£600/$1000 gaming system, very tight budget. Please help?

pistachionutslol

Honorable
Aug 11, 2012
17
0
10,510
I am looking to finally upgrade my notebook after 5 years or so. Ideally, I would like to purchase a PC that will last a long time and be able to play the latest games, like bf3/arma2, etcetc. My maximum spend limit is £600 as I'm looking to buy a monitor too on top of it. Could anyone please recommend an ideal build for this price? And if possible, can anyone suggest any good value monitors? Thanks.


Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: ASAP
Budget Range: 600 pounds/1000 dollars

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, video playback, photo editing

Are you buying a monitor: Yes, but this is on top of the cost in the title.



Parts to Upgrade: All

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Open to recommendations.

Location: City, State/Region, Country - Kent, England, UK

Parts Preferences: Intel CPU, but I don't mind that much going for AMD

Overclocking: Probably not.

SLI or Crossfire: In the future.

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: Anything that can run today's games well (BF3, D3, Skyrim, etc)

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: 5 year old Compaq Presario C700 needed an upgrade long ago!
 

metal orient

Distinguished
Mar 17, 2011
706
0
18,990
Dabs.com

Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) Ballistix Sport DDR3 1600MHz CL9 1.5v 240pin £26.98
Sony 24x DVD-RW SATA Black Bare Internal Drive £11.98
Corsair 500 Watt CX500 V2 Builder Series 80 Plus Power Supply £43.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English £72.99
Samsung S22B150N 21.5W VGA 200CD/M2 5MS GLOSSBL Widescreen £85.94
XFX AMD Radeon 7850 HD 860MHz PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI £143.98
Delivery (8.5kg) £0.99
Total (inc VAT) £385.86

1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive #48501
ARIANET StealthX Black Midi Tower Gaming Case #47034
GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3V Intel B75 Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard #51972
Intel Core i5-3450 3.10GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail #49752
Total £270.19

Final Price £651.05

Can't get it down much lower without performance taking a fair hit, tbh as screens and windows are expensive parts. Could cut the GPU down or the CPU, CPU being the better choice. The next step down for each is:

GPU: AMD HD6870 1GB
CPU: Intel i3 3220

with a smaller PSU (Corsair CX430) you 'll be able to get it about £600 with the i3.