€600 Gaming PC

EJ22

1. What is your budget? [€600 - 650]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming/Programming] (Wide variety of games as I review new releases for a website)

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.

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1920x1080 22" TV] [No]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card/Card Reader/Speakers/etc.] No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Yes]

8. How can you pay? [Any]

9. When are you purchasing? [ASAP]

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

Additionally, I seen this build in another thread but a few of the items have since become out of stock etc, something similar to this would be great. I also want to overclock it so the additional €50 would be for a decent aftermarket cooler and thermal paste. A DVD drive won't be needed either as most the games i receive are downloadable codes.

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€102.99
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 13Series, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€264.96
8GB-Kit GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)|€54.11
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€56.69
ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€48.87
Zalman T2 Mini Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€18.61
ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC F12|€3.16
Cooler Master B500, 500 Watt|€36.42
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€604.80

Thanks in advance.

BloodBath

A bit over budget but if you want a good overclock on that 6300 you will need a better board and cpu cooler + a bigger case that the cpu cooler will fit in. All of it pushes the price up.


Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€102.99
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€28.78
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0, AM3+, ATX|€72.05
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 13Series, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€266.09
8GB-Kit GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)|€56.68
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€56.22
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€32.69
ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC F12|€3.15
Cooler Master B500, 500 Watt|€36.09
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€673.73

EJ22

That's great thanks very much mate, don't mind it slightly over budget as I'd rather get this done right

EJ22

Just noticed that motherboard has a delivery date unknown, is there any other alternatives to it?

Gumbi

EJ22 wrote: »

Just noticed that motherboard has a delivery date unknown, is there any other alternatives to it?

If you can wait a bit, I would, HWVS are usually pretty good about restocking. I was waiting for 2 products that were "deliery date unknown" and hey were restocked within about 4 days.

EJ22

Gumbi wrote: »

If you can wait a bit, I would, HWVS are usually pretty good about restocking. I was waiting for 2 products that were "deliery date unknown" and hey were restocked within about 4 days.

oh ok this is my first time using them so I didn't know. Thanks for the info

EDIT: Just to ask, if I was to order it now while it isn't available, will my order be sent with or without it?

Gumbi

EJ22 wrote: »

oh ok this is my first time using them so I didn't know. Thanks for the info

EDIT: Just to ask, if I was to order it now while it isn't available, will my order be sent with or without it?

AFAIK, they usually wait until everything is in stock before they ship. However, you can ring them up and get them to send out all the currently available parts and send out the rest in a later order BUT I'm not sure if they charge double shipping for that.

EJ22

Gumbi wrote: »

AFAIK, they usually wait until everything is in stock before they ship. However, you can ring them up and get them to send out all the currently available parts and send out the rest in a later order BUT I'm not sure if they charge double shipping for that.

That's grand, what I'll do is fire off an email and see if they wait until everything is in stock until sending and if so i'll order it. Cheers for the info

Monotype

I don't like the look of that PSU. Coolermaster are well known for releasing sh1t budget PSUs, so until the reviews chopping it up appear, I'd stay WELL away.

The CX500 or amazon 450W would be fine if you want to keep the costs down.

EJ22

Monotype wrote: »

I don't like the look of that PSU. Coolermaster are well known for releasing sh1t budget PSUs, so until the reviews chopping it up appear, I'd stay WELL away.

The CX500 or amazon 450W would be fine if you want to keep the costs down.

Thanks for the advice, so you'd suggest either of the following two if i'm correct.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/400+-+500+Watts/30074/Super-Flower+Amazon+80Plus+450W.article

http://www.hardwareversand.de/400+-+500+Watts/74426/Corsair+CX+Series+Modular+CX500M%2C+500W.article

I'm tempted to go with the Corsair as I've used them before in previous builds and with it being modular it would make cable management less of a headache as I'm not very good at it

BloodBath

If you don't want to wait this is better for only €6 more.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/48269/Gigabyte+GA-970-UD3%2C+AMD+970%2C+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article

EJ22

BloodBath wrote: »

If you don't want to wait this is better for only €6 more.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/48269/Gigabyte+GA-970-UD3%2C+AMD+970%2C+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article

That's brilliant mate, I'm going to wait a few days and see if the other motherboard comes back in stock as the graphics card and case are also out of stock at the moment.

Updated spec at the moment so is this:

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€102.99
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€28.78
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0, AM3+, ATX|€72.05
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 13Series, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€266.09
8GB-Kit GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)|€56.68
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€56.22
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€32.69
ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC F12|€3.15
Corsair CX500M |€58.68
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€696.32

BloodBath

I don't want to keep bumping the price up on you but I noticed you could get a 3570k build for only €30 more. I didn't include a heatsink but even at stock speed it will be faster than the 6300. You can always add a 212 evo later.

The script doesn't work with amazon and I can't be arsed formatting it but here are the links.

Total price as of writing is €729.

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/B00BBKO65S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?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

Danger781

Or alternatively instead of the 3570k you could get an AMD 8320 and a cooler along with it for the same price.

Just an option.

EJ22

In terms of performance, would I be better off with a 8320 or an i5 instead of the fx 6300. Also I noticed the 8350 is about €25 cheaper than the i5 as well.

Thanks everyone for your help so far

Danger781

EJ22 wrote: »

In terms of performance, would I be better off with a 8320 or an i5 instead of the fx 6300. Also I noticed the 8350 is about €25 cheaper than the i5 as well.

Thanks everyone for your help so far

If you're comparing the i5 to the 8320, definitely the i5. The 8320 overclocks really well though so it closes the gap a bit. But still, the i5.

The 8350 is faster than the 8320 at stock, so theoretically it should be able to overclock further. In my opinion the 8350 is quite close to the i5 but the i5 will probably perform better in benchmarks a lot of the time (Read: Not all the time). However if BloodBath chimes in he will tell you I'm wrong!

If I had the choice between a 8320/50 and a cooler, over an i5 without one I would go AMD. Just my 2c.

I personally went AMD with my build as I felt I would benefit from the extra cores.

Monotype

6300 = Cheapest right now. Sufficient for most games - i.e., graphics card is most important for the bulk of games. Can upgrade later.
8320 = More cores, cheaper than i5. Additional cores not that useful in games at the moment, although that looks like it may change. In the long term, it should average out similar performance to the 3570K. New consoles will have 8 cores, so they will (eventually) move in that direction.
8350 = Like the 8320, but a little faster. The 8320 can be overclocked, so not really worth going for this.
AM3+ looks like it'll get one more CPU generation release, then that's it for the socket.

3570K = Best performance in games right now. Should last a long time, but no upgrade path (aside from 3770K).

Danger781

Monotype wrote: »

8320 = More cores, cheaper than i5. Additional cores not that useful in games at the moment, although that looks like it may change. In the long term, it should average out similar performance to the 3570K. New consoles will have 8 cores, so they will (eventually) move in that direction.
8350 = Like the 8320, but a little faster. The 8320 can be overclocked, so not really worth going for this.

I went with the 8350 in my own build. Got it at a slight discount on the average retail price at the moment. I figured it was worth the extra money to start off a higher point in terms of over-clocking performance. The gap between 4.0 and 5.0 is more achievable than going from 3.5 to 5.0. It's all in the silicone lottery though I suppose.

BloodBath

Did you not see the amazon build i posted? Adding an 8320 to your current build would increase the price by €40.

The i5 build I posted is €30 more.

For gaming there is 0 point getting an 8320/8350 over a 6300. The per core performance is the same and games aren't using anywhere near 8 threads yet.

It might change in the future but for the thousands of current games the i5 is better for most and won't need to be upgraded as soon as the 6300.

EJ22

BloodBath wrote: »

Did you not see the amazon build i posted? Adding an 8320 to your current build would increase the price by €40.

The i5 build I posted is €30 more.

For gaming there is 0 point getting an 8320/8350 over a 6300. The per core performance is the same and games aren't using anywhere near 8 threads yet.

It might change in the future but for the thousands of current games the i5 is better for most and won't need to be upgraded as soon as the 6300.

Yeah i seen it but I forgot to do the conversion before writing that. I'll go with that amazon build so and order today. Thanks very much for the info and help.

martinburke

Have you looked at the Club 3D 7870 XT ? some good prices out there and overclocks well .

EJ22

martinburke wrote: »

Have you looked at the Club 3D 7870 XT ? some good prices out there and overclocks well .

Had a look despite having ordered, as far as I could see, the 7950 Boost beats the 7870XT on most benchmarks.

Was also meant to ask, would the 7950 be eligible for the never settle bundle? Not bothered if not but would be a great added bonus to the card

martinburke

Oops , didnt have my glasses on thought it was a 7850 you were looking at . yea 7950 be a great buy.

Gumbi

EJ22 wrote: »

Had a look despite having ordered, as far as I could see, the 7950 Boost beats the 7870XT on most benchmarks.

Was also meant to ask, would the 7950 be eligible for the never settle bundle? Not bothered if not but would be a great added bonus to the card

Of course the 7950 wins cos its the higher specced card. (More VRAM, higher clock speeds and memory bandwidth). It's more expensive, though.

BloodBath

The 7950 should be eligible for the never settle bundle. I don't know about Amazon though. If you email them they should send you on the codes.

EJ22

BloodBath wrote: »

The 7950 should be eligible for the never settle bundle. I don't know about Amazon though. If you email them they should send you on the codes.

Thanks very much! I'll fire one off now.

EJ22

Emailed Amazon and turns out that Amazon.co.uk don't do the bundle and i'd have to buy from Amazon.com to get it. I'm not bothered but just a heads up to anyone else buying from Amazon

Danger781

EJ22 wrote: »

Emailed Amazon and turns out that Amazon.co.uk don't do the bundle and i'd have to buy from Amazon.com to get it. I'm not bothered but just a heads up to anyone else buying from Amazon

Yeah I realised that when buying my cards.. Might try emailing AMD directly?

BloodBath

That sucks. Why do .co.uk customers get the shaft on this?

EJ22

BloodBath wrote: »

That sucks. Why do .co.uk customers get the shaft on this?

Just said they don't do it. In fairness it isn't on amd's site either. Ah well gotta wait 2-3 weeks for graphics card so I'll update when PC built :-)

BloodBath

It might arrive much sooner. Hopefully it does. Good luck

EJ22

Ok so everything is due to arrive on thursday (good guy amazon changed my delivery from super saver to standard because I enquired about if I was to cancel GPU and buy it elsewhere) so I was just thinking to myself where does the other fan in the build go? I'm assuming the front of the case so as to give it a better airflow but if I'm wrong please let me know

martinburke

Front .

EJ22

martinburke wrote: »

Front .

That's what I thought. Thank you!

Monotype

You'll probably want it for intake. There's often arrows on the fan telling you which direction it goes, but trial and error will tell you too.