Good Rig For £650?

[DubScar87]

Trying to get a decent system for gaming and occasional music production, with an absolute maximum budget of £650. With that in mind, is this about the best I can expect, with a fairly generic gaming case and coolers? Not intending on over-clocking for now, but might crack the GPU slightly as newer releases become more demanding.

i5-3450 3.10GHz Quad-Core Processor
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 Memory
HD7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E Graphics Card
2TB (7200rpm) SATA 6GB/s Hard Drive
500W Cooler Master Elite Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit

 

[jmsellars1]

All looks pretty good, I'd look at 1600Mhz memory though. Doesn't make a massive difference but there's not much price difference either. Other than that I'd just consider a better PSU like the Antec EA-380D or Corsair CX-430.

 

[malbluff]

Something like this would be ok, with much better PSU.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3450 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£142.97 @ Dabs)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£62.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£31.39 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£66.66 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card (£149.74 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 430 ATX Mid Tower Case (£34.99 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£35.99 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS90 DVD/CD Writer (£13.98 @ Novatech)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) (£70.36 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £609.07
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

I wouldn't rush to get Windows 8. Wait for the bugs to get ironed out first (and to see if it's any good)

 

[DubScar87]

Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely look into different options for the PSU. Read a lot of reviews on the net and apparently it makes no difference in gaming (with regards to the RAM), although I do agree with your point about there being little difference in price.

Main reason for the specs listed is that I found this on Aria, which is available for next-day delivery, to save myself some time and effort, I'm thinking it's a good basis:

https://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Home+and+Office/Next+Day+Systems/Gladiator+Intel+i5-3450+Ivy+Bridge+Quad-Core+Next+Day+Desktop+PC+?productId=51516

All I'd need to do then, would be to swap out the PSU and install the GPU. Know I could probably put it together myself for £30/40 less, but thinking I might take the lazy route.

The only thing's I'd change if building it from scratch would be 1600MHz ram (as you mentioned), an i5-3570 processor and maybe a slightly nicer case.

 

[DubScar87]

Cheers for the response too Malbluff. That looks like a good system, but would the postage costs take me over budget do you think? On the fence about windows 8 as well to be honest. I'm perfectly happy with windows 7 really, but for the same price I thought "new rig, new OS".

 

[jmsellars1]

That build above looks good but a mATX board in an ATX tower is a bit weird. You might as well swap the case for the Fractal Design Core 1000 or similar if you get a mATX board.

Personally I'd stick with Windows 7. Windows 8 seems to have been designed with things like tablets in mind, I get the impression it won't be ideal for a gaming PC.

 

[DubScar87]

Yea, the mobo and case choice is a bit on the odd side I'll admit. Thinking I'll leave it be until after Christmas on the case-front though. And agreed again, windows 8 was definitely designed for tablets, with a poor standard interface for typical PC users. Was thinking there might be something with regards to the processes that plays into the hand of the newer CPUs, but honestly haven't a clue.

 

[malbluff]

Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely look into different options for the PSU. Read a lot of reviews on the net and apparently it makes no difference in gaming (with regards to the RAM), although I do agree with your point about there being little difference in price.

Main reason for the specs listed is that I found this on Aria, which is available for next-day delivery, to save myself some time and effort, I'm thinking it's a good basis:

https://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Home+and+Office/Next+Day+Systems/Gladiator+Intel+i5-3450+Ivy+Bridge+Quad-Core+Next+Day+Desktop+PC+?productId=51516

All I'd need to do then, would be to swap out the PSU and install the GPU. Know I could probably put it together myself for £30/40 less, but thinking I might take the lazy route.

The only thing's I'd change if building it from scratch would be 1600MHz ram (as you mentioned), an i5-3570 processor and maybe a slightly nicer case.

Take my advice, and don't touch that build, with the proverbial "ten foot barge-pole". One "headline" component - i5-3450-, virtually nothing else specified, so chances are - rubbish case- c**p power supply, generic RAM, generic HDD. About the only thing your are guaranteed to salvage, for a decent build, is CPU. Of course it MAY not be too bad, but wouldn't bet my house on it. You simply cannot do a build YOURSELF, using i5-3450, and you're not charging, for labour, or profit, for that money, without using rubbish.
By the way, there's nothing wrong with using mATX mobo, in ATX case. Just because a case is ATX, you don't have to use ATX mobo. The only REAL benefit of ATX mobos, these days, is if you want to add 2nd GPU, you've got better spacing.

 

[malbluff]

Cheers for the response too Malbluff. That looks like a good system, but would the postage costs take me over budget do you think? On the fence about windows 8 as well to be honest. I'm perfectly happy with windows 7 really, but for the same price I thought "new rig, new OS".

Those prices include delivery.

 

[DubScar87]

Didn't see the bit that said "including delivery" *facepalm*

Just tinkering around with a few different build ideas still, including a mini-itx one.
For £617 (including delivery), I've managed to come up with this, although not 100% sure it's all compatible, within this case:

CoolerMaster Elite 120 Advancded Black Mini-ITX Gaming Case
MSO B75IA-E33 Intel B75 Socket 1155 Mini-ITX Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3470 3.20GHz Processor
Artic Cooling Freezer 13 CO Quiet CPU Cooler
8GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 1600MHz DDR3 Ram
Arianet Radeon HD7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E Graphics Card
1TB Seagate Barracude 3.5" SATA III Drive (7200rpm, 64mb cache)
Sony 24x DVD Writer (Sata)
500W OCZ CoreXStream 80PLUS Power Supply
Windows 7 SP1 64-bit

Loving the look of the case, and considering I was going to go for an Alienware X51 (before reading poor reviews, and seeing full specs) due to the size, this looks like it could be the best thing for me. Any necessary improvements I could make there for a maximum for £30 though? Or would I be better off sticking to a regular towers, with spec more along the lines suggested by you kind folk?

 

[DubScar87]

https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/rjqBMnpaV4Rx5KpNHmNHrA,,

^^ quick link to the parts I've listed above

 

[malbluff]

Nothing really wrong with minis, as long as you appreciate the limitations, particularly in terms of expansion/upgrades, and tend to cost more (for same performance) than their mid tower equivalent.
I've not seen any decent reviews on either mobo, or case, so can only assume OK.
I would recommend changing PSU, but you need to do some checking, on what will fit. Something like Antec HCG 520 would be better than that OCZ, assuming it fits.

 

[dsuttk]

Just to note that the '80PLUS' OCZ PSU mentioned isn't actually 80+ Certified, its just OCZ saying that they tested it as having up to 80% efficiency. I just bought the Corsair 600W Builder Series on ebuyer instead of that OCZ. You could also look at the Be Quiet 530W which is 80+ Cert