Budget General/Gaming System £400 - £450

[Lokd0wn]

I've been out the homebuilding game for about four years, but after a nice rebate from the taxman I've decided it's high time that I upgrade my ancient setup.

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Within the next month

BUDGET RANGE: £400 - £450 ($650 - $750 approx)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: surfing the internet, gaming, watching movies

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: None, this is a completely new build

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Any reputable U.K. based company. Stak Trading is the closest locally. No second hand or ebay.

PARTS PREFERENCES: <= 20" LCD Monitor

OVERCLOCKING: No

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: >= 1600x1200 preferably for games unless that's too demanding for my budget?

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Great if the OS cost can be included but is a secondary concern.

 

[fullmetall]

Thats going to be hard. Depending on what gaming your doing.

Monitor will take out $120+ or a little less.

so your left with a build that will prolly use a 4670 gpu / 770atx am3 board / dualcore cpu am3 / 400cx psu / a cheap case such as the antec 300.

Just some of the parts to look at for a good quality build.

 

[Lokd0wn]

Yes I know the monitor will take out a fair chunk but Ineed to get rid of this horrible 17" CRT I've been using for 4+ years.

As for gaming I know I won't be able to make a machine that can run Crysis on max specs just something that can run current games at medium/low specs and that has the capacity for upgrading.

 

[fullmetall]

well a 4670 is capable of doing that job.

 

[Lokd0wn]

I think I can knock together this with all relevant bits for approx £430.

AMD Athlon X3 8650 processor
4Gb DDR2 Memory
450W PSU
SATA 320Gb Hdd
PCI-E 512Mb Geforce 9600 GT
SATA DVD-RW
17" Flatsceen TFT

Onlt thing is an OS is going to run me about £70

 

[Lokd0wn]

Alternatively I could get rid of 2gb of Ram and the Geforce and just squeeze a 4770.

Will 2GB of RAM be sufficient and will my PSU be able to hack a 4770?

 

[Triturahuesos]

Phenom 8650 is a bad outdated procesor, keep away from it. Check for an Athlon II 250 or a Phenom II 550.

 

[fullmetall]

The AM3 x2 chips should be fine.

Regor x2 550 AM3 chip.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.254091
Heres a nice combo.


PSU, The 400cx Corsair is your best bet at this range of computer.

Would prefer you stick with the crossfire side since AMD boards have no sli "just yet" in stock.

4670 is good enough for what your wanting

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125277
Gigabyte
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102842
Sapphire.

 

[Lokd0wn]

Righto clubbed together this lot see what you guys think.

Processor - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Athlon-II-X2-250-Regor-Core-S-AM3-30GHz-1MB-Total-Cache-HT-2000MHz-65W-Retail

Motherboard - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-MA785GMT-UD2H-AMD-785G-AM3-DDR3-1066-1333-1800-SATA-3Gb-s-RAID-Micro-ATX-VGA

Case - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/INWIN-EM009-Black-Silver-Mini-Tower-Screwless-Case-Headphone-Mic-In-2x-USB-20-400W-PSU

Memory - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2GB-Corsair-DDR3-PC3-10600-(1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24

Hard Drive - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320GB-Seagate-ST3320418AS-Barracuda-720012-SATA-3Gb-s-7200rpm-16MB-Cache-11-ms

GPU - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-Gigabyte-HD-4670-PCI-E-20-(x16)-1600MHz-GDDR3-GPU-750MHz-320-Cores-D-Sub-DL-DVI-I-HDMI

Optical Drive - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/LG-GH22NS50-22x-DVDR-16xDVDDL-DVDplusRW-x8-RWx6-12xRAM-SATA-Black-OEM

Total Price including keyboard, mouse, OS and monitor = £473.64

A bit over budget but I can stretch to £500. I'm not at all sure about the Case/PSU and am I right in assuming that the motherboard has intregrated networking? With the remaining budget would some extra cooling go amiss?

 

[Lokd0wn]

Alternatively for a bit less I managed to get this lot from ebuyer.

Case - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135101

Processor - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166519

Motherboard - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/170230

Monitor - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128571

GPU - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169828

HDD - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124228

RAM - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159919

Optical Drive - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169683

OS - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/114048

Keyboard & Mouse - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160333

All for a shade under £500 with shipping. What do you guys think?

 

[Lokd0wn]

Edit:

For some stupid reason I had next day delivery selected. Putting it back to 5 wrking days means I can afford this monitor: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155601
by going £5 over budget which is well worth it I think.

 

[Lokd0wn]

A bit more jiggling about has led to this build.

Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 460W PSU

ASUS M4A77TD PRO 770 Socket AM3 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X2 545 3GHz Socket AM3 6MB Cache Retail Box Processor

Crucial 2GB DDR3 1333MHz/PC3-10600 Memory CL9 1.5 V Unbuffered Non-ECC

MSI HD 4670 1GB DDR3 DVI HDMI HDCP Out PCI-E Graphics Card

Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM Caviar Blue

LG GH22NS50 22x SATA DVD±RW Dual Layer & RAM Black Bare Drive - OEM

Viewsonic VA2213W 22" TFT Monitor 1920x1080 300cd/m2 16000:1 5ms VGA W/Mount Black

Microsoft Wired Desktop 600 Black - Wired USB Keyboard and USB Optical Mouse

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition-SP3/SP2- Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - CD - English



The only thing I'm a bit unsure on is the PSU. The reviews I've seen have rated it as adequate. I could alternatively get this case.

Coolermaster Elite 340 Black Micro ATX Tower Case - No PSU

And this PSU.

OCZ 400W StealthXStream PSU - 140mm Fan 1x PCI-E 4x SATA