£500 Gaming PC

  • Thread starter Thread starter E28
  • 83 comments
  • 5,654 views
I think I'll go with Intel for the processor, but there's a 2gb Radeon 6950 for £160. That's the same price as a GTX560 and you can practically overclock the 6950 into a 6970. Good deal or not?
 
Very good deal.

In addition to overclocking, flashing the BIOS can unlock the rest of the shaders that are locked on a 6950, giving it the same amount as a 6970. Grab it while you can. In the mean time, I've got some spare time, so I thought I'd throw together a list on pcpartpicker and see how you like it. :)

I'll just exclude monitor.

EDIT: This is as low as I could get it. Obviously there's small changes you can make (EG going for better memory for a few quid more, and getting a better CPU cooler, like a 212+ if you're going to OC), but to keep it at £500 or below, that's the best I could do. I'll fiddle around and see what else there is :)
 
Last edited:
Great build tlowr. :)

No GPU or optical drive though, which means it'll turn out over £600...

EDIT: Just fiddled around, added that £160 6950 and swapped the HDD for a 1tb one, bringing the total price up to £680! I then swapped the i5 for an i3 which makes it £630... It'll be a stretch but it's possible.
 
Last edited:
CMvan46
:lol: The CEO of AMD just made an announcement that they aren't going to continue in competing with Intel for the highest performance CPUs and are going to be focusing on the mobile sector because of their APU technology that they feel is superior to Intel's integrated graphics. Now if that sounds like a brand a gamer should get involved with to you then be my guest but I wouldn't touch one with a 10 foot pole.
Click to expand...

That was said back in November 2011.

I am still seeing AMD CPUs for sale.
 
Grayfox
That was said back in November 2011.

I am still seeing AMD CPUs for sale.
Click to expand...

And they always will be. Who cares if they underperform in random benchmarks. The average person cannot tell the difference from an Intel CPU and an AMD CPU.

@Grayfox, the rest isn't directed at you.


If people are so stuck to brand loyalty then they will ALWAYS think that their brand is superior. I've built machines with AMD parts, and I've built ones with Intel parts. The only difference between the two is a simple name and a bunch of useless benchmarks to programs that you'll never use in the real world. Get over it.
 
Exactly. In all honesty, the way I see it is it's a CPU. It processes stuff. For daily computing, really, it's not that big of a deal. Of course it's a differance story when you factor in graphics cards and all, but yeah...
 
I think I'm definately going with Intel if I can, AMD is pretty much out of the question...

EDIT: Fiddled around with that list and I managed to get it down to £645 pounds, i5 2500k, XFX Radeon 6950 2gb and 8gb of RAM. I saved some money by sticking in a 30gb SSD, and I can reuse the hard drive on my old PC.
 
Last edited:
I've upped my price limit a little, figured if I'm going to spend cash like this on a computer, might as well be satisfied with the result!

Think I'm going with this;

http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/9rlO
Intel Core i5 2500K - Approved Intel CPU Cooler - GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H GEN3 Motherboard - 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM

These combined come to £669 according to the partpicker, but I've found a couple of the parts on Aria to be about £10 less, so it'll be about £650. Any thoughts/opinions/recommendations? Also any potential compatibility issues?

Thanks for any help you can give me guys, much appreciated, as I am a complete novice with this sort of thing :)
 
Are you using it for overclocking?

As far as I know, the Intel "K" indicates its overclockable. But that would bump the price up. And to be far, the i5 2500 is really pretty damn fast on stock speeds anyway, so there wouldn't really be a need to get the K designation unless you wanted to do a lot of overclocking and consider the price increase to be justifiable.
 
K means it has an unlocked multipler.

If the Bus speed is 100Mhz and a 3.0Ghz CPU multipler has a range of 25~30 you can clock that CPU to 3000Mhz without changing bus speeds and underclock it to 2500Mhz without changing bus speeds.

With an unclocked multipler you can go to 67x or what ever the max for that CPU is but that is impossible.
 
How does this sound?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£157.19 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 45.0 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£78.92 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£32.87 @ Scan.co.uk)
Hard Drive: OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£52.99 @ Dabs)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card (£160.43 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha ATX Mid Tower Case (£31.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£64.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer (£12.53 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) (£69.96 @ CCL Computers)
Other: NZXT Blue LED 1M
Total: £661.87
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-06-04 11:32 BST+0100)

It's quite a bit over my original budget but I can wait until prices go down a bit and I've got more money...
 
Is that an OEM version of windows?

Getting an OEM is cheaper than getting a retail, and you can get the OEM since you are getting it with hardware.
 
^ Looks pretty good to me, but what do I know haha. :)

I don't know really, I quite like the idea of being able to overclock my processor easily, adds a bit of scope for future developments, help me learn alot about building/managing a computer. I don't want to run it at crazy speeds right off the bat though, will take it step by step, see how it goes. I'd probably have to buy some extra fans or an upgraded heatsink if I wanted to overclock it though right?

Reckon it's worth going to 650W as well for the PSU? It's only an extra £7 or so.
 
I'll upgrade the RAM but stick with the CPU cooler. I need to try and cut down on cost where I can.
 
Grab a LCLC unit if you get and extra bit of cash.

Like Corsair H80, It is small and quite and will be water cooling your CPU.
 
Grayfox
Grab a LCLC unit if you get and extra bit of cash.

Like Corsair H80, It is small and quite and will be water cooling your CPU.
Click to expand...

I may consider liquid cooling if I want to overclock.
 
Looks pretty good, and competitive on price too. Have a look on Novatech, I've always found them to be good (and take a look at their purpose built gaming rigs, you'd be surprised at how little extra it may actually be.

Will say one thing, at your age you should be able to get Win7 at student prices. I bought from these when I was at college

http://www.software4students.co.uk/Windows_7-software.aspx

Drop them an e-mail, there's a £30+ saving to be had there.
 
bergauk
If people are so stuck to brand loyalty then they will ALWAYS think that their brand is superior. I've built machines with AMD parts, and I've built ones with Intel parts. The only difference between the two is a simple name and a bunch of useless benchmarks to programs that you'll never use in the real world. Get over it.
Click to expand...

I have 0 brand loyalty to Intel. It's funny that you call gaming benchmarks useless for a gamer. Personally when I buy a computer I'm looking to squeeze every last bit of performance for the dollar. The 2500k and even the i3 2120 are shown to get HIGHER FPS than the next best AMD CPU. Why in the world would you buy an AMD CPU if for the same money (i3) or for a bit more (i5) you could get far better performance? Just to be different? I'm not sure but yes I agree most benchmarks are ridiculously useless but games are shown to have higher average FPS on any Intel chip than AMD with the same GPU so there is no reason anybody who is building a performance gaming computer should be going AMD.


If your looking to cut costs cut the SSD. It's a nice addition but not necessary for what it does. You could always add one in later if you like but that's an easy 60 saved.

E28
I may consider liquid cooling if I want to overclock.
Click to expand...


Don't hold me to it since I don't currently have an i5 but I but on a good air cooler you can get over a 4 ghz clock on the 2500k. Coolermaster's 212 EVO has great reviews and over here you can find them for $20 but I'm not sure how much the one you have listed is because it doesn't have a price on your list.
 
Last edited:
By the way, I'd buy the 7850 from Overclockers rather than the 6950. Seems to be the same/very similar price and you get slightly better performance for your money and a considerably less power draw. Unless you decide to overclock, to which you will have better potential.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-001-VX

Edit: Just realise it's B graded (It's a shop return, but tested to resale), but I'd trust Overclockers enough for this to be a good buy.
 
@E28: Can I recommend you get all yor parts from one company? While it may be slightly cheaper getting them from two or three different companies, by the time you take post and packaging into consideration it will actually cost more. I would get all the components from Aria.
 
:)
G.T
By the way, I'd buy the 7850 from Overclockers rather than the 6950. Seems to be the same/very similar price and you get slightly better performance for your money and a considerably less power draw. Unless you decide to overclock, to which you will have better potential.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-001-VX

Edit: Just realise it's B graded (It's a shop return, but tested to resale), but I'd trust Overclockers enough for this to be a good buy.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that! I'll most likely pick that up then, instead of the 6950, since it's £10 cheaper and might come with DiRT 3!

DG_Silva
@E28: Can I recommend you get all yor parts from one company? While it may be slightly cheaper getting them from two or three different companies, by the time you take post and packaging into consideration it will actually cost more. I would get all the components from Aria.
Click to expand...

That's a list from pcpartpicker, which is all the cheapest prices for those components, so I'll probably go with whatever retailer has the cheapest overall.
 
I would recommend one company rather than 2, 3 or even 4.

Because when warranty time comes you do have the luxury of having all purchases in spot so it makes tracking warranty easier because you do not have to remember where you bought this or that from.
 
Grayfox
I would recommend one company rather than 2, 3 or even 4.

Because when warranty time comes you do have the luxury of having all purchases in spot so it makes tracking warranty easier because you do not have to remember where you bought this or that from.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Unless your hyper organized it can become a massive headache. Unless it's some massive savings but atleast on this side of the pond most places price match anyways.
 
I am buying from PCCG for all my PC things, it may cost a little more but I know I got it all from their plus also look at postage costs not just the cost of the item.

look at total cost including delivery because each store will have their own courier, each has their own costs and you may end up saving by buying all in one place rather than here and their where it may be a few quid/dollar/euro cheaper but will cost more for postage

20 here
30 their
where as you may just pay 40 from the one place cause you combined postage.
 
CMvan46
But why? Why limit yourself to no upgrading possibilities for the same cost actually. An I3 2120 is $120 CDN so what AMD processor are you going to show me is better let alone one a $120 AMD processor that beats the i3?

AMD x6 (better benchmarks than any bulldozer) vs i3 2120:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=289



http://www.videogamer.com/pc/diablo...ild_a_diablo_iii_gaming_pc_for_under_500.html


If I were you though I'd hold off and save a bit more to go with a 2500k/z68 motherboard and possibly a bit better graphics card but working within your budget the build I posted is likely the best bang for the buck you'll get out there for 500.
Click to expand...

I just did a build for a friend with an and FX 6100 and a new mobo for 115$. I tried to get him to do the older and but he wouldn't listen. I really don't think you can come close to that price with intel. Tom's hardware said they didn't see a bottleneck with that CPU until they ran 2 6970s with it. I'm pretty sure anyone wanting a budget build will never run two 6970s anyway so why not go with amd. These are budget builds there is no way they are going to ever buy 750$ worth of a GPU that will cause the cpu to bottleneck.

I know intel is the best and all (I have an i7 950) but for a real budget build a 115$ x6 6100 with a mobo is going to be really, really hard to beat.
 
Last edited:
Yeah that's hard to beat but like was just said unless your buying used where in the heck did you get that from?
 
Sorry it wasn't 115$ it was 119$. Here's the link http://www.microcenter.com/specials/promotions/AMDbundlePROMO.html

The MOBO isn't the greatest but it's free. Easy to upgrade an item later on when it didn't cost a dime in the first place.

He already had a PSU, dvd and case. We maxed the mobo out with skill ram, a 6770 gpu and this combo for less then 230$.
I'm pretty sure that there is no way you can put an intel machine together to even come close to that for 230$ with all new parts. We did though buy a used HDD and his power supply was out of a 6 year old computer he had before.
Even so though add 70$ for a decent HDD and 60$ for a PSU, 20 for a dvd drive, 30-40$ for a case and there is a machine that can run any game for right around 400$. Use your TV for a monitor and you are done.
 
Last edited:

Latest Posts

Back