new system advice(this ones not for me lol)

[bro]

my brother is after a new pc for my nephew who will mainly use it as a gaming pc,his budget is £450

been looking on a few other forums and seen these that was posted for somebody asking the same question

I'm looking at building a gaming machine for BF3 and SWTOR.
Qty Product Description QuickFind Cost (ex VAT) Line Cost
1 x Coolermaster Elite 330 Case With Coolermaster eXtreme Power 500W PSU 220863 £46.39 £46.39
1 x Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 251596 £133.14 £133.14
1 x Asrock P67 PRO Socket 1155 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard 267321 £59.59 £59.59
1 x Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Module CL9(9-9-9-24) 1.5V Unbuffered Non-ECC 235776 £16.90 £16.90
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 146252 £27.50 £27.50
1 x Sapphire HD 6770 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 266530 £75.00 £75.00
1 x LiteOn iHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black with Nero Essentials 176026 £10.82 £10.82

Order Total £443.22

1x #279585: XFX HD 6870 900MHz 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI Dual DisplayPort HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card - £139.00
1x #259268: Biostar TA870U3+ AMD 870 Socket AM3 6 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard - £58.70
1x #234975: Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Blu Memory Kit CL9 1.65V Non-ECC Unbuff... - £23.00
1x #251743: LiteOn IHAS122-18 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black - £13.98
1x #272944: Seagate 500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Barracuda Hard Drive 7200RPM 16MB Cache - £32.36
1x #220863: Coolermaster Elite 330 Case With Coolermaster eXtreme Power 500W PSU - £55.67
1x #242111: AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition 125 Watt Socket AM3 3.5GHz 6MB L3 Cache Retai... - £115.82
Total: £438.53
Click here to export your own cart to the forums!

Well thats the AMD option. Obviously a slower CPU but a much better GFX card so gaming performance will be better. Its also worth noting that an X6 1055T can be had for the same money but I think for gaming the faster quad core is better than the slower hex-core.



your thoughts on this,,,,i used to know my pc stuff when buying but that was years ago lol,thanks for your input

 

[little_pob]

From those two I'd go for the AMD system, but swap in 1.5v DDR3 such as: Corsair Vengeance 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600Mhz Memory Kit CL9 | Ebuyer.com

Your brother can save around £20 by getting an HD 5850 and hacking it to a 5870. This frees up some budget for a 900 series motherboard such as the Asus M5A97 PRO 970 AM3 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard | Ebuyer.com

Hard drive prices have shot through the roof since that was written. On ebuyer that F3 500GB is now £95, and you don't want to see the price of the 500GB Seagate!

Up until just last week Amazon still had 500GB hard drives for around £55-60, checking just now they are out of stock and the MarketPlace prices are reflecting the rest of the internet retailers. One of the cheapest ways to get a hard drive at the moment is to buy an external drive and rip the hard drive out of it, for example: Western Digital Elements 1TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive - Black: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories.

However, this grey market won't last forever and you don't know what drive you're getting in the external to begin with (i.e. highly likely to be a 5400RPM drive).

 

[bro]

thanks for the info little pob,,,have you found a cheap hd 5850,the cheapest i can see is about £150 which is dearer than the hd 6870,just wondering how it saved £20 lol,,,or is it that you recommend the better graphics card

 

[Exos]

Also if you can stretch to it, don't use the stock cooler on the CPU, it's not a huge deal but in my experience they are not very good.

 

[little_pob]

thanks for the info little pob,,,have you found a cheap hd 5850,the cheapest i can see is about £150 which is dearer than the hd 6870,just wondering how it saved £20 lol,,,or is it that you recommend the better graphics card

It should have read "HD 6850 and hacking it to a 6870". Sorry for the confusion :blushing:

There is a £120 HD 6850 here: XFX HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E.. | Ebuyer.com

The reason for the price difference between the HD 5850 and the HD 6850 looks to be that many of the 5000 series out perform the same model in the 6000 series (e.g. 5850 vs 6850), and that they also appear to be discontinued.

 

[bro]

was left scratching my head after a few beers lol,thanks for the info little_pob and Exos,,,mucho gracias