but not the CPU yet so can't verify that.
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products [...] reme3.html

This fits into your £400 budget and includes a better GPU than has been listed so far.

CPU: i3-2100
Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M
CPU Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper-212
GPU: AMD 6850
RAM: 2x2GB Corsair
PSU: 530W Be Quiet!
Case: Silverstone PS03B Precision
DVD: Samsung DVD-RW drive

Total cost from Scan is £398.77 (you'll need to remove the Scan installation insurance to keep it below the £400 mark). It also includes delivery. Here's the link to the build:

https://secure.scan.co.uk/aspnet/Sh [...] 5b3fff3a51

Reason I picked the i3-2100 is that it's a recent chip which has excellent performance in a budget gaming build. The AMD Phenom series is long in the tooth, and the AMD Bulldozer is a flop...it's best to go as new as you can for the best price you can, and the i3-2100 is it for your budget IMHO. The motherboard sacrifices the possibility of Crossfire later down the road, but is enough for a single-card build...again, on a budget, things like Crossfire shouldn't be primary concerns. The CPU heatsink is excellent for the price and will be more than enough for the i3-2100...I'd even question the need for it, as the stock cooler should be enough as you're not overclocking. Could save yourself £20 there and upgrade later if you really felt the need. The GPU is a previous gen card which is still highly regarded, and has more grunt than the other cards listed so far. RAM, PSU and case are all budget but good quality (note that you should never, ever skimp on the PSU).

To answer your questions:

Yes, a PCIe 2.0 card will work in a 2.1 slot. PCIe 3.0 is the newest iteration of the interface and is only just coming out. No GPU yet supports it.
Exercise common sense when looking for parts. You'll get different manufacturers who do different things to the base design, hence the variation in price. More expensive GPUs tend to be overclocked or have custom cooling on them. There are various sites (Dabs, Ebuyer, Scan) that you can cross-check prices against to get a feel for what any component goes for, on average.

Whatever build you go for, enjoy and have fun!

Good stuff

Very hard to say on the case. Generally if a case has space for the 120mm back fan plus a bit more it's enough for most air coolers.

What did you go with in the end?

All I'm waiting for is FX4100 and OS. Amazon vs CCL. You'll win