First gaming machine, finally doing it!!

SneakyDoyle

1. What is your budget? [€650 - €700]

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

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

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [Negative]

5. Do you need a monitor? [yep]... Bigger the better. Any suggestions on something good value for cash?

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card(probably hard line it so not essential for now)/Speakers]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [i'll try anything once ]

8. How can you pay? [Cash/Credit Card/Laser]

9. When are you purchasing? [Next payday- within a fortnight or so]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [Not necessary]

Any help is much appreciated guys!

Been flicking through some of the posts here during the day, on work time , and it has to be said, some feckin' awesome help and advice to be found here.

marco_polo

Missing speakers and a CPU cooler although you wouldn't necessarily need to overclock from day one as the FX6300 is pretty respectable performer even at stock.

Case it out of stock, main reason it is there is its cheap and has one front USB 3.0 port.

The monitor is a nice IPS one, with a really good quality panel but somewhat mediocre stand.

Could probably trim a few things to free up 30-40 for speakers if needs be.

Item|Price
Cooler Master Force 500 Midi-Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€34.31
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€46.46
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0, AM3+, ATX|€71.39
8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL10|€55.77
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€104.02
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€57.27
Samsung SH-224BB bare schwarz|€16.92
LG 22EA53VQ-P|€129.56
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€164.99
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€699.68

SneakyDoyle

Thanks! much appreciated, looks good. What kind of settings would this machine be capable of running smoothly on the most demanding games? I'd be prepared to go a little closer to 750 if you could recommend a more powerful video card, or do you think the one you've listed would do fine?

Cheers!!

marco_polo

SneakyDoyle wrote: »

Thanks! much appreciated, looks good. What kind of settings would this machine be capable of running smoothly on the most demanding games? I'd be prepared to go a little closer to 750 if you could recommend a more powerful video card, or do you think the one you've listed would do fine?

Cheers!!

I have a HD 7850 (overclocked a little) that would be in the same ballpark performance class of cards as the GTX660, and it plays the likes of Crysis 3, Far Cry 3 and Metro last light at very high, but not absolute maximum settings (1080p). (There is no shame in this as most cases for the games above even €300-400+ cards can't break 60FS with every possible setting turned up to 11 ) You'll always have to tweak a few settings to get the top few most graphically demanding running smoothly at around 60FPS, (MSAA X2 at most or a less demanding type of AA).

Every game engine is difference but I usually try to identify settings that cost the most in performance for the least visual gain and target those where possible.

If you have another few euros I'd throw this 7870 XT into the build, I actually had it in originally until I couldn't hit the €700 budget. It is out of stock now so the alternatives would be the Powercolor or the Sapphire.

They are all the same card, but the Sapphire has a better cooler and is a bit quieter, however for me it is probably a little too close to a HD7950 to be considered good value.

Unless the slightly greater noise levels under gaming load is a concern, for me I'd go with the Club3D if it comes back into stock or the Powercolor as they are much better pricepoint.

SneakyDoyle

Thanks a lot!

they are all the same card, but the Sapphire has a better cooler and is a bit quieter, however for me it is probably a little too close to a HD7950 to be considered good value.

- Would it be worth the extra few quid to get the HD7950 then? if so which would you recommend?

Cheers!

marco_polo

SneakyDoyle wrote: »

Thanks a lot!



- Would it be worth the extra few quid to get the HD7950 then? if so which would you recommend?

Cheers!

Theres a bit of a price jump in the region of €55 from the Club3D 7870 XT to what I consider the first pretty good HD7950 (also a Club3D). If you can afford it then this probably the best one under the €275 mark. If you can go a bit higher I'd probably get one of these.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/3072+MB/55042/Gigabyte+Radeon+HD+7950%2C+3GB+GDDR5%2C+PCI-Express.article

http://www.hardwareversand.de/3072+MB/55043/Powercolor+HD7950+PCS%2B+3072MB+GDDR5.article

http://www.hardwareversand.de/3072+MB/66982/Club+3D+Radeon+HD+7950+royalKing%2C+3GB+GDDR5%2C+AMD+Radeon+HD+7950%2C+PCI-+Express.article

BloodBath

This is also worth considering. Comes to €270 inc delivery.

The cooler is not as good as the ones above so you won't get as high with overclocks but it does have 4 free games worth around €150.

You may be able to get a similar deal from HWVS if you email them. They don't advertise the games bundles on the site but they do them afaik.

SneakyDoyle

Beautiful! thanks again for the help....

Can you recommend a couple of cases? Can't decide on one, and i do want something rather cool looking haha. Something decent value for money?

Cheers guys

marco_polo

SneakyDoyle wrote: »

Beautiful! thanks again for the help....

Can you recommend a couple of cases? Can't decide on one, and i do want something rather cool looking haha. Something decent value for money?

Cheers guys

Not sure how much you want to spend or what your definition of cool looking is , I sort of prefer an understated case myself. I'd say sort by the cases by price and have a browse through the ones in your budget, and look up a few reviews of one that you most like the look of.

Here two of the better and more distinctive looking one for 40 euro ish to get you started anyway (presuming we need to stick close enough to the price of the original case), that have at least one front USB 3.0 port.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/Midi/72557/Cooler+Master+K380+mit+Sichtfenster%2C+schwarz.article

http://www.hardwareversand.de/Midi/50344/Thermaltake+Commander+MS-I+USB+3.0%2C+ohne+Netzteil.article

SneakyDoyle

AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+

-Would i not need a CPU cooler with that? And if i was going to spend an extra few quid again would it be worth throwing it at the CPU?

-If so, any others you'd recommend? Keeping my options open as i have more money to throw at it, but i was trying to keep it as low as possible. I don't want to do it half-arsed though so i'm flexible

marco_polo

SneakyDoyle wrote: »

-Would i not need a CPU cooler with that? And if i was going to spend an extra few quid again would it be worth throwing it at the CPU?

-If so, any others you'd recommend? Keeping my options open as i have more money to throw at it, but i was trying to keep it as low as possible. I don't want to do it half-arsed though so i'm flexible

It comes with a stock cooler, normally I'd throw a better cooler, but I was trying to stick to the budget. You'd want this for overclocking but I was leaving this as something that could be added at later date.

The CPU is certainly good enough for pretty well any game even especially if you overclock it, it would probably cost another 50ish is to get an FX8320 build. You wouldn't see much benefit in most games at the right now, but the FX8320 might that bit longer as games become more well multi-threaded.

If I was to loosen up the budget while not going absolutely crazy on anything (I think), I would probably build something like this, for an extra 270 euro you get a slightly better board and PSU for overclocking an octo-core, the FX 8320, HD7950 and a 120GB SSD.


Item|Price
LG 22EA53VQ-P|€129.56
Cooler Master K380 mit Sichtfenster, schwarz|€41.59
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 500W|€53.77
Gigabyte GA-970-UD3, AMD 970, AM3+, ATX|€78.45
2 x 4GB Kingston HyperX PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-27|€57.86
AMD FX-8320 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€142.13
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€28.37
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 royalKing, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€276.09
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€57.27
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€966.07

You can pretty much mix and match anything from the two builds if you need to find a happier medium in terms of budget.

SneakyDoyle

Thanks again!

Out of curiosity, as i have only ever used Intel processors, what would the intel equivalent to this processor be? and also what would you get with intel for the same price ( around the 150 mark ) ?

Cheers!

BloodBath

For around €10 more you could change the board to these. It's not unlocked but it can still be overclocked to 4ghz. The intels have stronger per core performance but the amd has stronger multicore performance above 4 threads. Games aren't making use of more than 4 yet but they will do in the near future so it's quite possible the amd will overtake 4 core/thread cpus.

If you overclocked the 8320 to around 4.5ghz I don't think there would be a whole lot in it though except in limited core games like Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-3470 Tray, LGA1155|€165.33
ASRock ZH77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€69.18
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€253.50