Page 1 of 1

Thoughts on this gaming pc? £500 budget

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:30 pm
by GaMe II Ov3r
Hey
I have an absolute maximum budget of £500 to build a gaming PC. The main games I will be playin are Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2. How well will the following build handle these games? I already have a monitor and keyboard etc. The price of the OS has to be included in the budget.

Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz LGA1155 3MB
http://www.dabs.com/products/intel [...] -79Q4.html
£90.99


Corsair 500 Watt CX500 V2 Builder Series 80 Plus Power Supply
http://www.dabs.com/products/corsa [...] -7K9H.html
£43.99


Sony 24x DVD-RW SATA Black Bare Internal Drive
http://www.dabs.com/products/sony- [...] -7QC0.html
£11.98


Coolermaster Elite 430 Black
http://www.dabs.com/products/coole [...] -7B18.html
£34.99


XFX ATI Radeon 7770 HD 1GHz 1GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI Core
http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-a [...] -7YH2.html
£89.98


G.Skill 8GB (2 x 4GB) ARES DDR3 1333MHz DIMM 240-pin CL9 Orange
http://www.dabs.com/products/g-ski [...] -810P.html
£37.99


Seagate 500GB Barracuda SpinPoint SATA 3Gb/s 7200RPM 16MB 3.5"
http://www.dabs.com/products/seaga [...] -80HZ.html
£52.99


Gigabyte B75M-D3V S1155 Intel B75 DDR3 mATX
http://www.dabs.com/products/gigab [...] -8013.html
£54.99


Delivery (11.9kg) £3.20
Total (inc VAT) £417.90


OS £55.00
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft- [...] -2-catcorr

Re: Thoughts on this gaming pc? £500 budget

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:50 pm
by superjawes
Welcome to TR!

First off...none of your links work for me. Can you link what you are looking at with the full URL and and some BBCode?

Secondly, check out the latest System Guide if you have not already. Yes, all prices are in USD and from Newegg, but if you can approximate your budget in USD, you can read the article and figure out what combinations give you the best bang for your buck. That's really what the System Guides are about. :)

Oh, and according to Google, £500 is about $785. Unless your paying a lot more (relatively) for components, your budget should fall around the Econobox's price point, which should certainly handle D3 and GW2, and you might have a little extra headroom for improved components (or to line your pocket).

Re: Thoughts on this gaming pc? £500 budget

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 5:51 am
by Jon1984
You should also consider to buy a previous generation HD 6850, although its more power hungry than the one you selected, you'll get a bit more processing power.

Also, maybe a less powerful CPU to add a SSD for your OS, you will notice the difference in load times and snappiness. (Intel G620 and an Agility 3 60Gb for example) Be sure to select a motherboard with sata III ports to enjoy full speed of you SSD.

All if you can stick these components into your budget of couse :wink:

Re: Thoughts on this gaming pc? £500 budget

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 7:52 am
by Mentawl
Looks like an OK build to me for the price. I'd consider going for a bigger HDD though, for the sake of a few £ more - modern games take up a lot of space, and the price difference between a 500gb and a 1tb HDD is under a tenner. The case only comes with a single intake fan too, I'd consider adding a 120mm exhaust to it - can get them from just £4, for example http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-cooling-arctic-f12-120mm-case-fan-73WV.html?refs=4294946807-4294963789&src=3 would probably do the job.

Re: Thoughts on this gaming pc? £500 budget

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:27 am
by DPete27
Looks like a decent build to me. The 6850 does have a bit more muscle for roughly the same price, but like Jon1984 stated it does use 20% more power in the process. (just giving you some hard references)

I would also recommend either a G620 or G840 and an SSD. The G840 would be preferable if you can stretch your budget for it since it has a higher clock and supports 1333 MHz RAM instead of 1066 for the G620. The gaming performance of these compared to a 2120 will be more-or-less the same, but an SSD will make a world of difference in everyday usage. Let's face it, most people don't use their "gaming rig" JUST for gaming. I would recommend the 64GB Samsung 830 for an SSD. Keep in mind that the 128GB Samsung 830 only costs 50% more while giving you twice as much space and a bump in performance as well. Just something to think about.

PS: Theres a Kingston 8GB 1600MHz kit on sale right now for slightly less than that Ares kit you listed.

Re: Thoughts on this gaming pc? £500 budget

Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:21 am
by JustAnEngineer
Those look like good choices to me. You could drop down to the Intel Pentium G860 or G850 if you had to.

Will this build work? How well will it run guild wars 2?

Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:02 pm
by GaMe II Ov3r
Here is the system I was going to build I also need to get a keayboard which I have included. Overall it comes to around £494 ( inc delivery). I am already at the top of my budget so I cant afford anything more expensive but feel free to save me some money (without sacraficing performance). I will be playing guild wars 2 on a 24" 1080p monitor so I need this build to be able to make the game look good on that display.

Mobo: ASRock 970 EXTREME4 AM3+ AMD 970 DDR3 ATX £69.99
http://www.dabs.com/products/asrock-970-extreme4-am3--amd-970-ddr3-atx-7RCB.html

PSU: OCZ Technology 500W CoreXStream Series Power Supply 31.99
http://www.dabs.com/products/ocz-technology-500w-corexstream-series-power-supply-8174.html

Disk Drive: Sony 24x DVD-RW SATA Black Bare Internal Drive £11.98
http://www.dabs.com/products/sony-24x-dvd-rw-sata-black-bare-internal-drive-7QC0.html

Wireless Card:TP LINK 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter £11.98
http://www.dabs.com/products/tp-link-300mbps-wireless-n-pci-adapter-86TH.html

Keyboard: SteelSeries Shift Keyset (MMO) £19.99
http://www.dabs.com/products/steelseries-shift-keyset--mmo--7TNL.html

Ram: Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) Vengeance Blue DDR3 1600MHz DIMM 240-pin CL9 LP £39.99
http://www.dabs.com/products/corsair-8gb--2x4gb--vengeance-blue-ddr3-1600mhz-dimm-240-pin-cl9-lp-7KHN.html

GPU:Sapphire Technology ATI Radeon HD 6850 HD 1GB PCI-Express HDMI Vapor-X £124.99
http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphire-technology-ati-radeon-hd-6850-hd-1gb-pci-express-hdmi-vapor-x-84XC.html

Case: Zalman Z11 Plus High Performance Mid Tower Case £46.99
http://www.dabs.com/products/zalman-z11-plus-high-performance-mid-tower-case-82RX.html

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHz Black Edition AM3 Socket L2/L3 8MB £84.99
http://www.dabs.com/products/amd-phenom-ii-x4-965-3-4ghz-black-edition-am3-socket-l2-l3-8mb-6B0X.html

Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB Barracuda SATA-600 7200RPM 16MB 3.5" Hard Drive £47.98
http://www.dabs.com/products/seagate-500gb-barracuda-sata-600-7200rpm-16mb-3-5--hard-drive-7M3C.html

Thanks

Re: Will this build work? How well will it run guild wars 2?

Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:15 pm
by rogue426
Welcome to TR. I would suggest looking over the TR Summer Guide here, http://techreport.com/articles.x/23204
I would look to an Intel build over AMD at this point.Will you need a Windows 7 License to go along with the build? If so, you can get a OEM license for anywhere from $100-140 USD.

Re: Will this build work? How well will it run guild wars 2?

Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 2:27 pm
by EsotericLord
Even as an AMD fanboy, I have to admit Intel builds are the way to go for now. Also, building an AM3 computer when AM3+ is out is probably not the bestest idea.

However, if you are commite to this, one of my computers ran the GW2 beta on a X4 965 and a Geforce 460 1GB. I had my graphics options set to "auto" but I would say it was probably running on the high end of things except when I was in large WvW fights, in which it definitely scaled back to low.

Re: Will this build work? How well will it run guild wars 2?

Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 2:35 pm
by credible
I see no issues at all with that system playing GW2, which I have bought as well, still can't get wow out of my system, even though I left it a year ago now.

That card, if I'm not mistaken is technically above mine which is a toxic version of the same, I have mine running at 985/1200, so there is more headroom there as well, plus you can o/c that processor to 4 easy enough.

If your trying to save on the cash outlay this should suffice.

Considering the costs differences for something like the 2500k and an equal asrock board, still quite the savings you made, but, if you can afford the 2500k and an equivalent asrock board, absolutely get them.

Sorry for the edits, was just looking at the site, was curious, for the $10 difference I would def grab this board.


http://www.dabs.com/products/asrock-990fx-extreme3-am3--amd-990fx-ddr3-atx-7XNH.html?refs=48750000-50568&src=3

Re: Will this build work? How well will it run guild wars 2?

Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:47 pm
by ptsant
Look, I can tell you that I ran GW2 without much trouble on my Phenom II 965 (stock 3.4GHz) with 1333 DDR3 and a 5850 at a 1920*1200 resolution. Now the game might slow a little bit from time to time but at medium to high settings the overall experience was very good and the FPS were pegged at 40+. I imagine that with a slight overclock plus 1600 DDR and at the slightly lower res of 1920x1080 you'll be quite happy. I can't tell you whether you'll be CPU limited (in which case an intel would be a better choice) or GPU limited.

I would strongly recommend the XFX 6870 (http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-ati-ra ... s=13&src=3) instead of the 6850. It is slightly cheaper and should perform much better.

Re: Will this build work? How well will it run guild wars 2?

Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 5:54 pm
by JohnC
You've made same exact post more than a week ago, to which you've never replied (even after several suggestions by other people)... Are you www.dabs.com advertising bot or something? :wink:

Re: Will this build work? How well will it run guild wars 2?

Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 9:39 pm
by credible
JohnC wrote:
You've made same exact post more than a week ago, to which you've never replied (even after several suggestions by other people)... Are you http://www.dabs.com advertising bot or something? :wink:



Good call I'm thinking, worse part is he didn't even link arguably the best deals for his build,lol, like the 6870 above.