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Acceptable setup ??

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  • Call of Duty
Last response: in General UK & Ireland Discussions
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December 3, 2012 10:23:33 AM

Have recently posted about my lack of knowledge and my tight financial predicament. Having smashed my head numerous times against a brick wall I came up with the following 1st time build :??: 
Please , please can somebody tell me if a.) its compatible, b.)its any good ? and finally will my son be able to play fps on-line (COD,bf3) ?
I have very little knowledge, but am keen to learn, however my wallet does not show the same desire to expand !! I am on a tight budjet £350(ish) so here goes..............

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-phenom-ii-x4-965-bla...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-ddr3-xms3-pc3-10600-(1333)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-150v

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-m5a78l-m-lx-v2-amd-...(x16)-graphics-on-board-mat

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w-corsair-builder-ser...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cooler-master-elite-335u...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-seagate-st9500325a...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/samsung-sh-s222ab-bebe-s...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-msi-radeon-hd-7750-o...

Total £366.49 delivered (SCAN)

Please be honest, can i improve without more spending ? or am i just way off the mark :pfff: 

More about : acceptable setup

December 3, 2012 11:00:09 AM

It's actually not bad for a start.

However, I would make these changes

Hard Drive
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-seagate-st500dm002...

Graphics Card
I would've opted for a slightly more powerful card like the Radeon HD 7770 or Geforce GTX650Ti but yours should be powerful enough to run games at lower detail settings and slightly lowered resolutions (I think 1366x768 should be low enough).

Don't forget you'll need an operationg system, keyboard, mouse and monitor.
December 3, 2012 11:16:20 AM

Hi Thanks, the HHD change is fine, we are talking pennies so would accept your recommendation. As for keyboard, mouse, monitor etc i will have to use my older ones for the time being, I just need to get up and running and then can upgrade (hopefully) at a later date. Do you have any prices or links to the graphics cards you mention ? and what OS would you recommend ??

Many thanx
Related resources
December 3, 2012 11:44:47 AM

Radeon HD 7770
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-gigabyte-radeon-hd-7...

Geforce GTX650Ti
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-point-of-view-gtx-65...(x16)-5400mhz-gddr5-gpu-928mhz-cores-768-d-sub-mhdmi-dvi-p


Operating System
You're planning for 8GB of memory, this needs a 64-bit operating system. You're options start with Windows 7 Home Premium Retail or OEM and Windows 8.
http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/softwa...

Personally, I cannot recommend Windows 8, I tried it, didn't like it and chose to stick with Windows 7. I found the metro interface, which replaced the Start Menu, more hassle than it was worth.
Note:- The OEM version is cheaper but has the caveat that it is licenced to your computer and cannot be transferred, if the motherboard needs replaced you would need to buy another copy of Windows.
December 3, 2012 12:05:58 PM

Ok Thanks.

Hoping to order end of this week. The OS was something i never considered but is obviously essential. Might take your advice and get the Radeon HD 7770 its not to much more anyway. I really want to know if he plays say, MW3 online what sort of level of gaming will he achieve with this setup and the GPU suggested & and will this setup allow him to upgrade in the future ?

Thanks again for responding.
December 3, 2012 12:29:22 PM

It's a pretty good build, but if good gaming performance is your main objective, you can do much better.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Pentium G860 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor (£49.86 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: MSI H61M-P31 (G3) Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£33.13 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£26.39 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.68 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7850 1GB Video Card (£126.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Xigmatek ASGARD PRO (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£32.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.98 @ Novatech)
Total: £375.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-03 14:21 GMT+0000)

This PC has a CPU that is a lot faster in single threaded applications and a lot slower in heavily threaded ones.Overall in gaming it's about as good as the Phenom but costs less and uses a lot less energy.
It's motherboard is nothing special really, but for that price you can't expect more than a decent, low end well built motherboard.
It uses a very good RAM kit, which you might want to reuse in your next PC.
Its hard drive is much faster than the one you listed and also has twice the capacity.
Its case is again, nothing special but it's well build and its cheap so thats certainly a plus.
It's power supply is a lot better than the Corsair CX500 V2.It's higher quality and has the potential to deliver about 35% more power to your main components.
And finally its graphics card is more than twice as fast as the HD 7750 you listed.
December 3, 2012 3:04:18 PM

Thanks, this is why forums are important, inside knowledge. Not sure what you mean by 'single' or 'heavily ' threaded applications. Like i said he wants to play online fps, but obviously he would be doing a bit of surfing online (like teenage boys do!) and will do some homework running office as well, but mainly gaming. Thanks for idea Kamen_BG and will have a look at that setup now. :) 



December 4, 2012 3:05:16 AM

Threads are essentially resources of the CPU that any programs can use to power themselves (sorta). Most applications only use one thread, while some more specialist software (video editing, number crunch type programs) can take advantage of several.

For gaming and basic usage, you only need to worry about single threaded performance. Few games can utilize more than 2 threads anyway, even then the first and second thread are still more important than the others.
!