Help me with 1st gaming PC

Flight From Death

1. What is your budget? [€600]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming (Wide variety of the newest games at 60fps]

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [Yes]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [Keyboard, mouse, tv]

5. Do you need a monitor? [no]

5a. If yes, what size do you need.

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [No]

8. How can you pay? Visa

9. When are you purchasing? Soon

Note: I'd like to use Amazon.co.uk as much as possible. (or trustable sites with free Irish shipping)

ThickBoy101

if you want to go a little over this i have looked through all of the parts and can run most high end games on the best settings

http://www.komplett.ie/komplett/product/zkb_02pc/80010192/medion_akoya_p5209e/details.aspx

BloodBath

Here's a build I did for someone else in another post. It's about as powerful as you will get for that kind of money. Just add windows to the build. The processor in the komplett machine is better but it costs more. It could be added to this build for the same price. The graphics card and gaming performance would be a fair bit better in the build below.

I'd be suspect of some of the parts in the komplett machine as well. Mainly the power supply. It is a good price for the power though unlike most pre built machines.

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€105.05
2 x 4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9|€54.48
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.74
Zalman T2 Mini Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€18.98
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€172.19
Corsair VS Serie VS350, Non-Modular, 80+|€29.56
ASRock 960GM-VGS3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€37.33
Samsung SH-118AB schwarz|€12.63
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€506.95

tuxy

ThickBoy101 wrote: »

if you want to go a little over this i have looked through all of the parts and can run most high end games on the best settings

http://www.komplett.ie/komplett/product/zkb_02pc/80010192/medion_akoya_p5209e/details.aspx

Well a gtx 650 will not run new games on smooth at max or even high setting so that's simply not true.

Flight From Death

ThickBoy101 wrote: »

if you want to go a little over this i have looked through all of the parts and can run most high end games on the best settings

http://www.komplett.ie/komplett/product/zkb_02pc/80010192/medion_akoya_p5209e/details.aspx

Thanks for your help but I'd rather build a PC for various reasons.

Flight From Death

BloodBath wrote: »

Here's a build I did for someone else in another post. It's about as powerful as you will get for that kind of money. Just add windows to the build. The processor in the komplett machine is better but it costs more. It could be added to this build for the same price. The graphics card and gaming performance would be a fair bit better in the build below.

I'd be suspect of some of the parts in the komplett machine as well. Mainly the power supply. It is a good price for the power though unlike most pre built machines.

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€105.05
2 x 4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9|€54.48
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.74
Zalman T2 Mini Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€18.98
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€172.19
Corsair VS Serie VS350, Non-Modular, 80+|€29.56
ASRock 960GM-VGS3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€37.33
Samsung SH-118AB schwarz|€12.63
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€506.95

Not too keen on a 6-core processor. I should have noted that I am more inclined to an Intel i5 than an AMD CPU.

tuxy

Flight From Death wrote: »

Not too keen on a 6-core processor. I should have noted that I am more inclined to an Intel i5 than an AMD CPU.

Why not?
If you really must have an i5 you can either spend more on the system or pair it with a graphics card that gets worse frame rates in game.

For a gaming PC the graphics card is where your priority should be.

BloodBath

Like Tuxy said if you want an i5 it's going to be about €50 more. You would have to make cut's to the build otherwise. If you get a lesser graphics card you're going to end up with worse gaming performance which defeats the purpose of it.

You could go with 4gb of ram for now, cut the hdd down to a 500gb model and drop the dvd drive and you could do it in budget. You will most likely need to get another 4gb within a year though but it will be fine for now if you close background programs while gaming.

Losing 50% hdd space and some speed for a 20% price saving isn't great either.

The dvd drive is really only needed to install windows but it can be done from an 8gb usb stick as well or an external dvd player or you could throw the hard drive into another machine just to install windows.

Flight From Death

BloodBath wrote: »

Like Tuxy said if you want an i5 it's going to be about €50 more. You would have to make cut's to the build otherwise. If you get a lesser graphics card you're going to end up with worse gaming performance which defeats the purpose of it.

You could go with 4gb of ram for now, cut the hdd down to a 500gb model and drop the dvd drive and you could do it in budget. You will most likely need to get another 4gb within a year though but it will be fine for now if you close background programs while gaming.

Losing 50% hdd space and some speed for a 20% price saving isn't great either.

The dvd drive is really only needed to install windows but it can be done from an 8gb usb stick as well or and external dvd player or you could throw the hard drive into another machine just to install windows.

Fair enough. I've just heard that 6-core is a bit obscure and most games are not made to make full use of them. Would you disagree?

tuxy

Flight From Death wrote: »

Fair enough. I've just heard that 6-core is a bit obscure and most games are not made to make full use of them. Would you disagree?

Yes it's only recently that games have started to make use of more than 4 cores. The new gaming consoles will have 8 core CPUs so games using more than 4 core will probably become standard in the future.

The i5 has 4 cores, if you wanted an intel CPU in the same price range as the 6 core AMD you would have to get the i3 which has only 2 cores.

Flight From Death

tuxy wrote: »

Yes it's only recently that games have started to make use of more than 4 cores. The new gaming consoles will have 8 core CPUs so games using more than 4 core will probably become standard in the future.

The i5 has 4 cores, if you wanted an intel CPU in the same price range as the 6 core AMD you would have to get the i3 which has only 2 cores.

okay. 6300 its is then. BTW everyone on this site seems to buy exclusively from hardwareversand. that's fine but the shiping is 19 quid!? would amazon.co.uk not be better for most of the parts?

Flight From Death

Is 350W PSU enough for a gaming pc?

Gumbi

Flight From Death wrote: »

Is 350W PSU enough for a gaming pc?

It depends on the components in the computer. It also depends on the PSU itself, the quality of its constituent components.

Flight From Death

Gumbi wrote: »

It depends on the components in the computer. It also depends on the PSU itself, the quality of its constituent components.

look at the build bloodbath gave me. will it be alright for that?

BloodBath

Fair enough. I've just heard that 6-core is a bit obscure and most games are not made to make full use of them. Would you disagree?

It's not really 6 cores. It's more 3 cores with each core having the ability to process 2 threads like Intel's Hyper Threading. As Tuxy said games are starting to use more than 4 atm anyway.

okay. 6300 its is then. BTW everyone on this site seems to buy exclusively from hardwareversand. that's fine but the shiping is 19 quid!? would amazon.co.uk not be better for most of the parts?

Finding the right parts with at good prices with free delivery on Amazon isn't always possibly. You may find 1-2 components that are cheaper but a full system build works out cheaper from HWVS.

Is 350W PSU enough for a gaming pc?

It depends on the components in the pc. In this case yes. You would be looking at about 200-250w max power consumption.

Flight From Death

BloodBath wrote: »

Finding the right parts with at good prices with free delivery on Amazon isn't always possibly. You may find 1-2 components that are cheaper but a full system build works out cheaper from HWVS.

I managed to find all but 4 of these parts on amazon with free delivery (yes the prices are slightly higher but it works out cheaper after delivery is factored in.) 2 of the other parts are being sold on Aria PC for a cheaper price and delivery. i will get the dvd drive and hopefully the case from my uncle. Am I missing something? Is there a hidden charge in there somewhere?

BloodBath

The board I listed is a micro atx board that not all atx cases support.

Do you know what case your uncle is giving you?

Flight From Death

BloodBath wrote: »

The board I listed is a micro atx board that not all atx cases support.

Do you know what case your uncle is giving you?

Oh right. I thought ATX cases suited mATX. No I don't I was going to sound him out and if he didn't have one I'd give ebay a go.

BloodBath

Delivery on Aria is £10. You aren't saving much with the hassle of ordering from different sites with different delivery dates on all the parts.

Flight From Death

BloodBath wrote: »

It depends on the components in the pc. In this case yes. You would be looking at about 200-250w max power consumption.

Are you sure? I've been told not to go cheap on the PSU and 3 people have told me that that will not be enough.

BloodBath

Quality over quantity is usually the case. That 350w psu would be better than a lot of cheaper 450w or 500w psus.

If you decide to upgrade to a more power hungry processor and graphics card in future you may need a more powerful one but my power estimates for your current system aren't far off the mark.

A decent 450w psu will cost at least €45.