Very cheap gaming PC (£250)

[burbly]

About four months ago, syrocc very kindly told me how to build a very cheap gaming PC...

AMD Athlon X2 260 3.2ghz, Dual Core - 52 £
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/processors/amdathlonx2andx4/amd/adx260ocgmbox.html
Asrock N68C-S UCC AM3 - 33 £
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Search/Components/Motherboards/?attribute_value_string%7cProcessor+Socket=PGA941+(Socket+AM3)
Geil 2x1GB DDR3 CL7 1600mhz RAM - 33 £
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/38039/Geil-memory-2GB-Ultra-DDR3-Kit-PC3-12800-1600MHz
Seagate 250GB hard disk drive SATA II 300 7200rpm 8MB cache - 29 £
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/41442/Seagate-250GB-hard-disk-drive-SATA-II-300-7200rpm
Sapphire Radeon HD 5550 1GB DDR3 PCI-E - 57 £
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/49254/Sapphire-Radeon-HD-5550-1GB-DDR3-LP-PCI-E-2-0-VGA
Antec Basiq 350W PSU - 29 £
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/16556/Antec-PSU-Basiq-350W-ATX12V-2-01-compliant
Random low budget case of your likeing - 20 £
Total: 253 £, including VAT
This is a low-budget gaming configuration, I tried to cut your costs as much as possible. It will outperform your old computer in every way, and judging on the resolutions you mentioned, it WILL play most games out there on 1024 or 1280 resolutions with medium or high details (games like Dragon Age: Origins and the like).
[...]

(http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/309039-15-upgrade-gaming#t2311267)

I'm now thinking of actually doing it. I'm a little nervous --- I'm comfortable tinkering around inside PCs, but this is the first time I've built one from scratch. So I thought I'd check a few things with you all first...

1. Do I need a separate fan? When I searched for cheap cases I found e.g. this, which didn't seem to have a fan inside...

http://www.dabs.com/products/best-value-1003bs-mid-tower-black-500w-psu-7BDQ.html

2. Will I need to buy some sort of paste in order to attach the heatsink to the CPU, or will it be included?

3. The CPU is no longer listed, and the HDD and power supply are out of stock. I've substituted these...

http://www.dabs.com/products/asrock-n68c-s-ucc-am2--amd-geforce-7025-ddr3-matx-748H.html
http://www.dabs.com/products/seagate-250gb-barracuda-sata-600-7200rpm-8mb-7C60.html?q=Seagate%20250GB
http://www.dabs.com/products/antec-psu-basiq-power-350w-atx-12v-5J17.html

I'd be very grateful if someone could tell me if that's correct --- especially for the hard disk, since the microdirect site lists it as SATA-II, but I can't find a SATA-II equivalent on any other website.

(Alternatively, I have an external Freecom 29492 500GB Drive --- it's about four years old, but it's hardly been used. Could I cannibalise it and take the actual HDD out from inside? Or is that more headache than it's worth?)

4. Is there anything I can do to future-proof the PC slightly? (Even if it means spending another £30-£50.) Would it be worth having the CPU and motherboard specs a little higher spec. than the rest, as these are the only things that can't be upgraded?

Thank you!
Mohan

 

[dokod]

That is a tight budget, but it can still be done.

1. In that kind of computer with the given components you have, I think buying 1 cheap fan and sticking it in would not hurt since they are so cheap.

2. That series of processors has a "Thermal Grease" already applied for you to just put the stock heatsink on

3. I'm not the good with hard drive info, but I am almost sure that sata-II is a speed/type of connector. I do think that those will go together, however you should just post another specific topic in the hard drive section.

4. I think that the motherboard is the most important part when planning for the future. If you get a nice motherboard that can take modern CPU's ,video cards and RAM, there will be plenty of room for you to grow into the case slowly making upgrades as necessary. With that motherboard you selected, it will not support socket am3. That is a socket which has a ton of great processors that will fit. I would suggest getting this motherboard,
http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-m4n68t-m-le-v2--nforce-7025-630a--am3--2ddr3--onboard-dsub--pci-ex16--raid--8-chhd-sound--matx-79DP.html?refs=48750000
so that there is room to expand.

 

[burbly]

Thank you!

I think buying 1 cheap fan and sticking it in would not hurt

I don't know anything about fans... would this be a sensible choice?

http://www.dabs.com/products/akasa-8cm-silent-blue-case-fan-4QV1.html

(I picked it partly because it's cheap but also because it's listed as being very quiet.)

Also, can I ask if there's anything I should particularly look out for in cases? If I just buy a very cheap one am I likely to get caught out in any way?

Thanks again,
Mohan

 

[dokod]

You will need to pick a cheap case, find out what fan spots and sizes it has so you can go an select the fan that will fit. I don't think there are any things to watch for when buying a case, just cooling (not important with the build you are working on) and looks!

Edit: The case you chose has a spot for that fan, so you can fit that fan on that case. In your case, the fan doesn't really matter as long as you have one. The one you chose is fine.

 

[burbly]

Thank you again!

 

[jmsellars1]

If you can up your budget by £40-50 you can get a MUCH better PC which will likely play 99% of games on ultra high settings (after a RAM upgrade when you can afford it)

Prices from www.aria.co.uk (A great site which i personally use)

AMD Phenom II x4 955 - £86.66
MSI GF615M-P331 - £32.99
1 x 2GB Corsair XMS3 1333Mhz - £19.19 (Get another when you can afford it)
XFX AMD Radeon HD5770 - £69.95
500GB Seagate Barracuda - £28.31
500W Cooler Master Elite PSU - £29.33
Coolermaster Elite 342 - £24

Total - £290.42

More expensive than your original build but much, much better.

P.S. I wouldn't bother salvaging that HDD because it's probably 5400 rpm.

 

[mosox]

Get at least an Athlon II X3 and at least a HD 5670.

 

[burbly]

Thanks for the further advice!

XFX AMD Radeon HD5770 - £69.95

Hmmm... going by the graphics card hierarchy chart, this looks a lot better than the GeForce 9600 GT in my main PC, which is a 2.8GHz Core2 Quad with 4GB RAM.

The PC I'm going to build is only for use when friends come round and we want to play some sort of multiplayer game. And we won't be playing anything very demanding -- I've been using a Pentium 4 with a GeForce 7 card and 1GB RAM, and it's only just starting to be unable to run things (which is why I want to build a new one). The secondary PC will also only have a small monitor -- 19 inch or so. Given all that, might it make sense to put the new card into my main PC, and pass the GeForce 9600 GT down to the one I'm building? If I do that, is anything I have to look out for, such as the change in the amount of cooling required?

 

[jmsellars1]

I'm pretty sure that apart from the HD 5770 taking 2 PCI slots that theyre both equally small and cool so there shouldn't be any problems. Also yeah that would be a good upgrade for your main system, it would make it way more balanced. The 9600GT are holding back that CPU and RAM massively, the 5770 is probably roughly 3x better.

 

[dokod]

You should get the 5670 or better, 5770 or something, and put it in your main computer and take the other card and put it in the secondary computer.

 

[burbly]

That's fantastic. Just to check... my motherboard is a ASUS P5E Deluxe. A quick search says it has the following slots

2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (both @ x16 mode) supports CrossFire Technology
3 x PCIe x1 ( the PCIEx1_1 (black) is compatible with audio slot)
2 x PCI

And the Aria website says the XFX Radeon HD 5770 requires

PCI Express 2.0 x16

so I shouldn't have any problems with space, as far as I can see? (Maybe I should just double check by opening up the PC... )

Edit: I'm a little confused as the two slots I will presumably be using are very far apart. You can see a picture here...

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5E_Deluxe/#specifications

My 9600GT is plugged into one of the blue slots, and there's quite some distance between that and the next blue slot. In particular, there are two other slots in the middle...

 

[dokod]

On my motherboard, I have a 2 slot gap too. I have two 2 6950's running with no problems.

 

[jmsellars1]

When i say it takes 2 slots i mean the card is just wider, it takes 2 slots of your back panel. Like most modern cards

 

[burbly]

D'oh. Thanks!

Edit: One more question, please. Before placing an order for the HD 5770, I was reading through the comments on

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/ATI/ATI+5770+Series/XFX+ATI+Radeon+HD+5770+1024MB+GDDR5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=38286

The respondents are recommending using at least a 500W power supply. I've just opened up my case and it seems to have a 430W power supply inside... it's certainly worked absolutely fine with my 9600GT, though. (That card was installed when I got the computer.) Am I likely to have any issues?

 

[mosox]

What PSU, Antec, Corsair?

 

[burbly]

Antec.

(Is there a way to actually measure power usage without extra hardware? I've tried Googling but I haven't found anything.)

Edit:

Just in case you need to know what's inside...

Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5E Deluxe Rev 1.xx running at 333 MHz
CPU: 2.85 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad Q9550
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS
Sound: Small card labelled 'SUPREMEFXII'. Google suggests this is actually integrated audio shunted onto a separate card to reduce noise.
DVD-RW drive. (Not used very often.)

 

[Motopsychojdn]

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/ build your system into this, it'll give you an idea of what your intended build needs, allow headroom of course

If your near Nottingham, I can save you money on a case (Or set up an ebay sale for you if easier)
one of these I built my Gf's rig in, http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=13&post=287494&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0
best pics on second page

+points for the 5770, we run several for WoW and they're great little cards
my Gf'rig uses http://www.scan.co.uk/products/600w-storm-storm-600w-black-edition-23db-120mm-silent-fan-black-atx12v-v20 and shes had no issues.
**Edit** if you get fans get 120mm, 80mm's are a fair bit noisier sooner) I usually get £2-£3 quid cheapie ones and they're still good since last January
but basically:
x3 chip
4Gb ram
5770
reasonable psu
Cant go wrong as a budget build mate,
Moto

 

[jmsellars1]

I'd say a 430W Antec PSU would be ok. The HD5770 is an efficient card and uses about the same power as the 9600GT.

 

[burbly]

Everything looks good -- thank you both! (Motopsychojdn: thank you for the offer, but I'm nowhere near Nottingham.)

Regarding the cooler... the one jmsellars1 originally pointed me at costs £30 for 500W, but the one Motopsychojdn links to is £20 for 600W. I don't really understand what's going on... is there any disadvantage to the cheaper one?

 

[mosox]

Your Antec should be fine for a HD 5770.

 

[burbly]

Sorry, the PSU will be for the new PC, which will inherit the 9600GT. The Antec is in the old PC, and I don't plan to change it. I'd like to buy all the bits at once so I pay less in shipping, hence I'm trying to pin down exactly what I should get for the new build.

[Don't know why I wrote 'cooler'... I was looking at the '500W Cooler Master Elite PSU' and had my brain switched off, I guess.]

 

[burbly]

do not go lower than a 5670 for your gpu

I'm planning to buy almost exactly what jmsellars recommended above:

AMD Phenom II x4 955 - £86.66
MSI GF615M-P331 - £32.99
1 x 2GB Corsair XMS3 1333Mhz - £19.19 (Get another when you can afford it)
XFX AMD Radeon HD5770 - £69.95
500GB Seagate Barracuda - £28.31
500W Cooler Master Elite PSU - £29.33
Coolermaster Elite 342 - £24

But the 5770 will go into my main PC, and the 9600GT sitting in there will go into the low-spec PC I'm building.

The only thing I considering changing was the PSU, and then mainly because Motopsychojdn pointed me at an alternative... but I wasn't sure in what way it might be worse than the (more expensive, lower power) Cooler Master Elite...

 

[jmsellars1]

With the PSU, the cheaper one is more powerful because it is a lesser known brand which a lot of the time means that it will be made from lesser quality parts and also probably wont even produce the power it states. I'm sure everyone will back me up here in saying that you shouldnt go cheap on your PSU because cheap ones can kill other more expensive components in your computer if they go wrong and overvolt or something. Also, 500W is enough for that build anyway.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

I'm one who advocates the good points of branded psu's over cheaper options Jm,
but I strongly vouch for that storm unit knowing whats its gone through in my other halfs pc
She has a x3 435 unlocked to four cores, no clocking done on it and regularly plays WoW/sims/Hiemdall for extended periods, weekends are often 12+ hours sessions
and this units never faltered,
Caution understood on your part I'm just shouting up an underdog that deserves the credit in this case
Moto

 

[jmsellars1]

Yeah i'm sure it's worth considering but personally i would stick to Corsair/XFX/Antec/Seasonic/Cooler Master/OCZ etc. It's up to you to decide then Burbly.