£300 budget build.

[thegodlikeone]

Hi,

Well I'm on a tight budget of £300, and wondering if I could have some help choosing some components. I do not need a monitor, keboard ect just the system. It will be used mainly for gaming, photoshop and school work, but I don't mind playing some games on mid settings. I will not be OC'ing.

Thanks

 

[jys84]

You are pretty S.O.L. if you want to game on that budget, especially if you don't want to OC.

@ approximately $415 conversion rate:
$200 for a decent processor with no OC
$70 for a mobo
$60 for 2 gb of ram
$60 for a Power Supply
-----------------------------------------
$390 and that is without a video card, case, dvd-drive

A low end video card will run you about $150. $30 case, and $30 media drive and you are looking at ~$600. If you want to OC look up the article posted about $500 gaming rig...

This is not to mention that everything has European taxes on it, so parts are more expensive to begin with in Europe.

From my experience, it is better to buy a high-mid range build for $1000 - $1500 and OC it, this will get then last you a while. If you have to upgrade every other year or every year, you end up losing more (spending more money with leftover parts).

 

[Onus]

I get a conversion to $598. I think you can have a reasonable AMD-based gaming build for that price, given the OP's willingness to accept mid settings.

 

[Onus]

Here's a build. These example prices come from a US site; you can find comparables on whatever UK site you intend to use. The glaring weakness in this build is the video card, but you can always upgrade it in 3-6 months, perhaps after the next generation comes out and some prices drop:

COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: RC-330-KKN1-GP
Item #: N82E16811119115

$39.99 $39.99

BIOSTAR TF560 A2+ AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 560 MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: TF560 A2+
Item #: N82E16813138081

$79.99 $79.99

EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Model #: 256-P2-N615-TX
Item #: N82E16814130062

$89.99 $89.99

FSP Group (Fortron Source) AX500-PN ATX2.2 500W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: AX500-PN
Item #: N82E16817104037

$69.99 -$10.00 Instant $59.99

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 2.1GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADO4000DDBOX - Retail
Model #: ADO4000DDBOX
Item #: N82E16819103774

$66.99 $66.99

A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model ADQVE1A16K - Retail
Model #: ADQVE1A16K
Item #: N82E16820211066

$68.99 $68.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3320620AS
Item #: N82E16822148140

$79.99 $79.99

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model LH-20A1L-06 - Retail
Model #: LH-20A1L-06
Item #: N82E16827106072

$37.99 $37.99

Subtotal: $523.92 : but some of these items have rebates, although you'll have to contend with whatever your extortion and shipping costs are.

 

[zenmaster]

See This Thread and Article.
The part selection in the article is not great, but the discussion should help you find some nice cheap parts.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245161-31-gaming-machine-2007-edition

Note: At least in the US, I could likely buy a better cheaper system through a local retail outlet such as Best Buy/Circuit City. I would just need to add a cheap GPU.

Not sure if the retails in England off good deals on inexpensive systems.
You cant really go much lower than what is talked about in this thread when building yourself.

 

[badders]

Right,
Got one for you, very similar to the Gaming (alright, Sims 2) rig I built my mother in law a couple months back. That came in under budget, but I didn't need a Case, DVD Writer or Hard Drive.
Prices are a little better now, so my suggested build is thus:

All from Ebuyer UK (http://www.ebuyer.co.uk)
1 x AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Socket AM2 (2.2GHz) L2 1MB (2x512KB) Retail Boxed Processor 118226 £46.73
1 x Asustek M2V AM2 VIAK8T890 Sound, Gigalan And USB 2.0 2000MHz FSB SATA ATX 112169 £39.33
1 x ASUS X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 DVI HDCP HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card 131876 £81.95
1 x Arctic Power 500W PSU With PCI E, SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors Retail Boxed 124922 £24.99
1 x OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC with LIFETIME WARRANTY 116755 £59.99
1 x Western Digital WD1600JS Caviar SE 160GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 8MB Cache - OEM 94406 £31.54
1 x Samsung SH-S183 SATA 18x DVD±RW/RAM Black - Bare Drive OEM 127260 £17.62
1 x Casecom 6630 Black Midi Tower Case With Front Panel USB2.0 Audio No PSU 119589 £11.99

Total Price: £302.15 (Plus Delivery)

The 5 or 6 digit numbers are the "Quickfind" Numbers for those parts, pop them into the search box on ebuyer and the part will come up.


I included 2Gb of OCZ 800MHz RAM, as it's a little more future proof than the Corsair 2Gb 667MHz Kit I looked at (Quickfind 98708: £49.99)
The Power supply could be better, but it's double the price I paid for my mother in law's (Quickfind 126928: £15.31) and that runs this system fine.
The Motherboard is a nice AM2 Part. Nice and stable, runs the 4200+ Like a dream.
My Mother in Law's system has a 7600GT, but for an Extra Tenner, you can have a nice X1950Pro 256Mb. This will handle most games at 1280x1024 with fair to high settings.
BioShock (for instance) runs really nice on my mother in law's system at max settings, so should run fine on this.

Hope you like.

 

[burn-e86]

this article should help since its pretty up to date, its around the right budget and does both an intel and an AMD build