£500 Budget Build

MacHooper

Distinguished
Feb 15, 2012
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18,690
Approximate Purchase Date: A Few Weeks

Budget Range: £500

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming and other basic tasks

Are you buying a monitor: No (In the Future Though)

Parts to Upgrade: New System

Do you need to buy OS: No I have a copy of Windows 7 Professional

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: www.aria.co.uk, www.novatech.co.uk, www.overclockers.co.uk

Location: United Kingdom

Parts Preferences: Not Many Preferences

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe in the Future

Your Monitor Resolution: I have a 1280x720

Additional Comments: None

So I want to be able to run all modern games at medium+ settings and I am not sure whether it would be better to start with an i3 and upgrade to an i5/i7 later or go straight for an i5 or i7 or maybe even an AMD FX series.

I have included to PC Part picker things below one of an i3 build (within the budget) and an AMD FX Quad Core Build (withing the budget) if you think I should go straight for an i5/i7 let me know and I will save up around £1000 to build that one suggestions for the i5 or i7 build are welcome :)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-4100 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor (£71.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G46 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£57.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: GeIL Enhance CORSA 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.23 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital RE3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£44.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card
Wireless Network Adapter: TRENDnet TEW-648UB 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter (£10.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman Z11 ATX Mid Tower Case (£44.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 600W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£54.98 @ Novatech)
Total: £314.09
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-14 21:11 GMT+0000)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-2120 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor (£80.39 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G41 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£62.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: Corsair XMS 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£31.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital RE3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£44.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card (£186.53 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TRENDnet TEW-649UB 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter (£13.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman Z11 ATX Mid Tower Case (£44.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£48.47 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £513.69
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-14 21:11 GMT+0000)
 

drunkducki

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Oct 3, 2009
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18,810
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£136.79 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock B75M-GL Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£47.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: GeIL Enhance CORSA 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.23 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card (£184.59 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-N15 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£13.50 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Silverstone SST-RL01B-USB 3.0 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£35.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£33.95 @ Aria PC)
Total: £518.20
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-14 21:33 GMT+0000)
 

cball1311

Honorable
Dec 15, 2012
1,622
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£98.39 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£51.78 @ Aria PC)
Memory: A-Data XPG Gaming Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital RE3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£44.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card (£165.54 @ Aria PC)
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-N10 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£14.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£47.99 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.20 @ Aria PC)
Total: £502.21
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-14 21:28 GMT+0000)
 

cball1311

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Dec 15, 2012
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That just means that he will be able to play anything on Ultra settings with max AA and all of the eyecandy. Who's laughing now. :kaola:
 

cutebeans

Distinguished
How can you have eyecandy when your monitor is crap and small.

No offense to anyone. It's just funny to see a i5 with 7870 on a monitor that small.

Best get a new monitor with your build as well and connect the second monitor as an extra one for youtube, facebook and gamefaqs cheating walkthroughs :)
 

cball1311

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Dec 15, 2012
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That's very true. So, personally, I would get the build and then save up for a better monitor. No need to down the build to throw in a monitor that is only going to hinder performance of the build.