Yet Another €500 PC Build :eek:

ShamrockAir

1. What is your budget?
€500

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
Gaming,I want to be able to play BF3,Black OPs 2 and Rome Total War 2 when it comes out
(It doesnt have to be MAx settings but it would be a bonus however i dont expect it at this price)

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

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [19'/20'/22'/24'/etc.]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future?
Il be hooking it up to my TV or possibly a small monitor i have but will be upgrading in the future

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

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
Yes

8. How can you pay?
Bank Transfer/Credit Card/Laser

9. When are you purchasing?
In the next 2 mths

10. If you need help building it, where are you based?
Il be able to build myself

Basically im looking for the best bang for my buck and something that will be easy to upgrade in the future,
It doesnt matter if its AMD or Intel
Id like to have USB 3
4Gb DDR3 is ok for now as i can upgrade in the future
There are loads of PCs on ebay for €500 and under and delivery is only €20 to €30 is it better to buy from here and save on all the P+P charges or use the German Comp site?
Il be getting a proper monitor at some stage this year and its ok hooked up to the telly for now.

BloodBath

Any chance you could get the budget up to €600? There's way too many sacrifices needed to get it into a €500 budget. Several parts can be upgraded to much better value parts for that extra €100.

This is the best I could come up with. You could drop down to a 7770 and 4gb of ram to get under budget. Can go up to an 8320 for the processor for a budget of €600.

Item|Price
ASRock 970 Pro3, AM3+, ATX|€60.89
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€120.50
8GB-Kit G.Skill Sniper PC3-14900U CL9-10-9-28|€47.74
Sapphire Radeon HD 7850, 2GB GDDR5, lite retail|€166.00
LogiLink Wireless LAN 300 Mbps PCI Karte 802.11n 2T2R|€14.64
Samsung SH-224BB bare schwarz|€16.99
Sharkoon Vaya schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€25.93
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€45.39
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€48.11
BitFenix Spectre 120mm Lüfter - all black|€5.99
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€571.17

Damo 2k9

Ive been looking at a build for myself for around the same budget, although I think im going to fork out a bit more and go for the i5 So many people have said its worth it, and itll definitely be worth it down the line.
Heres the one im thinking of, but with an i5 instead of an i3, oh and you should go look down the back of the couch for the extra .30 cent
EDIT: Btw im no expert in this, I know a bit of stuff but just the basics to be honest, before anyone goes jumping down my throat for having the wrong bits
Item|Price
Intel Core i3-3220 Box, LGA1155|€102.99
8GB-Kit Corsair XMS3 PC3-12800U CL9|€47.24
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€48.11
ASRock B75M-GL R2.0, Sockel 1155, mATX|€52.49
Sharkoon Vaya schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€25.93
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€45.39
Sapphire Radeon HD 7850, 1GB GDDR5|€151.34
Revoltec Wired Gaming Mouse W102|€7.82
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€500.30

BloodBath

Nothing wrong with your build Damo. That's a good budget build although I'd pay the €15 extra for the 2gb 7850.

Damo 2k9

Yeh I forgot that sorry Would you recommend going for the i5 over the i3? I was looking at a 3570k but is that processor just for if your over clocking? OP you might be interested in paying an extra tenner or so for a 1TB hard drive aswell

marco_polo

I'd consider a single stick of 4GB DDR3 for now (a popular brand so it easy to get a matching stick later), the performance penalty of single channel mode isn't that much for gaming, a few % at most.

I'd prefer the Merc Alpha myself over the Vaya, mostly because I think it looks awful but that personal taste .

If you are willing to try overclocking, I'd go with bloodbaths one as an overclocked FX6300 will beat the i3-3200 in most of multi-threaded tasks, and is just as good for gaming.

If not then your i3 effort looks good for €500.

Gumbi

Might a 2GB 7850 not be overkill unless the OP is using a 1080p monitor? He did say he was using a TV for the moment.

Tij da feen

marco_polo wrote: »

I'd consider a single stick of 4GB DDR3 for now (a popular brand so it easy to get a matching stick later), the performance penalty of single channel mode isn't that much for gaming, a few % at most.

I'd prefer the Merc Alpha myself over the Vaya, mostly because I think it looks awful but that personal taste .

If you are willing to try overclocking, I'd go with bloodbaths one as an overclocked FX6300 will beat the i3-3200 in most of multi-threaded tasks, and is just as good for gaming.

If not then your i3 effort looks good for €500.

Even better for gaming if keeping it for a while. In the Crysis 3 bench over at techspot the i3 is really lagging behind the AMD quads. More likely to see this happening in the future as games take use of more cores.

theidiots

Stay away from i3's, soon enough games will be able to utilize four or more cores fully and will expect them

TerrorFirmer

I don't get the emphasis on CPU in budget builds. Why not go with a 1155 Pentium and 7850? Shaves 100 off your cost, brings it to the 500 mark, and you have ample chance in the future to upgrade to a cheap i5 - at the current moment, a decent pentium and a 7850 will play most games on high settings. Games tend to be far more GPU than CPU bound in general. Yes, socket 1155 will be obsolete soon, but if you take a step back, socket 1155 is a viable platform for high end gaming for a long time to come. There are still people using 5 year old S775 CPU's overclocked that can still handle modern games at high settings....

Until very recently I was using a socket 775 CPU myself, which has been relegated to my 2nd machine but can still take on BF3, Skyrim, etc without too many problems once its paired with a good card.

I think Damo2K's build is on the money for a strict 500 build. When people are on a budget, they're often stretched as it is - and to be honest, most - not all, but most - games would even still be GPU bottlenecked than CPU with an i3 and 7850 at stock.

Until recently I was using a 40 euro G620 Pentium CPU, ran everything at high/ultra with GTX570 except Battlefield 3 64-man - had to stick to 32 man servers. But when putting together extremely budget builds, the CPU is secondary to the GPU for most considerations.

I'm not for a second saying that low end cpu's are perfect for budget gaming, but their price: performance ratio is incredible and when money's extremely tight, I'd much rather have a 3Ghz Pentium and a 7850 than something like an i5 and a 7770 - then switch it out for an i5 when they inevitably become common on the 2nd hand market when the new socket arrives.

marco_polo

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I don't get the emphasis on CPU in budget builds. Why not go with a 1155 Pentium and 7850? Shaves 100 off your cost, brings it to the 500 mark, and you have ample chance in the future to upgrade to a cheap i5 - at the current moment, a decent pentium and a 7850 will play most games on high settings. Games tend to be far more GPU than CPU bound in general. Yes, socket 1155 will be obsolete soon, but if you take a step back, socket 1155 is a viable platform for high end gaming for a long time to come. There are still people using 5 year old S775 CPU's overclocked that can still handle modern games at high settings....

Until very recently I was using a socket 775 CPU myself, which has been relegated to my 2nd machine but can still take on BF3, Skyrim, etc without too many problems once its paired with a good card.

I think Damo2K's build is on the money for a strict 500 build. When people are on a budget, they're often stretched as it is - and to be honest, most - not all, but most - games would even still be GPU bottlenecked than CPU with an i3 and 7850 at stock.

Until recently I was using a 40 euro G620 Pentium CPU, ran everything at high/ultra with GTX570 except Battlefield 3 64-man - had to stick to 32 man servers. But when putting together extremely budget builds, the CPU is secondary to the GPU for most considerations.

I'm not for a second saying that low end cpu's are perfect for budget gaming, but their price: performance ratio is incredible and when money's extremely tight, I'd much rather have a 3Ghz Pentium and a 7850 than something like an i5 and a 7770 - then switch it out for an i5 when they inevitably become common on the 2nd hand market when the new socket arrives.

At 80 bucks the old Phenom II 955/965 is worthy of a mention as well, especially when you take into account it still holds up in a few of those highly multithreaded recent games that the i3 struggles a bit with, is simple to overclock to 3.8-3.9GHz+ and can be plugged into a socket that still hasn't reached its EOL.

Although the i3 may perform better in those lightly threaded games, the performance penalty for having a lower IPC is much less severe than the penalty for not having enough cores.

But 100% correct that bar the like of the X2 Athlons and Phenom which can no longer cut the mustard, your CPU is rarely going to be a problem paired with a mid range card.

marco_polo

Actually just noticed the OP wanted USB3, open to correction on this but I think pretty much the the lowest priced cases that brings USB3 to the front panel is the Thermaltake Commander cases. The MK-1 and II are a few euros cheaper but also f-ugly

theidiots

Stay away from i3's, Games are now been devoped multithreaded and will start to suffer especially an i3 . Any new PC a decent Quad core processor is a necessity. AMD over i3 any time. an x4 965 is actually a better procesor than an i3.

Only way Intel beats AMD if you have 500 quid graphics card, you will get 110 FPS on Intel and say 80 FPS on AMD. It doesn't matter. The stick that AMD get is unreal. A 50 euro AMD will still run games at decent frame rates at max settings

I gave advice on this forum to get quad cores AMD's, they will regret it by the end of the year.

theidiots

A CPU is not going to hold you back, its the graphics card (provided the CPU is not over 5 years old)

ED E

Long live LGA775

ShamrockAir

Thanks to everyone for the replies,I had the flu recently and didn t get a chance to login .Im going to add €100 and increase my budget,It will be about 4mths before i buy s hopefully the price for a few parts will have dropped a bit

ShamrockAir

Oh and what about the comps that are being sold on ebay,Should i also be looking at them or stay clear?

MiskyBoyy

If it's 4 months before you build then you'd be best asking for build advice again a couple of weeks before you build.
The pcs on ebay I would recommend avoiding as they use a lot of cheap components/parts & overcharge you for them. As you can see, this forum is called 'PC building & upgrading' so we will always recommend you build your own pc. You will get a lot better value for your money & end up with much better quality components.

ShamrockAir

Thanks DaLad,I wasnt too sure if they bought there parts in Bulk and past on the savings,