€600 Gaming PC

deano546

1. What is your budget? €600 max, would like it to be less though.

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming mainly

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? No

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? 1366x768, will probably upgrade to a 1920x1080 eventually

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Wireless Card

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

8. How can you pay? Bank Transfer/Debit Card/Paypal

9. When are you purchasing? Maybe in the next few weeks or might wait till Mayish

This is what I have so far:
Total build cost: €440.20 + €30 shipping
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €41.99
8GB-Kit A-Data Value PC3-1333 CL9 €33.59
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB, SATA II (HD502HJ) €73.00
BitFenix Merc Beta €31.61
LiteOn iHAS122-18 schwarz SATA €16.74
Intel Core i3-2100 Box, LGA1155 €103.03
LogiLink Wireless LAN 300 Mbps PCI Karte 802.11n 2T2R €17.25
Sapphire HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express €122.99

I'm not sure which Mobo to get, this: http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=43133&agid=1601
or this? http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=50895&agid=1603
Is the P67 worth the extra €40 or so for my needs?
Basically I want this machine to be able to play modern games on ''Ultra'' settings at 1366x768 comfortably, and to be upgradable so it can be capable of maybe ''Medium'' settings @ 1920x1080 in 2 or 3 years with a newer CPU and GPU.
Maybe I should upgrade the CPU to an i5 2500k? or could I get away with a G530 till I upgrade my monitor?
Also, do ye think the 7850 would be roughly the same cost as the 6850 would be now in May? I'm thinking I'd probably be better off till May maybe as my laptop is just about capable of chugging along till then

Monotype

The 7770 & 7750 is only about a week away and are more likely to be the successors of the 6850. I'd expect the 7770 to be more powerful than the 6850. The 7850 is unlikely to drop as far as the 6850 as it looks to be closer to the 6950 range.


The P67 isn't of tremendous advantage to your current system but it does come with SATA 6Gbps which would be good for SSDs and USB 3.
The main advantage is the ability to overclock "K" CPUs like the 2500K. If you thought that you would be upgrading the CPU in the future then it would be worthwhile.
You could get away with the G530 but it kind of depends on the games in question. You'd be okay for the most part if you tweak the game settings... I would be very doubtful of ultra in newer titles. It's more of a light system or stop gap CPU - e.g., if you wanted to upgrade to the new Ivy Bridge CPUs.

deano546

Monotype wrote: »

The 7770 & 7750 is only about a week away and are more likely to be the successors of the 6850. I'd expect the 7770 to be more powerful than the 6850. The 7850 is unlikely to drop as far as the 6850 as it looks to be closer to the 6950 range.


The P67 isn't of tremendous advantage to your current system but it does come with SATA 6Gbps which would be good for SSDs and USB 3.
The main advantage is the ability to overclock "K" CPUs like the 2500K. If you thought that you would be upgrading the CPU in the future then it would be worthwhile.
You could get away with the G530 but it kind of depends on the games in question. You'd be okay for the most part if you tweak the game settings... I would be very doubtful of ultra in newer titles. It's more of a light system or stop gap CPU - e.g., if you wanted to upgrade to the new Ivy Bridge CPUs.

I'll stick to the i3 and go for the P67 so, I will want to upgrade the CPU in a year or 2 probably. I guess I'll have to wait till next week but I suppose the 7770 will be good enough? Again I would upgrade it eventually but 1366x768 is apparently low res these days

Monotype

You'll have to wait until the reviews for the 7770 come out. We can really only guess until then. Pricing is higher than the previous series so we are expecting a performance shift so that 77xx will be more mid performance while the 78xx will be high end, as opposed to the current 6850 being around the middle at the moment.
A better graphics card will be more important in most games than the CPU so you should pay close attention to this component.

If you were to wait until May, Intel's new CPUs should be out by then and nVidia will hopefully have their cards out too. I wouldn't be bothered waiting if you want a new system now but your money might go a little further as hard drives should be cheaper by then (prices are high because of a shortage at the moment). Intel won't be giving away their CPUs so it's unlikely you'll save much here but a new architecture will give you a little performance boost.

deano546

This is what I have now (won't be ordering yet because I should wait and see what the 7770 is like)


Total build cost: €537.17 + €30 shipping
Sapphire HD6870 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-I+SL-DVI-D / HDMI / DP €147.59
Rechner - Zusammenbau €20.00
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155 €107.27
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX €95.87
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €41.49
Samsung SSD 830 64GB SATA 6GB's PC Upgrade Kit €99.74
3R Systems Design Gehäuse R490 Schwarz €25.21

I have 2 external HDDs which I assume I could constantly keep plugged in the USB ports as my storage drives (iTunes library, movies etc.)?
I also have an old DVD writer which I suppose I could buy an enclosure for.
Also, with the mobo I have selected could I put the 6870 in crossfire with another one? And would the PSU be up to it (with maybe an i5 ivy bridge in the future)?
Thanks.

Monotype

You could take the hard drives out of their enclosures and use them in the PC. This is assuming that they're SATA drives, which they should be if they were made in the past 5 years. You'd get better speeds but it might affect warranty.
You might be able to re-use the DVD drive. If it's a SATA one, you will but if it's IDE, you could get an IDE->SATA adapter.

No, for crossfire you'd need a motherboard with two PCI-E slots. Some boards have a second slot less bandwidth (you'll see it as x4 in the specs) so you should avoid this.
You'd have to get a board like this:
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=50900

You'd also really want 550W for two 6870s.

deano546

I am selling my iPad 2 this week in anticipation for the iPad 3 but then I thought maybe I could get a decent pc now and wait on the iPad 3 till May.
So now I'm on this with a budget of about €500
Total build cost: €496.55 + €30 shipping
Sapphire HD6870 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-I+SL-DVI-D / HDMI / DP €146.49
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155 €104.34
BitFenix Merc Beta €32.61
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's €69.00
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €40.95
ASRock H61M/U3S3 (B3), Sockel 1155, mATX €54.58
Samsung SH-222AB bare schwarz SATA €15.95
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9 €32.63
Would this all be ok? The only upgrades I would be doing would be replacing the 6870 with a 7850 and the i3 with either an i3 or i5 Ivy Bridge (This Mobo would work with Ivy bridge ya?), and adding an SSD, so I think the 450w is enough.

EDIT: Forgot RAM, anywhere I could save €20? I would like SATA 3 so thats why I went for this Mobo.

Monotype

Should be compatible with Ivy bridge. I don't think there's anywhere that you'd really want to be chopping off money. There's a 6870 €1 cheaper and another one a few euro (but out of stock). Downgrading the card wouldn't be much to your advantage.

If you wanted the system right now and plan to upgrade down the line, you could cut way back on the CPU to the Celeron G530 (€35.87). I don't think it's worth your while just shaving of a bit to get a pentium as they aren't great value but this celeron is not too bad for the money. It's a fair bit slower than the i3, but games will be leaning more heavily on the GPU anyway. It's still a dual core though.

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=50380

The money saved from that could give you a bit more to work with towards a hard drive or SSD...?

deano546

I suppose I could just get rid of the dvd drive? I could use a usb stick to install windows 7, that would pretty much be the only thing I want it for. That would pretty much bring it down to budget.
I think I'll stick with the i3, might be Christmas-ish by the time I can upgrade.
I will wait till the iPad 3 announcement tomorrow and decide what to do
If I ordered this as is would it come with all the required cables and screws?

Monotype

Yes, all the cables will be in the motherboard & case boxes. You might need a three pin plug for the PSU though. The same kind as in all PCs.

deano546

I'm thinking of switching my Hard drive to an ssd http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=46678&agid=1145 I have 2 sata hard drives and 1 is 2.5 inch, would I need to order extra cables for these?

Monotype

IMO, go for the Crucial M4 for the extra tenner or so.
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=46113

You get synchronous NAND which ensures that your speeds keep up when your drive fills up, you get an extra 4GB and you get a faster drive in real world performance - i.e., not speeds based on idea circumstances where all data is very much compressible.

Most SSDs come with an SATA cable but it depends on drives and manufacturers. Having a spare is no harm in case one gets faulty or you need a new HDD (which usually don't come with the cable).

Edit: You'll get cables with your motherboard, you don't need more.

Edit 2: I assume that you have cables for the drives that you already have? Most cheaper boards like that have 2 anyway.

deano546

Total build cost: €474.56 + €30 shipping
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155 €104.34
BitFenix Merc Beta €32.61
ASRock H61M/U3S3 (B3), Sockel 1155, mATX €54.58
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9 €32.63
XFX RADEON HD 6870 900M 1GB DDR5 DUAL DP HDMI DUAL DVI €143.30
Corsair Builder Series CX430 V2, 430 Watt €38.10
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's €69.00
I've tweaked it a little bit to save a few euro, it seems like all the decent 450w power supplies are OOS but hopefully they will be back in a few days.
I'll hold off on an SSD.

Monotype

The CX430 is out of stock too but the 450W Amazon is well worth the extra €3 if you have the choice.

BTW, Seagate has cut their warranty to 1 year for their main HDDs.

deano546

Well, it looks like (hopefully) my budget will actually be 570ish, so this is what I have now:


Total build cost: €536.16 + €30 shipping
Sapphire HD6870 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-I+SL-DVI-D / HDMI / DP €148.51
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €41.47
BitFenix Merc Beta €32.61
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9 €34.67
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5") €83.99
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX €82.61
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155 €104.31
Wintech SAK-65 interner Serial ATA - IDE Konverter €7.99

I have an IDE DVD drive in my current desktop, with the adapter listed would it work?

deano546

Now I'm thinking I'll hold off on the ssd for now so I can get a better gfx card just to future proof it a bit more.


Total build cost: €310.89 + €30 shipping
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €40.89
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155 €104.33
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9 €34.67
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX €82.61
LG GH22NS50/70/90 bare schwarz €16.78
BitFenix Merc Beta €31.61

So if I have about €220 to spend, would I have enough for a 7850? If I don't, I think I'll change the case to a Fractal R3 and stick with the 6870

Monotype

There was a 7850 for 228 or something on ebuyer last week for the initial launch. When the cards actually get released properly, I'd expect the spread of them to reach below 220 on hardwareversand.

deano546

After changing my mind a few more times I have settled and actually ordered. Will do the transfer tomorrow.
Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€32.66
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€82.61
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse DEFINE R3 Black Pearl|€91.59
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155|€104.58
Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 Runes of Magic, 1GB GDDR5 Full Retail|€149.99
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€52.02
Samsung SH-D163C SATA schwarz|€12.11
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€544.55
Basically I thought it would be much less of a pain in the ass to upgrade the processor and install a SSD rather than upgrading the motherboard and the case.
Thanks for the help and I might post again in a week or so looking for build help . At least since the R3 is very popular so there is plenty of tutorial videos around for it

Monotype

Good to have a Z68 board for upgrades as you could get yourself a nice Ivy Bridge unlocked CPU and even avail of PCI-E 3.

deano546

Didn't get to do the transfer till yesterday but they got the money today and they have already shipped it out . Since it will be delivered here by An Post, will I have to sign for it? Might not be home Wednesday and Thursday next week.