Gaming build - 800euro

Jacovs

1. What is your budget? €800

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

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

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? 22" LG 1080p TV. No

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

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

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

9. When are you purchasing? Might not be for a few months, just seeing what is available for my budget.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? North Dublin City

Jacovs

Ive seen a similar 800e build on here with AMD parts.
What would be the best Intel+nVidia build for my requirements?
Just purely to compare the 2 different 800e builds and see how they measure up.

Monotype

If it's an overclocking Intel system that you're after, you can just about squeeze in a 3570K (last generation, Ivy Bridge, overclocks better than the newer ones anyway).

Here's some parts posted by BloodBath earlier on in the week.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007RUZKK6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007P709YI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0088PUEPK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008U92JHK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005JRICNG/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009RMP2VE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002U50YAY/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
With a 760:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DMB6C4C

That comes to about €750. You still need Windows and a DVD drive. You can get an OEM copy for about €80 and a DVD drive for about €20.

BloodBath

If you're ordering from Amazon check the dispatch times on all items They change all the time. That ram is gone up to 1-2 months. I'll throw up a build in a bit.

Monotype

If you were stuck with the 760 and wanted to stick with nVidia, you could get a 660ti. Performance is fairly close, with the 760 having a slight edge.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-GTX660-TI-DC2-2GD5-Graphics-PCI-Express/dp/B008X3CMSE/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/660Ti-GeForce-Nvidia-Graphics-PCI-E/dp/B008YRUGCI/

Note that if you're search for 660ti, there's a 660 as well which is slightly lower spec.

Jacovs

Thanks a lot for the help/advice. Ive been lurking a bit and piecing things together bit by bit. Never built a pc myself and not always sure whats compatible with what.
Its nothing urgent, have time to wait for some sales.
Would it be worth it to get a few of the items when they are cheap, then a month or 2 later get a few more? Or would the multiple shipping fees ruin any savings you made, and you might get better items for the same price as the ones you bought first?

I guess when building a pc its a case of close your eyes and do it, and dont have any hindsight.

Monotype

Prices for the most part either stay the same or go down. It's rarely worth your while buying in advance as individual components are no good to you and parts depreciate fast. Quite often, manufacturers will keep their cards close them so releases of new technology can be at short notice.

There's not that many sales in the hardware world, just the occasional bargain. I still wouldn't buy anything far in advance, but a few weeks and a good opportunity is worthwhile.

Amazon.co.uk has free shipping above £25, so long as you're ordering from amazon themselves.

Danger781

Jacovs wrote: »

Thanks a lot for the help/advice. Ive been lurking a bit and piecing things together bit by bit. Never built a pc myself and not always sure whats compatible with what.
Its nothing urgent, have time to wait for some sales.
Would it be worth it to get a few of the items when they are cheap, then a month or 2 later get a few more? Or would the multiple shipping fees ruin any savings you made, and you might get better items for the same price as the ones you bought first?

I guess when building a pc its a case of close your eyes and do it, and dont have any hindsight.

^ That's what I did and saved myself a fair bit but my case was unusual as I got lucky. Mispriced RAM from Amazon. Bought a brand new cpu cooler off my friend as it didn't fit his build. SSD on sale in the weekly electronics deals.

Other than that I watched HUKD every day. Picked up a few deals from there.

Overclockers.co.uk have daily deals, sometimes very good ones. Picked up my processor on there, and even when you include delivery it still worked out cheaper than Amazon / hwvs.

When the graphics card I wanted dropped to £208 I jumped on it and ended up buying everything else I needed as well.

Gumbi

Do you have CF 7950s Danger or just the one (which you got for 208 pounds)?

Danger781

Gumbi wrote: »

Do you have CF 7950s Danger or just the one (which you got for 208 pounds)?

Two are being delivered to me :pac:

Gumbi

Danger781 wrote: »

Two are being delivered to me :pac:

When'll they arrive? :P is it that pair from Amazon?

Danger781

Gumbi wrote: »

When'll they arrive? :P is it that pair from Amazon?

Next week at some stage.. Hopefully before Saturday as I'm off to Lanzarote on Sunday morning :rolleyes:

Yeah two cards from Amazon at £208 each

Jacovs

Put the budget up to 900 now.
Not sure how to work the script. Took a few items as recommended on other similar builds, and a few items of personal preference. Not all are available at the moment, but im not purchasing right now (although laptop is falling apart day by day, so who knows)
If anyone could look it over and suggest better parts for similar prices.
Also, do I need a wifi card with that mobo, or does it have onboard wifi?

Monotype

Not most boards don't come with Wi-Fi. However, homeplugs are a better option if you can use them.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-PA411KIT-AV500-Powerline-Adapter/dp/B0084Y9N3O

Jacovs

Interesting, definitely worth keeping in mind. Seems better option than wifi, and less hassle even.

BloodBath

Looks good. I'd go with the pro-3 board though. The only difference is 2 extra usb's and 2 extra satas on the 4 I think.

I'd take a 7950 over the 760 as well. They are close in performance but the 7950 has the edge when overclocked. You can also get 4 free games with it if you email HWVS and ask for the game codes.

With the money saved on the board you can get this.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/3072+MB/78396/Club+3D+Radeon+HD+7950+13Series%2C+3GB+GDDR5%2C+AMD+Radeon+HD+7950%2C+PCI-+Express.article

Jacovs

BloodBath wrote: »

Looks good. I'd go with the pro-3 board though. The only difference is 2 extra usb's and 2 extra satas on the 4 I think.

I'd take a 7950 over the 760 as well. They are close in performance but the 7950 has the edge overclocked. You can also get 4 free games with it if you email HWVS and ask for the game codes.

Thank you for the advice.
Regarding the GPU's and mobo's. I notice the mobo's say AMD Crossfire, but doesnt say about being SLI ready. So going with the 760 will mean being stuck with 1 x 760, but going with the 7950 means theres the option of adding a 7950 later on?
Is there a list of games you can choose 4 from? :pac:

BloodBath

No problem.

No it's just Nvidia specifies a board must be able to do pcie3 x 8 in both lanes for it to be sli rated while Amd only specify pcie3 x 4. X8 will not slow the cards down but x4 will so I wouldn't use it for crossfire either. You would want the extreme 3 board if you wanted the option of 2 cards but you would also need a better psu then.

You can't choose the games, it's a set bundle. Usually tomb raider, crysis 3, bioshock infinite and far cry 3.

Jacovs

Damn this. The more I look at it the more I keep thinking I need to bump my budget another 100 to get the stuff I want, not the stuff I need (right now).
For 1000 I can go the i5 + Extreme3 + 7950, thus future proofing the whole thing. (Apart from PSU but that can be replaced with bigger later on I assume if another GPU is required).
I should stop, my self control is not holding up.

Danger781

Jacovs wrote: »

Damn this. The more I look at it the more I keep thinking I need to bump my budget another 100 to get the stuff I want, not the stuff I need (right now).
For 1000 I can go the i5 + Extreme3 + 7950, thus future proofing the whole thing. (Apart from PSU but that can be replaced with bigger later on I assume if another GPU is required).
I should stop, my self control is not holding up.

Take a break for a day or two and mull it over.. It helped in my case rather than constantly checking out parts and overthinking it.

Deciding what to buy can be quite stressful :pac:

Jacovs

Ive had to revise my build price lower than the original, will just be looking to get something for 600 to last me the next year or 2 and then hopefully have enough money to do it properly.

Now ive had a look at some other similar priced builds on here and this was suggested by Bloodbath:


Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€101.91
ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€48.03
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€174.18
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€57.03
8GB-Kit A-DATA XPG G Series PC1600 CL9|€60.59
Zalman T2 Mini Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€18.69
ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC F12|€3.16
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€46.45
MS Windows 8 64bit (SB-Version) Englisch|€88.08
LiteOn iHAS124-04 schwarz SATA|€16.24
Shipping|€18.99

Some of the prices have changed and its come down a bit.

Im having a look around and found this on Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX6300-Edition-4-1GHz-Socket/dp/B009O7YORK/ref=sr_1_160?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1375646423&sr=1-160
Im assuming this is better than the standard FX-6300, and cheaper too, but how does ordering from Amazon UK work? Any delivery charges? And ive read you have to set up an account using a UK address?
All this worth about 7 euro savings for basicly the same item?

Monotype

You'll get free delivery, so long as you select the super saver. It'll also be slightly dearer than marked as VAT is charged at the higher Irish rate. You still might save about €4 though and I suppose that would be worth it if you're on a tight budget.

I'd probably spend an extra €30 between the case and the motherboard, if possible. What's the total come to for that? I think that this is a good board for the money.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/79812/ASRock+970+Pro3+R2.0%2C+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article
You'd need a larger ATX case with that. The selection of mATX AM3+ motherboards is rubbish.

Jacovs

Monotype wrote: »

You'll get free delivery, so long as you select the super saver. It'll also be slightly dearer than marked as VAT is charged at the higher Irish rate. You still might save about €4 though and I suppose that would be worth it if you're on a tight budget.

I'd probably spend an extra €30 between the case and the motherboard, if possible. What's the total come to for that? I think that this is a good board for the money.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/79812/ASRock+970+Pro3+R2.0%2C+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article
You'd need a larger ATX case with that. The selection of mATX AM3+ motherboards is rubbish.

The total was 612,71 (prices changed from whats on the table). With your suggested Mobo and a case like this http://www.hardwareversand.de/Midi/100489/Special+item%3A+Cooler+Master+Elite+310+silver%2C+ohne+Netzteil.article it will go up to about 637.

Monotype

That's a "special item" which usually means open box so there could be parts missing. The merc beta is a popular choice but you could go for the cheap €20 ATX cases to get back closer to the budget.

Jacovs

See, what would people like me do without the good people of this forum to point these things out to us? Thank you.
If I had read it properly myself id have seen it says packaging damaged in the Unique attributes part.
Something like this will do the trick then?
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Midi/73885/Sharkoon+VS3-Value+Chrom%2C+ohne+Netzteil.article
Forgot I have to throw in a card reader too, but thats a minimal price.

Monotype

I didn't know that there was USB 3 available in cases that cheap. :eek: It won't be the most awesome case but it'll go well with that board since it has a USB 3 header to go with it. Don't forget the additional fan to get a bit of air moving through there (the F12 is very much out of stock, but I'm sure there's plenty of other suitable fans there. Be aware that really cheap ones can be noisy, I think that most of the fans have a decibel rating but that can be somewhat ambiguous when comparing different manufacturers!).

Jacovs

Will do, thanks again for the advice. Fans are cheap enough,even the more decent ones.
If anyone else has any input regarding this build please let me know as im itching to order so it might be any day now.

Hmm, RAM is out of stock too. Will have a look and see if I can find something myself to replace for similar price/specs.

Jacovs

Will this be a suitable replacement?
http://www.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/40701/8GB-Kit+Corsair+Vengeance+DDR3+1600+MHz+CL9.article
Only 5 extra and to me the specs look almost exactly the same.

The RAM is about the only item im not always sure if it will work with a certain Mobo or not. Whats the main spec on the RAM you have to check is compatible with the Mobo?

Danger781

Jacovs wrote: »

Will this be a suitable replacement?
http://www.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/40701/8GB-Kit+Corsair+Vengeance+DDR3+1600+MHz+CL9.article
Only 5 extra and to me the specs look almost exactly the same.

The RAM is about the only item im not always sure if it will work with a certain Mobo or not. Whats the main spec on the RAM you have to check is compatible with the Mobo?

I could be wrong - But as far as I'm aware RAM is generally universal. I know some motherboards will only accept certain speeds i.e. 1333 Mhz, 1600Mhz, etc. But as long as you're within the 'normal' range you should be grand.

Monotype

Yeah it's fine, but it's usually one that we avoid since it has high heatspreaders which can get in the way of certain CPU heatsinks, if the RAM is close to the CPU.

This one is a few euro cheaper and just as fast.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/66613/8GB+G.Skill+RipJaws-X+PC3-12800U+CL9.article

RAM is as you said Danger, but the only thing I'd be wary of with RAM is the voltage as some Intel boards have had problems with RAM requiring voltage higher than 1.5V... though this was mainly a problem with Sandy Bridge motherboards and I haven't heard as many issues since then.

Jacovs

Is buying a Windows 7 key from Amazon worth it?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Home-Premium-License/dp/B00ADKZHEG/ref=sr_1_7?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1375886022&sr=1-7#productDescription
Reading through the comments its just delivered by email, so no physical delivery required. Download a free 30 day trial version then activate with purchased key. Works out to about 60 euro compared to the nearly 90 from HWVS.

Monotype

You might want to check to see if they actually sell to Ireland. They often don't tell you until the last page.


Seems like a good deal though. You can find links for the disc ISOs as well as how to install it from USB in the Windows guide in my signature.

Jacovs

If you have a UK address for the Amazon account, would they even know if they are just emailing it to people? Or is it the payment details that would flag as coming from an Irish account and then be a lot of hassle to recover the money?
Just not happy with Windows taking up such a large part of the budget.

Monotype

Actually, you're probably right. If it's just emailed, it probably won't make any difference what address you have.

I doubt the credit card would be flagged. Amazon is a huge international company. It might be an issue for small operations or companies that specifically try to segment markets. The payment goes through amazon, although it is a subseller's product - but I don't think that's reason for concern.

Jacovs

Great. Might do this now, even if not buying the PC components just yet. Dont think id get Windows cheaper somewhere else anytime soon. The extra 30 could be used towards the build or cut from the price.

Monotype

You could try that other place in Germany if you want to...
http://www.pcfritz.de/software/betriebssystem/windows-7-professional/10264/windows-7-professional-64-bit

This was mentioned in the bargain alerts a good while back and just saw it again in another thread. I think they ship it out to you and it takes them a long time to deliver if I recall correctly. I didn't follow it after my posts were deleted for just trying to help people.

Jacovs

If thats legit it would be amazing. Another 30 off the budget, making a saving of 60. Has anyone received from that place and no problems? Im not bothered with having it right this moment, not ordered anything else for the PC yet anyways. Having a 30 euro copy of Windows laying around can never hurt though.

Monotype

Here's the thread. It's on the last page.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056902414

Actually not so cheap since shipping is €15.

Jacovs

Just seen that myself. Works out to 44,80. Still, half the price of HWVS and 15 cheaper than Amazon. Going to give it a shot I think.

Jacovs

I decided to cut down to 4GB RAM for the moment to get it all under 600. Can always add later on.
I just need someone to have a quick look and see if its all compatible. All in stock so just have to hit the button.
Ordered Win7 for 44,80, add shipping for below build and it all comes to 592,56.

BloodBath

You could save €10 by getting the better 7870 here.

Not sure if pixmania do the game deals to make it even better.

Do you really need a dvd burner or a dvd drive at all? You could save €5 to €17 there.

That would pretty much be enough saved to get 8 gigs of ram.

Jacovs

BloodBath wrote: »

You could save €10 by getting the better 7870 here.

Not sure if pixmania do the game deals to make it even better.

Do you really need a dvd burner or a dvd drive at all? You could save €5 to €17 there.

That would pretty much be enough saved to get 8 gigs of ram.

The copy of Windows I ordered is a physical copy as far as I know. In saying that, Im guessing I could just download a free trial version and use the key off the box?
Do most people just buy their games online and no physical copies from shops anymore, thus no need for a dvd drive?
Im here for advice, so not taking it would be silly. Thank you.

BloodBath

You could do that yes. Or you could make a usb windows boot drive with an 8gb usb stick if you have access to another pc or laptop with a dvd drive.

I haven't used a dvd drive in about 3 years or more. All my games are bought online these days. Services like Steam, Origin and U-play have 99.9% of games on them and there are other online retailers like g2play who sell game keys that can be re-deemed on these services. If anything it's better than a physical copy as you will always have access to it on your account and it can be downloaded from anywhere on any pc. No more damaged or lost disks.

The prices are also better.

Jacovs

Okay im convinced then. No dvd drive (cheap enough to add later if really have to), and going back to 8GB RAM. Total still at 595, so all good. Just about done ordering that GPU. Btw, would I email them before or after ordering to ask about any game deals?

BloodBath

After I guess. It's a great deal regardless of whether they do the games or not.

Jacovs

Right, GPU ordered, after some account issues.
Now for HWVS.

Danger781

I didn't order a DVD drive for my computer and had a fairly difficult time trying to install windows.. but my situation is different

I figured I would install from USB, forgetting that the DVD drive on my old computer had just died.. Had to dig out the old old computer and somehow got it to work on that after 3 attempts

Jacovs

Ah we have 3 laptops around here, should find a way of getting it onto a USB.
After adding items to basket and then have to click the button to actually show all the items that your are ordering, that button wouldnt do anything when I clicked it. Had to restart laptop, and going to try again now. Better work cos im off to work in 45 minutes and want this sorted today while everything is in stock.

Jacovs

Nope not working. After selecting all the items it doesnt do anything when I click on "add articles to the basket". Going to try a completely different laptop now to see if it works.

Jacovs

They must not be accepting orders at the moment. Ive now tried it on 2 seperate laptops. Tried signing into my account, tried it without signing into my account.
Will have to try it again tomorrow.
If someone would like to check and see if they can get past the first screen and into their actual basket.

Monotype

Try a different browser. Their website is slow sometimes as well, so you might just have to try later.