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£400 first gaming pc

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Hi all

It's my birthday in april, and I've been promised up to £400 to spend on a computer. I want something to play the latest games with a minimum of 30 fps (the more eye candy, the better, but I'm not too worried). Anyways, here's the form from the sticky:

Approximate Purchase Date: march or april, probably

Budget Range: (e.g.: 300-400) £400, but I can up it to £450, maybe even £500 at a push

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, internet,

Are you buying a monitor: Yes. I'm not too worried about 1080p, as I realise a 720p will be cheaper and not require as much graphics "oomph".

Parts to Upgrade: Well, the entire thing

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: i'm not really worried, but preferably UK-based websites, like overclockers uk, amazon, ebay

Location: The UK

Parts Preferences: Whatever the best is I can get for the price

Overclocking: I'd like to, but I am worried about my electricity bills, and the longevity of my system

SLI or Crossfire: no, can't afford two graphics cards

Your Monitor Resolution: I don't have one, I'd like 720p or better

Additional Comments: I've seen some prebuilt bulldozer and i3 systems on ebay for around £300, with a CD drive, 4gb of RAM, 500gb hard drive, windows 7 and no graphics. Is it worth getting one of these, and popping in a graphics card (I can get a 6850/6870 for £70-80 on ebay) and just putting up with a worse processor until I can upgrade in the future.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My laptop at the moment absolutely sucks at gaming, and can barely run chrome and another intensive program (the LoL client, for example) together. I'd like something more fluid to use, with better gaming performance.

More about : 400 gaming

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Ok, I found this system for £315 (+£12 p&p); does this look worth it? I know the details aren't too specific, but I know it's not the h61 chipset as it's an ivy bridge cpu. I trust gigabyte as mobo manufacturers, as well. It's in a mini atx form factor with a 450W psu, which should be enough to run a graphics card, maximum 650ti/AMD 7850 kind of level. Also, the case dimensions are 450 x 190 x 360, and the guy reckons there's around 250mm of clearance for a graphics card (surely enough for a short nvidia card, right?).


INTEL CORE i3-3220 (IVYBRIDGE) 3.30Ghz
INTEGRATED HD GRAPHICS
8GB DDR3 RAM
1TB HARD DRIVE
DVD RW OPTICAL DRIVE
USB 3
8 CHANNEL HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO
HIGH QUALITY GIGABYTE MOTHERBOARD
WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/CI9T
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/CI9T/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/CI9T/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor (£86.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B75MA-E33 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£42.98 @ Novatech)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£32.36 @ Dabs)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.40 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7850 1GB Video Card (£126.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£34.74 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.40 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£65.99 @ Aria PC)
Other: Novatech Vulcan Midi Case (£18.98)
Total: £458.78

ok how's that as a build? Without gfx, worked out as pretty much the same price as that other deal, but with a mid atx case that will actually fit that 7850!
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ok, my budget prediction was bang on! A neighbour also donated some old computers to me, so I may be able to reuse a case (it's a choice between an old acer matx, or some brandless mid atx case) and a cd drive. Therefore, my part list now looks like this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RUty
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RUty/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RUty/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor (£89.94 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£55.24 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£45.54 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card (£81.99 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£35.92 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£68.39 @ Aria PC)
Total: £410.01
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-04-21 18:22 BST+0100)

I'm aiming for around £425, and this build was chosen with the intention of xfiring the 7770 down the line. Do you think I would be better off though getting a cheaper, single pci motherboard and getting a stronger GPU, like a 650ti boost or 7790? The monitor I will be starting with is a 1024 x 760, so all these cards are overkill, but I plan to upgrade to 720p-1080p by christmas. Also, I'm planning to do an mATX build; will I face temperature problems xfiring in an matx case?
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