Need help choosing please

[fubsy08]

Hi all,

I have abit of a dilemma and was wondering if any of you more knowledgeable people could help me out, basicly my son wants a newish gaming pc for xmas now i'm abit of a gamer myself but i build my own pcs and for my son this isn't an option as he lives with his mother miles away so my only practical option is to buy him one pre built.

I have around £550 - £580 for just the base unit he already has the monitor etc. I have found a couple on ebay and a few on amazon but really not sure which route to take with either amd or intel I would of liked to have gotten a cheap 2500k with 4-8gb of ram and a 560ti or something thats not to bad but I have found on ebay 2 systems 1 is an intel based system an i5 3450 with a 7850 gfx card and the other is a amd fx 8120 with a nvidia 660gtx

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120986307470?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120986307470?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Ive also found these.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140826985498?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120962155744?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649


Not really sure which one to go for I have read reviews and i know the 660gtx is marginaly better than the 7850 and that the 660ti would be even better but I can upgrade that later on but 3540 or 8120?

If i had unlimited moneys I would of obviously gotten one with much better branded parts etc and just gone for a intel K model and a ti gfx card or similar.

If anyone could help me with my decision that would be great or if you know anywhere else I might be able to buy a similar or better system let me know .

Thanks
Fubsy

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

First of all understand that about 80% of the performance on a gaming system is going to come from the video card.

Once you have a good video card you can move on to processor. Right now very few games can use more then 4 threads for this reason there isn't a lot of value in using a processor with more core or hyper-threading on it. So the last system listed comes with the HD 7850 and the Intel® Core™ i5-3570K. Which means that you have a solid video card and one of the best gaming processors on the market right now. So you will have the ability to get better performance by overclock or updating components in the future and still have a very nice system right now.

 

[fubsy08]

Hi Intelenthusiast,

Thanks for the reply I would prefer to go the intel route but as you said urself most games use the gfx card more than the cpu although obviously a slow cpu would be a bottle neck, thats why i was unsure if i should get the 660gtx setup as the 660 is slightly better than the 7850 but like you say if i get the intel setup I could always upgrade the gpu later.

Thanks again
Fubsy

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

While the HD 7850 is rated below the GTX 660 it is still a good card that is more then capible of running todays games well. On my system out home I have a GTX 560 and I am running on high setting on a number of games.

With that system I would start on adding 4GB of additional RAM and then a small SSD to speed up the boot and access times with the Intel® SRT (Smart Responce Technology) on the board. Both of these items can make a difference in overall system without having to drop 200+ on a video card.