Build Advice?

Craig B

I need some tips building a gaming PC.
The type of games I'll be playing are Fallout series, Oblivion (not skyrim) and Minecraft.
I dont need an alienware type computer but good enough to play these games and surf the web.

I don't need a keyboard or monitor (I'm hooking my plasma screen up. No idea what res) but I need a mouse.

As for budget I have about 400-500 Euro and I'll have to buy in stages. Not exactly rolling in cash.
I dont need windows as I have a copy.

Any help appreciated.

Eboggles

Total build cost: €460.07 (inc delivery Free!)
ASRock S1155 Intel H61 DDR3 mATX €42.74
Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz CL9 DIMM 240Pin 1.5V €22.44
XFX ATI Radeon 6770 HD 850MHz 1GB PCI-Express HDMI €92.17
XIGMATEK Asgard III Case €35.41
Corsair 430 Watt CX430 V2 Builder Series 80 Plus Power Supply €40.50
LiteOn DVD-RW 22x SATA Internal Black - Drive Only €17.10
Seagate 500GB Barracuda SATA-600 7200RPM 16MB 3.5" Hard Drive €73.48
Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz LGA1155 3MB €116.03
Gigabyte GM-M6800 Dual Lens Gaming Mouse €20.20

The 77xx series of cards are being released soon, but I think they're replacing the 68xx cards so might not be much use to you, but if you could I'd hold off on the graphics card, depending on your res that card would max out all games (minecraft (Duh!) Oblivion) but if it's 1080p you'd need something with a little more grunt, like the new 77xx series.
If you wanted to scale down a bit you could get away (probably) with a cheaper cpu, the G530. And maybe drop the graphics down a bit to this?

Craig B

Thanks.

ShadowHearth

if you really on tight budget then try this on adverts.ie:

http://www.adverts.ie/hardware/xfx-radeon-hd-5770/1333813

its 5770 which will be more powerfull then 6770, but he is asking only 75 quid for it. you might get him to drop to 60-65eu?

if you can still push to 500eu then maybe get 6850?

Craig B

ShadowHearth wrote: »

if you really on tight budget then try this on adverts.ie:

http://www.adverts.ie/hardware/xfx-radeon-hd-5770/1333813

its 5770 which will be more powerfull then 6770, but he is asking only 75 quid for it. you might get him to drop to 60-65eu?

if you can still push to 500eu then maybe get 6850?

Mate, I know nothing about computers. Putting it together will be easy, I have taken many things apart and put them back together but right now I'm looking for a full set.

Monotype

ShadowHearth wrote: »

its 5770 which will be more powerfull then 6770, but he is asking only 75 quid for it. you might get him to drop to 60-65eu?

That's not true at all. The 6770 and 5770 are almost exactly the same. The 6770 has a few minor updates so the 5770 is a worse card (but only very slightly). The 6850 and above were less powerful than the 5850 and equivalent cards but they just recycled the 5770.


I'd go with Eboggles and wait one week for the 7700 series. I wouldn't say that they'd be quite up to replacing the 6800s - I think that a 7750 could be around the 6770 to 6850 region, so it could be ideal in this situation.

ShadowHearth

Well I ment it would be small bit powerfull not: omfg it's a beast. I should be more clear on that.
So I gave 2 options:

1. Get 5770 which virtually won't make any difference over 6770, but it will save him good few quid and make his build cheaper

2. Get 6850 which will put the budget to 500 ( still in the limits ) and make it faster and better for 1080p resolutions.

Yes, he can wait for new gen cards, but nobody said that those will fit in his budget. ( he can wait, and that's an option too, I put these so he can choose his own path, he is a big boy after all? ). From rumors the 7670/7770 can be just rebadged stuff, not improvement. Or it could be faster, but over the budget? No one knows for sure.

Monotype

The 7670 and everything below are rebadged. The 7750, 7770, 7850 and 7870 are all new cards.

Edit: BTW, you can already find the rebadged ones on their site.

ShadowHearth

Well who said that 7750 7770 will fit his budget? We don't know how much they will go for and so far ati pricing is quite on high for new stuff.

It's an option too, I did not said it is 100% wrong.

ShadowHearth

Just to add: we expect 7750 and 7770 to be on par or small bit higher then 6850 and 6870, but that does not mean that 7750 and 7770 will have price off 6750 and 6770! From what we see so far it will be priced as 6850 and 6870.

So is it really worth it to wait for 7750 which is 6850 now for same price/similar price? Just food for thought.


When we are talking about high end expencive stuff, then hands down I will always recomend to wait if it's the matter of few weeks, as there is huge price and performance leap up there. When we are talking about low end stuff, it is not so vital to wait.

In my books saving 10eu by adding few weeks of waiting is not good deal. On the other hand different people have different opinions.

Still, I am not writing off the option of waiting. It's option too.

Craig B

Right I came up with 3 builds. (Well 1 build, 2 ready buy.My friend showed me the ready buys on ebay. I'll post links )
1:
Primary Drive:CD-RW/DVD Combo, DVD+/-RW
Processor Speed: 3.0GHz - 3.4GHz
Features:WiFi PCI Card, Graphics Card
Memory (RAM): 8GB
Chip Type: AMD Athlon II 250 Dual-Core
Hard Drive: 500GB
Processor Type: AMD Athlon 64 X2
All this about 385 quid.

2: (My friend showed this to me on ebay. I'll post a link. http://www.ebay.ie/itm/VIBOX-QC-A6-NEW-AMD-PHENOM-QUAD-CORE-1TB-HDD-16GB-DDR3-RAM-DESKTOP-COMPUTER-PC-/190589868823?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item2c600a9b17#ht_1791wt_1139 )

Specs:
Hard Drive: 1TB
Processor Type: AMD FX Bulldozer (Quad Core)
Primary Drive:CD-RW/DVD Combo
Processor Speed: 3.6GHz
Chip Type: AMD FX 4100 x4
Memory (RAM): 16GB
All this about 460.

And 3 ( Again my friend showed me. Link: http://www.ebay.ie/itm/AMD-FX-6100-Six-Core-Gaming-Computer-PC-16GB-ATI-HD5450-1GB-HDD-Excluded-/300633066908?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item45ff208d9c#ht_2212wt_1139 )

Specs:
CPU:
* AMD FX6100 Six Core Processor. 6 Cores running at 3.30Ghz / with Turbo 6 x 3.90GHz.

MEMORY:
* 16GB DDR3 1,333Mhz Memory.

HARD DRIVE:
* Not included.

CD & DVD RE-WRITER:
* DVD Read Speeds of 16x and write speeds of 22x
* CD Read speeds of 48x and write speeds of 48x

GRAPHICS:
* 1 x ATI Radeon HD5450 -1GB graphics card

SOUND:
* 6 Channel High definition Audio

REAR PORTS:
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x DVI-I
1 x VGA
1 x HDMI
4 x USB 2.0 Ports
2 x USB 3.0 Ports
1 x Co-Axial SDPIF Out Port
1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
1 x eSATA 3.0 Port
1 x HDMI Connector
1 x RJ-45 Port
6 x Audio Ports


FRONT PORTS:
2 x USB 2.0 Ports
1 x Microphone Port
1 x Speaker Port

FUTURE EXPANSION:
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots
2 x PCI slots

Please give me input. Like I said I'm clueless about PC's

Monotype

ShadowHearth,
There's no need to get defensive about your opinions. I offer my apologies if I sounded too harsh.
I've only pointed out two things:

• The 5770 is not more powerful than a 6770.
• The 7750 and 7770 are new cards and not rebadged.

I haven't said anything about that the 5770 was bad value, that the 7750 would fit into the budget or even that your options were bad.


It's only 5 days until the 7700s are released. So I think it would be worthwhile waiting until then regardless of how good value or quality the new cards are; it may lead to cheaper 6000 series second hand or new.

Pricing for the 7750 & 7770 are aimed at $99-159 (apparently). That directly matches up with current prices US of the 7750-6850. The 6870s are above that.
My opinion (not fact or anything) is that the 7700s won't reach up to 6800s. I would expect a performance increase over a card that's being replaced but I think that the gap in pricing and initial specs is a lot to get beyond the 6870. Price could of course not be worthwhile as new cards often come with a 'new card' premium even if there's little performance increase.

ShadowHearth

All of the are bad.

Totally unbalanced and dead technology. Amd bulldozer stuff landed on its arse and had a big fart.

If you looking for budget pc then it's hard to beat sandy bridge i3 2120.
It's already fester and better CPU, and when it will get older you can add new generation ivy bridge in to same socket. Where amd am3+ socket has nothing to offer anymore. The best bulldozer processor is worse then i5 2500k processor in gaming.
Those things have no gpu or have totally crapy one, which will struggle run anything.

I don't know why you don't like the build posted before? It is superior in any given way. Has potential to be upgraded.

The eBay prebuilt stuff is rotten
Oat of the time. Cheap and limited components. Build it yourself, it's not hard. There are tons of step by step guides out there and if you will be in trouble all of us will give you a hand.

ShadowHearth

Monotype wrote: »

ShadowHearth,
There's no need to get defensive about your opinions. I offer my apologies if I sounded too harsh.
I've only pointed out two things:

• The 5770 is not more powerful than a 6770.
• The 7750 and 7770 are new cards and not rebadged.

I haven't said anything about that the 5770 was bad value, that the 7750 would fit into the budget or even that your options were bad.


It's only 5 days until the 7700s are released. So I think it would be worthwhile waiting until then regardless of how good value or quality the new cards are.

Pricing for the 7750 & 7770 are aimed at $99-159 (apparently). That directly matches up with current prices US of the 7750-6850. The 6870s are above that.
My opinion (not fact or anything) is that the 7700s won't reach up to 6800s. I would expect a performance increase over a card that's being replaced but I think that the gap in pricing and initial specs is a lot to get beyond the 6870. Price could of course not be worthwhile as new cards often come with a 'new card' premium even if there's little performance increase.

5 days is worth the wait bud. Dead on with that, I forgot its so soon, time flies for me lately.

Pricing looks right. 100-150eu, which will mean in online shops around 120-160eu. It's still interesting to see what will those things have to offer!

RoyalMarine

stay away from eBay.

if you want a prebuilt pc, either go to komplett.ie, pixmania.ie or pay someone 20 quid from boards to do it for you.

you will save so much hassle with eBay as you get warranty etc.
plus you know where your parts come from.

eBay is renowned for dodgy out of date ****e.

Craig B

Ok. I'm going with the first build. Just looking for opinions on other things. Thanks Guys.

Monotype

Indeed. The ebay builds aren't good.

1 - no graphics card listed?
2 - poor, old integrated graphics
3 - very low end dedicated graphics card

All of them do not state the quality of the Power Supply Unit. This is a very important component of your PC as it will regulate the quality of the power your PC is getting. Saying "450W" isn't enough information as it could come from anywhere and destroy you components.

Eboggles

Craig B wrote: »

Ok. I'm going with the first build. Just looking for opinions on other things. Thanks Guys.

Remember to tell us how you get on !

Craig B

Eboggles wrote: »

Remember to tell us how you get on !

I will but I'll only be buying like 2 parts a month. Thanks for all the advice.

And I know its kinda off thread but how much would a HP G62 w/ windows 7 home premium fetch? I wont need it once I get this. Was 560 new.

EDIT
Also if I needed to double the RAM would it be able to take it, or would it die? Sorry for so many questions but when it comes to computers I'm clueless.

Monotype

That's a very bad idea to buy a system slowly over time. The best build for your money now will completely change over six months. You can't do anything with just two parts and all they'll be doing is sitting there, falling in value. That's not even counting all the money you might end up on shipping.

Looking at the original post, I must have missed the part about buying in stages.
You're far better off saving up and buying it all in one go.

The other option is to maybe save up and buy everything that you need bar the graphics card. You could spend a bit more on a good quality motherboard and buy a bottom level CPU. This wouldn't be much good for gaming, well maybe Morrowind instead of Oblivion, but you'd have at least a working system. Then when you have more money, get the graphics card and finally a good CPU.

Craig B

Monotype wrote: »

That's a very bad idea to buy a system slowly over time. The best build for your money now will completely change over six months. You can't do anything with just two parts and all they'll be doing is sitting there, falling in value. That's not even counting all the money you might end up on shipping.

Looking at the original post, I must have missed the part about buying in stages.
You're far better off saving up and buying it all in one go.

The other option is to maybe save up and buy everything that you need bar the graphics card. You could spend a bit more on a good quality motherboard and buy a bottom level CPU. This wouldn't be much good for gaming, well maybe Morrowind instead of Oblivion, but you'd have at least a working system. Then when you have more money, get the graphics card and finally a good CPU.

Ok so you're saying to buy it all at once? I'll try save up and do this. The only way I can think of doing this right now is selling my laptop but I have no idea of the value. It a HP G62 that's about 7 months old, has windows 7 and in full working order. Last time I checked it was about 550. I bought it for 560. It's silver body with Bulgarian (no idea why) letters on the keys as well as English letters. The English letters are bigger.

Eboggles

Craig B wrote: »

Ok so you're saying to buy it all at once? I'll try save up and do this. The only way I can think of doing this right now is selling my laptop but I have no idea of the value. It a HP G62 that's about 7 months old, has windows 7 and in full working order. Last time I checked it was about 550. I bought it for 560. It's silver body with Bulgarian (no idea why) letters on the keys as well as English letters. The English letters are bigger.

I'd say €200 - 250 if you're really lucky.