(Very) Budget CPU MOBO Bundle

[darwinw]

Hi everyone, I'm looking to build myself a budget gaming PC, I already have a PSU and Graphics Card (Nvidia gtx260)

So I'm looking to spend around £100-150 for a CPU, motherboard and at least 4GB ram.

It's quite a big ask as I know it's a small budget.
I've spend many hours trawling to find the best processor I can for the money but it gets very confusing, so I thought I'd ask some informed people.

Currently one of the best options I see is;

AMD Phenom II X4 965 (BE)

I've also considered the;

Intel I3 2120

These are just what I've found, please feel free to suggest anything better.

The games I'm planning on playing are BF3, Skyrim and minecraft/tekkit among others.
I know the GTX260 is going to be a bit of bottleneck but I may update this when I get some more cash.
(Any insight into which motherboard to buy would also be greatly appreciated)

Thanks a lot for any help!

Darwin.

 

[ihsaan96]

Hi mate , not to be rude but like what's wrong with you?! hahaha if you're getting a GTX 260 don't spend around £150 for the CPU , Mobo & RAM mate. Not worth it you'll see in the future when you need an upgrade. Best to get decent parts now and keep them future proof. Spend atleast £300 for your cpu & motherboard & ram. I spent £50 just on my ram and that was 8GB.

Hope it helps

 

[Alfred_i]

the most important thing that you should know about the game is that they don't use all capacity of your cpu .
simply we can say power per cores is more important than the amount of cores .
also we should know the minimum amount of cores for playing a game and it's two .
if you consider these notes you understand that you should compare the power of intel core with amd core .
I can say intel core about 30-40% is faster than amd core . and if we only consider gaming you should go for intel . and here is a link from toms article for best cpu for gaming tables to prove it .
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

 

[darwinw]

Hi mate , not to be rude but like what's wrong with you?! hahaha if you're getting a GTX 260 don't spend around £150 for the CPU , Mobo & RAM mate. Not worth it you'll see in the future when you need an upgrade. Best to get decent parts now and keep them future proof. Spend atleast £300 for your cpu & motherboard & ram. I spent £50 just on my ram and that was 8GB.

Hope it helps

Hi, thanks for the input but £150 is all I have (and that's a max), From your reply I'm not sure which you think I'd be bottlenecking; the CPU or the GPU, I already own the gtx260 and just want the best CPU I can get.
I know it is a tight budget and I'm not expecting a high end machine, anything is better than my current single core 4HT.

 

[j2j663]

Here check these out:
mobo - $65
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130655
CPU - $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116775
RAM - $20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253

Obviously these are not top of the line parts, but they are all solid and will server their purpose very well. The i3 will not bottleneck games even when you save enough to upgrade your GPU. The mobo has a x16 slot for said graphics card, it has a sata3 slot for an ssd and USB3. Plus you will be using the 1155 slot which is begging for an upgrade to the 2700 someday. The ram is solid and ram is super cheap right now. If you look around I wouldn't doubt that you could find 2x4g for about $30 on sale somewhere.

The other thing you have going for you is holiday sales. If you are patient and wait for some xmas or after xmas sales you may even be able to stretch up to an i5 processor.

I have to say that I disagree with ihsaan. Your PC doesn't have to be top of the line in every part. This machine will get you from A to B and let you play quite a few games in between.

 

[darwinw]

Here check these out:
mobo - $65
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130655
CPU - $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116775
RAM - $20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253

Obviously these are not top of the line parts, but they are all solid and will server their purpose very well. The i3 will not bottleneck games even when you save enough to upgrade your GPU. The mobo has a x16 slot for said graphics card, it has a sata3 slot for an ssd and USB3. Plus you will be using the 1155 slot which is begging for an upgrade to the 2700 someday. The ram is solid and ram is super cheap right now. If you look around I wouldn't doubt that you could find 2x4g for about $30 on sale somewhere.

The other thing you have going for you is holiday sales. If you are patient and wait for some xmas or after xmas sales you may even be able to stretch up to an i5 processor.

I have to say that I disagree with ihsaan. Your PC doesn't have to be top of the line in every part. This machine will get you from A to B and let you play quite a few games in between.

Thank a lot for your reply! That really is very helpful I'm not actually planning on buying parts until after Christmas so I'll keep an eye out for deals. Would it be wrong to assume that any i5 I found would be a better buy? - As always I'll look at benchmarks of course.

Cheers.

Darwin.

 

[j2j663]

In general an i5 will get you 2 extra cores which is always helpful, and not only in games.

 

[darwinw]

Hi, I think I may need a new PSU as my current one is only 230V. Using an online calculator estimates 357V although that is a very rough estimate.

Any advice on one I should buy, I'm thinking as cheap as possible without a fire hazard

 

[j2j663]

Try this, they just used it in the SBM. Its solid and has plenty of power for your rig.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371045&Tpk=Antec%20VP-450%20450%20W

 

[darwinw]

Thanks for the help, though it seems with UK prices (newegg doesn't ship to the UK right?) the total is around 190... :/

How comparable would this set up be do you think? http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/motherboardbundles/mbb-8704a.html

I will keep looking for cheaper prices as well as scrimping and saving, I wouldn't want your advice and work to go to waste j2j663

Thanks.

Darwin.

 

[darwinw]

Alternate to that bundle, Should I consider downgrading the CPU from what you suggested, or any other component?

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been moved from the section CPU & Components to section Systems by Mousemonkey