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First time build gaming pc £500-£750 budget (roughly)

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APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: next couple of months
BUDGET RANGE: I don't have a set budget but I don't want to have to sell my organs so say around £500-£750 although if its really needed i may be able to up the price

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming (command and conquer series, modern warfare 2, guild wars, oblivion etc) , net surfing, possible video editing.

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: recycling keyboard, mouse, speakers and monitor. going for on board sound.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: cheapest place for uk orders

PARTS PREFERENCES: i was considering i7-860 cpu but open to suggestions(considering my price range)

OVERCLOCKING: maybe SLI OR CROSSFIRE: no clue

MONITOR RESOLUTION: unsure but will be on a 17" for now

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: hoping to get windows 7 64bit. I want a computer that I won't need to worry about upgrading any time soon, ie, can run recent games on top whack so that when it starts getting out dated i can reduce the settings for the games. sadly my internet connection is through the other side of the house so i will need wireless internet as well.
i want to be able to have it cool enough without the case vibrating through to the neighbors house.

I know its a pain but if poss can you give me a full list of what i will need? if not just the main components and i'll troll sites to find out the little bits :) 

I also know this is very vague but i really dont know where to start
I have no experience with selecting parts or putting them together(although putting them together i will be fine with lol) so any help given will be loved and put to good use
thanks

More about : time build gaming 500 750 budget roughly

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If you wer buying now, this is what you could do.

CPU: Intel i5 750 £169

Mobo: Asus P7H55-M Pro £87

RAM: Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz i5 Memory Kit CL9 1.5V £90

GPU: HIS HD 5770 1GB £123
It doesn't sound like your resolution is very high in which case this is fine, altho if you up your res by a large amount, then it's possible this might become a bit weak. Ideally in a gaming build you should try and get a 5850.

PSU: OCZ Z 650W 80Plus Silver £67

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB £40
One of the fastest 500GB drives around.

Case: Antec Three Hundred £42

OS: Windows 7 64bit Home Premium £78

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S223 22X DVD±RW/RAM/DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive - OEM £15

Wireless: D-Link AirPlus Xtreme-G DWL-G520 108Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter £35
I don't know anything about wireless stuff, so hopefully this is fine.

Total: £745

Try and buy everything at the same time, as it will save on delivery costs. It's possible that when you are ready to buy, something else will be out that means going AMD will be better and cost a similiar amount, or this lot will have come down in price.

thanks, i would up the graphics to the other you recommended since then i wouldnt need to worry about it if i upgraded the monitor.
would a 650w psu be ok if i was to stick more hdd in? i use a lot of storage space and although i will have an external or two i would like a few in the base itself if poss.
by the end of this week i should have around £600 put aside for it so i think if it was that price i would be able to get it in the next month or so. i can also get windows 7 through a college program for only £35, need to double check its the right one but i believe there is a few to choose from.
what site is it you were getting the prices from?

thanks again
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lol even for me 10 would be overkill.
i'm assuming that upgrading the graphics to the 5850 wouldnt need a better psu? not sure how much they sap power.
are you able to link to the graphics for me, since just typing in 5850 makes me confused with the results, could just be the 3 hours sleep i've had but never the less if you could do that i would be very grateful

TianRunty said:
lol even for me 10 would be overkill.
i'm assuming that upgrading the graphics to the 5850 wouldnt need a better psu? not sure how much they sap power.
are you able to link to the graphics for me, since just typing in 5850 makes me confused with the results, could just be the 3 hours sleep i've had but never the less if you could do that i would be very grateful
I've been recommending that OCZ one as any other PSU that is around the same price, is either less powerful or less quality, it is in fact fine for powering two 5850s.
And if you're going to buy from ebuyer, then this is the card: PowerColor HD 5850 PCS £229
Another site that sometimes has really good discounts on parts is overclockers.co.uk.

TianRunty said:
tyvm again for all your help.
anyone else got anything to add?
not trying to rain on your parade silvune just like to get multiple oppinions considering the money involved :) 
Just because you dissed me I am going to throw a spanner in the works. :wink: Just kidding. Anyway, for a gaming rig you could go AMD:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 £125 The MBOX version (look at the manufacturer number) is the C3 revision, which means that it should overclock better. Have you made a decision about overclocking? If you are then it might be a good idea to get an aftermarket CPU cooler, altho the stock will be fine for a small overclock.
Asus M4A79XTD Evo £89 Has a good second PCI-E slot so instead of replacing your video card you could add another one.
Or
Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 £119 Also has native SATA 6Gbps and USB3 (Asus do a cheaper version that doesn't have USB3) nice future proofing there IMO. You could also go for one of the ones around £70 if you don't want either of these two features.
The i5-750 will only really be worth the extra price in terms of video editing, altho being a fast quad core the Phenom will be strong as well. One of the advantages that people cite for going AM3 is that there are going to be hexacores released for this platform so it would be a possible upgrade path.

see now that was just mean! lol

I was considering the phenom to begin with since i've always had amd stuff but i changed my mind for whatever reason before i found out about the hexacores plan. although if amd do it intel will eventually as well but thats not to say the motherboards wouldnt be different.
overclocking is again something i've had no experience with but i would like it to be a possibilty should i decide to go for it, or once the system starts struggling with newer stuffs.
i like the idea of being able to add a second graphics card in the future, both when required and when funds allow.
atm usb 3 wont have much of an impact on me considering what i'll be using the ports for so i'm not too bothered if they price is hiked up solely for that reason.

video editing is something that i do rarely but have managed fine on a pants setup before so i'm sure i would cope with the phenoms performance.

if the i5 750 isnt any better for gaming then i'm wondering whether to go for the phenom and that will ease up a little cash for the gpu upgrade to the 5850.

is it poss to upgrade to an aftermarket cpu cooler in the future should i decide to overclock?

Some people seem pretty convinced that 1156 won't have hexacores, I don't know what they base that on, and it seems likely to me that Intel would continue to develop for that platform as it is still really young.

Seems like you will have to go to another online retailer to get that Asus board without USB3, which should be at least £10 less expensive, alternatively you could go for a 890GX board from MSI, Gigabyte etc.

You will probably have to look at benchmarks to see if the performance difference between the two is significant (difference between playable framerates and not) in games that you are interested in playing.

Yea, but usually you would have to remove the motherboard from the case, especially if the case doesn't have a mobo hole in it. The hole is more necessary for Intel CPU heatsinks. You can always look at it as a perfect opportunity to have a thorough spring clean.

another thought about changing to the phenom, will i need to consider different ram than that you already suggested or will that still be good to run?
my brain is frying as we speak lol

No, SATA 6Gbps is not very useful now, however I think the point is that in a year's time when SSDs are possibly going to be more mainstream and will utilise the bandwidth you would have the option of getting one.
You would not have to adjust the HDD choice as SATA is backwards compatible, in that you can use SATA 3Gbps cables in SATA 6Gbps ports, of course then you get the SATA 3Gbps speed, seeing as that's all HDDs need then it's not a problem.

No you will not have to change RAM, both 1156 and AM3 are dual channel. Intel has a limitation on voltage (1.65V or below) which I'm not aware of strictly applying to AMD systems, but that's it and it's always good to have voltage as low as possible.
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