Gaming PC £400

[gazhen]

First time poster, been lurking for a while

-PC will be used for gaming, Blizzard games only.

-Budget £400, I would stretch to £450 if it included a 120GB SSD.

-Buying from the UK.

-Would prefer Intel.

-Would like to re use the PSU and GPU from current PC :
- If the HDD is re usable that would be a bonus (dont need more space).

Intel Q8200
Corsair CX430 PSU
ATI Raedon 5770
500GB HDD (WDC WD5000AAKS-75A7B2 ATA Device)
Vista 32bit

-Running 1920 x 1080

-No overclocking.

-Need Windows 7

-Want to buy ASAP

Many thanks.

[mfenn]

You can easily reuse your HDD and GPU, which is good because £400 kind of tight with OS. You can also reuse the PSU. What about the optical drive?

Core i5 3450 £144
MSI B75MA-E33 £45
DDR3 1333 8GB £28
Reuse GPU £0
Samsung 830 128GB £83
Reuse HDD £0
Samsung DVD Burner £12
Reuse PSU £0
Antec Three Hundred Two £50
Windows 7 HP 64-bit OEM £72
Total: £434

[riversend]

Originally Posted by mfenn

Core i5 3450 £144
MSI B75MA-E33 £45
DDR3 1333 8GB £28
Reuse GPU £0
Samsung 830 128GB £83
Reuse HDD £0
Samsung DVD Burner £12
Reuse PSU £0
Antec Three Hundred Two £50
Windows 7 HP 64-bit OEM £72
Total: £434

Excellent. I kept my PSU, HDDs, and 5770 in my upgrade this summer, not too far off of what mfenn is showing above. My monitor res is 1680x1050 but the 5770 should be useful with reduced settings for a while now. Once your budget comes around just pop in a 7850 and you should be gtg.

[gazhen]

That's perfect thanks for the quick response.

Optical drive is working fine as well so can re use that.
The part I was having trouble choosing myself was the motherboard, it's probably the most confusing piece for a newcomer. The different codes Z77, H77, B75 don't make much sense to me. If anyone could provide me with a link to a guide about mobo's that would be awesome.

Thanks again!

[lehtv]

Since you can reuse the optical, you're £28 short of $450 bar the shipping costs. I'd probably spend it on a full size H77 board. Asus P8H77-V LE £70.52. Advantages:

- two more DIMM slots
- more expansion slots
- one more 6gb/s port, one more 3gb/s port
- RAID and SSD caching support
- DVI port
- S/PDIF out
- one more year of warranty through Scan (MSI is 1+2, Asus is 2+1)

Also, get the 100MHz higher i5-3470 for £144 on Amazon.

[Insomniator]

Originally Posted by lehtv

Since you can reuse the optical, you're £28 short of $450 bar the shipping costs. I'd probably spend it on a full size H77 board. Asus P8H77-V LE £70.52. Advantages:

- two more DIMM slots
- more expansion slots
- one more 6gb/s port, one more 3gb/s port
- RAID and SSD caching support
- DVI port
- S/PDIF out
- one more year of warranty through Scan (MSI is 1+2, Asus is 2+1)

Also, get the 100MHz higher i5-3470 for £144 on Amazon.

Its possible that none of those features (besides the warranty) would ever be useful to him. Not sure that is worth 25 bucks extra on a build that already has a tight budget.

[lehtv]

What would you rather spend it on if you had to spend £450 on the upgrade?

[mfenn]

Originally Posted by gazhen

That's perfect thanks for the quick response.

Optical drive is working fine as well so can re use that.
The part I was having trouble choosing myself was the motherboard, it's probably the most confusing piece for a newcomer. The different codes Z77, H77, B75 don't make much sense to me. If anyone could provide me with a link to a guide about mobo's that would be awesome.

Thanks again!

Here's a brief explanation of the chipsets from another thread:

Originally Posted by mfenn

For Ivy Bridge chips, all chipsets support all processors. The meaningful features go something like this:
- B75: no overclocking, 1 SATA 6Gb/s port, 5 SATA 3Gb/s ports, usually less consumer oriented (fewer video, USB 3.0, audio ports), very cheap
- H77: no overclocking, 2 SATA 6Gb/s ports, 4 SATA 3Gb/s ports, usually has HDMI, DVI, VGA, 8-channel audio, 4 USB 3.0 ports, more expensive
- Z77: overclocking capable, x8/x8 SLI/Crossfire capable, 2 SATA 6Gb/s ports (plus extras provided by add-on controllers on more expensive boards), 4 SATA 3Gb/s ports, usually has HDMI, DVI, VGA, 8-channel audio, 4 USB 3.0 ports, most expensive

B75 is the way to go for a basic machine.