Building new gaming PC

[Devilfish]

Hi guys,

I want to build a new PC for my dad. He's into Call of Duty 4, Battlefield 19'canteen, etc. and his PC just about copes.

It's an AMD 2600+ Athlon with 1GB RAM.

He want to play Crisis and I said I'd buy the stuff to make him one.

What would you guys suggest? This would be my first time building my own PC so completely new terratory for me.

Budget of about £200-£250.

Cheggers!

 

[digicol]

He could just about do it for £250 mate but not £200.

Intel E2160 Socket 775 Pentium Dual Core 2x1.8Ghz 800FSB Retail Boxed Processor
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127248 £44.33

MSI P6NGM-FD GeForce 7100 Socket 775 Onboard VGA 8 channel mATX Motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140209 £38.94

Hitachi 160GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124291 £28.83

Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5(5-5-5-12) Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/98710 £32.00

Optiarc AD-7200S 20X DVD±RW/DL/RAM Internal SATA Bare Black Drive
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139414 £16.00

Casecom 6630 Black Midi Tower Case With Front Panel USB2.0/Audio - No PSU
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119589 £10.99

ATI HD 3850 Pro 256MB GDDR3 Dual DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139597 £86.94

The above comes to £258.03

Now one problem is I have not added a PSU because eBuyer no longer sell my secret weapon!!! It was the SilverPower 350W PSU which were high end PSU's at a fantastic price!! I think they were just £19.99 which would be a little over your £250 budget but this setup would be perfefct for your dad.

All high quality componensts, that motherboard although it is only a 630i chipset does let you overclock and you should be able to push that processor up pretty high if needed. The ram is high quality stuff, the hard drive has 8mb cache and the graphics card is a bargain at less than £90!!

Now we just need to find a decent PSU, if you can find a SilverPower PSU a 350W will do you fine. But don;t by just any cheap crap mate, for £20 only SilverPower will do!!

An alternative for ram will be this:
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=
£24.08 + P&P
This for me is better ram than the Corsair and this version also has better timings. It is also cheaper but it means buying from another company and adding postage on top. But it should still cost less than £30 and would be my personal choice.

Also found this PSU on overclockers:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-020-GI&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
Gigabyte SUPERB 460w PSU £28.19

I have done some research and it seems that this PSU is in fact a rebadged FSP which are one of the best in the business. Here is a detailed look at the FSP model.
http://www.fsp-group.com.tw/english/1_product/2_detail.asp?mainid=1&fid=52&proid=301

So all in all that looks like a good PSU for less much less than £30.

Also have a look at the 3800 series of graphics cards on Overclockers while you are there. They do seem to have some great deals on, especially some 512,b versions for less than £100 which are better than the 256,b versions. (I know that sounds logic but in some cases 512mb is worse than 256mb).

And they ar throwing in free games.

 

[Devilfish]

Wow...thanks digicol for going to that extent.

It's much appreciated.

I have a mate who's right into his gaming and he advises I go for a 8800gt 512MB which is £150 at play.com. I know this is the dogs nutts of graphics cards but does bump the price up.

He also suggested an athlon 6000x2 am2 cpu from scan.com around £100 and an am2 motherboard to match for £40 or £45.

What would be better, AMD or Intel?

 

[bash213001]

Wow...thanks digicol for going to that expent.

It's much appreciated.

I have a mate who's right into his gaming and he advises I go for a 8800gt 512MB which is £150 at play.com. I know this is the dogs nutts of graphics cards but does bump the price up.

He also suggested an athlon 6000x2 am2 cpu from scan.com around £100 and an am2 motherboard to match for £40 or £45.

What would be better, AMD or Intel?

the 6000 amd series run warm so remember to up the fan m8,got the 6400 black with a silent knight on top no probs case space might be a issue tho

 

[digicol]

Forget the 6000+ mate. If your spending £100 on a CPU then spend the extra 15 quid or so and get the Intel 8200 which will absolutely cripple any AMD ever released. It is Intels latest offering with a massive 6mb of cache and runs at an amaing 1333mhz bus.

And yes the 8800Gt is the card to go for, buit at a cost. If your on a budget get the 3700, it is about equal(ish) to the 8800Gt for a good £30 cheaper and if you buy it from Overclockers you get free games thrown in.

Any card between the 3700 and the 512mb 8800Gt is the one to go for, neither card is the wrong choice.

Here are some charts for you to look at, the first one is the graphics cards, look at the top you will the 8800GT and the 3870, both are closely matched but the 8800Gt is the overclocked version which costs mroe.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html

Here is the CPU charts. Look at where the Core 2 Duo e8200 is and where AMD's efforts are placed. Bang for buck this is your best purchase, oh and these things overclock to 4ghz+ is you want to making them untouchable by almost anything else.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=946&model2=882&chart=422

 

[Devilfish]

Thanks again digicol.

So what's the difference between 'Core 2 Duo' and 'Dual Core'???

 

[digicol]

Depends on which dual core your referring to mate.

Older Pentium D series of processors were Intels first attempt at dual core and were not really a true dual core, more of a patched up job. They ran hot and were nothing compared to their newer next level Core 2 Duo processors.

AMD's X2 series is their name for their dual core processors. While better than the old Pentium D series of processors they are not quite as good as Intel's Core 2 series, mainly because Intel's run cooler and overclock like crazy.

You will from time to time see the lower Intel series (e2 series) called Pentium Dual Core, these are basically a Core 2 Duo processor with smaller cache levels and lower clock speeds than brnaded Core 2 Duo processors, but in reality they are based on the Core 2 architecture, again making them able to overclock to extreme speeds with little effort.

Also on laptops you may notice the AMD Turion X2, this is basically the laptop name for the AMD Athlon X2. You may also notice the actual term "Dual Core" on some of Intels laptops, these are basically the first Dual Core processors that were released by Intel specifically for laptops, these are NOT based on the fantastic Core 2 Duo atchitecture so are not to be confused with them.

 

[Devilfish]

I'm beginning to understand it more now.

Was getting confused with all the different names and terms.

But thanks m8, you've been a great help.

Just need to find a happy medium now.