£400 Budget Gaming PC

[Ranek]

Hey everyone,

I just wondered if anyone could provide me with some info on the type of parts to get for a budget gaming pc around the £400 mark. I play games like Guild Wars 2 and League of Legends which run quite poorly on my current PC. I don't care about running everything on high just want something that will last me for a few years, it doesn't need to play the latest games.

I want to build it from scratch because its cheaper and provides me with a bit of a challenge. I'm just not sure on how to pick the parts.

I've been looking at the AMD A10-5800k with 8GB or RAM and a SSD drive if I can get it within my budget, and its worth the extra cost.

But what do I need to look for when picking Motherboard, brand of RAM, PSU, Case etc??

Any help would be great, extra details below.

Chris

Approximate Purchase Date: Next 2 weeks.

Budget Range: £300 - £400

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, surfing the internet, watching movies

Are you buying a monitor: Not right now

Do you need to buy OS: Yes (I'll buy Windows 7)

Location: England

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: When I bought my other PC in 2008 it was already budget, now it feels outdated so looking to upgrade. Mainly use it to browse the web and play games like League of Legends and Guild Wars 2

Additional Comments: Looking at the AMD A10-5800k

 

[tiny voices]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A8-5600K 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor (£78.28 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75 Pro4 ATX FM2 Motherboard (£59.49 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£23.99 @ Novatech)
Storage: Toshiba 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£40.00 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 6670 1GB Video Card (£49.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£35.99 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.85 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.94 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £400.52
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-01 19:11 GMT+0000)

The GPU will crossfire with the CPU integrated GPU to equal just slightly worse than an hd 7770.

This will be a great build for you.

 

[Ranek]

I was thinking about going for a slightly more powerful CPU and more RAM then going for the Video Card for Crossfire in a few months when I can afford it.

Does this look respectable? Its slightly more than I wanted to spend but I possibly could cut costs but not getting the SSD and using the 500GB Hard disk from my current PC?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor (£89.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard (£60.07 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£39.99 @ Dabs)
Storage: Crucial V4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£65.00 @ Ebuyer)
Case: BitFenix Shinobi ATX Mid Tower Case (£49.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£35.99 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.85 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.94 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £423.73
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-01 20:10 GMT+0000)

 

[tiny voices]

It will work. You will be playing on lowest settings.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£73.30 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£35.99 @ Aria PC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£23.99 @ Novatech)
Storage: Toshiba 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.76 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7770 1GB Video Card (£94.86 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£35.99 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.85 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.94 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £418.67
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-01 20:15 GMT+0000)

This will blow it away. I say do this for sure.

 

[Ranek]

Thanks for the help, i'll have a look at them both in detail and try and weigh up my options!

 

[tiny voices]

The build I just posted will game MUCH better than the previous builds. It will also be the most upgradeable.