New Setup: Is This Worth The Money

DannyTee

Honorable
Mar 19, 2013
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0
10,510
I'm looking to upgrade my current PC, which is a basic, bogstandard, no frills PC, but now I'm looking for a decent PC for a bit of gaming, nothing to drastic, as I was raised a console gamer so the big titles will be on them, but I fancy a few on PC like BF3, GTA (some mods look cool so want to try out).

So the one I've seen is £650, but I'm a bit of a dimwit with no technical knowledge, so is this build here worth the money, or is it an overpriced machine. Ideally I'd like to spend around £500 - £650 so this is pretty much top of my budget.

- Power Supply: Corsair CX 430w PSU
- CPU: AMD FX-8 8320 Piledriver 3.50GHz Eight Core CPU
- Motherboard: Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard
- Cooler: Stock AMD CPU Cooler
- RAM: TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) 1600MHz C11 DDR3 Dual Channel Kit
- Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache HDD
- Graphics Card: AMD HD Radeon 7850 1GB GDDR5
- Sound: Onboard 7.1 Audio
- Optical Drive: OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter - Black
- Network: Asus USB-N10 WiFi 150Mbps Pen

I would love to build one, but when I've looked at it, my mind can't quite comprehend all the jargon of every part, and wether they'd go together. And then I always seem to go overboard when building them with parts online, the overall cost is twice the budget =[

Sorry about the walls of text.
 

marshallbradley

Honorable
Sep 24, 2012
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11,060
Hi there,

Is this pre-built then or have you chosen these parts yourself? If you've chosen it all yourself, where are you buying the parts from and what are the individual prices? If it's pre-built where are you buying it from? It seems a tad overpriced perhaps for the build (you could probably do this build for about £100 less or so).

At that price range I'd rather go for an Intel Quad-core than an FX-8k I think, and perhaps a slightly beefier graphics card (the 7870 XT for example).

If you're afraid of putting your own build together as far as compatibility is concerned we can suggest builds for you that would work and likely perform better than this in the given price range.

M
 

bodeen2012

Distinguished
Feb 5, 2013
631
0
19,160
pretty much everyone on her is gonna recommend building it yourself . you are gonna have full control over what goes into your computer. It's really not that hard to build one either as long as you know how to use a screwdriver, know how to read a manual , and know how to plug things in . i just built my own a few months ago and i thought it was gonna be hard but in the end the hardest part was getting my linux distro working right . here are some suggestions for you one intel one amd

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

CPU: Intel Core i5-3350P 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.49 @ Dabs)
Motherboard: Asus P8H77-V ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£84.02 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card (£153.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Xigmatek ASGARD PRO (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£34.96 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£48.17 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.49 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.19 @ Aria PC)
Total: £623.29
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-20 00:13 GMT+0000)

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

CPU: AMD FX-8150 3.6GHz 8-Core Processor (£139.96 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£64.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card (£153.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Xigmatek ASGARD PRO (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£34.96 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£48.17 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.49 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.19 @ Aria PC)
Total: £629.72
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-20 00:16 GMT+0000)
 

marshallbradley

Honorable
Sep 24, 2012
746
0
11,060
As you can see by bodeen2012's second build, it really is not as overpriced as I had esimated (that build is practically the same as the pre-built one). Having said that for £650 you can do a lot better, due to the insane performance of the 7870 XT (only about 2% slower than the 7950).

Here would be my £650 Intel build, which I'd imagine to be in the region of 20-30% faster than the pre-built option (better CPU and graphics -- this is based on bodeen's build so props to him):

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel Core i5-3350P 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.49 @ Dabs) -- Same as above, really good choice for the money.
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£68.00 @ Amazon UK) -- Cheaper than the Asus one.
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£32.99 @ Amazon UK) -- Same as above
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.99 @ Ebuyer) -- Same as above
Storage: Mushkin Chronos 60GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£68.10 @ Amazon UK) -- Small, but quite zippy. It should be able to fit the OS, and 3-4 large games (making their loading times much faster).
Video Card: Club 3D Radeon HD 7870 XT 2GB Video Card (£171.62 @ Amazon UK) -- Very strong card for the price, beats the 660 Ti, and bites at the heels of the 7950.
Case: Xigmatek ASGARD PRO (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£34.96 @ Dabs) -- Same as above
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£48.17 @ Aria PC) -- Same as above
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.49 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £625.81

Note: I have decided not to include an OS as it's really up to you whether you want Windows 7 or 8, or even something else. Windows 8 is around £50 now, so that would push you £25 over budget. If you want to remain under-budget, remove the SSD.

You won't have any problems with compatibility, and it feels more like you own computer, but of course if you feel you don't have the time to spend building your own, the pre-built one will serve you well.

M