Cheap gaming computer

[Hidden Hippo]

I've been set the challenge by a friend to build a decent gaming computer for ~£500. I've come up with two setups and was wondering what everyone thought was the best of the two. Both are based on a pretty similar system, with variations between processors/mobos and graphics cards.

Here's the first

E6300 - £124.54
Abit AB9 - £82.24
1GB Corsair Value Select - £84.59
BFG 7600GS OC - £84.59
Antec Black Quiet Midi Case w/ 400W PSU -£70.49
Western Digital Caviar 160GB HDD - £42.49
Sony DDU 1615 DVD ROM - £12.34
Total - £501.28

Here's the second:

AMD X2 4200+ - 117.49
DFI Infinity nF Ultrall-M2/G - £68.14
1GB Corsair Value Select - £84.59
Leadtek 7600GT - £105.75
Antec Black Quiet Midi Case w/ 400W PSU -£70.49
Western Digital Caviar 160GB HDD - £42.49
Sony DDU 1615 DVD ROM - £12.34
Total - £501.29

Any advice is welcome, thanks in advance.

 

[dantonic]

if the purpose of this machine will be mostly for gaming, a dual core CPU is not really necessary.
Just go with an athlon 64, am2 save more money, you can always upgrade to X2 later on the same mobo.

Put that money into a second GB of memory (Which you will need) and if you can spare anymore, a better video card.

Having more memory and a better GPU will make the machine more "decent" for gaming than having the dual core.

also I dont know much about those motherboards, so I cant really comment.

 

[Hidden Hippo]

Hmm. I was planning on dual core purely becuase, with the release of quad core, developers are likely to be supporting multithreading more efficiently. Also, I assume he is gaming, but not entirely sure, it may also be used for other things. A second gig of memory would definately be nice, but to the best of my knowledge, 1 gig is still holding strong is it not? I use 2 gigs in my machine, but that's purely because I thought it would balance nicely.

 

[dantonic]

Well if you have to go with dual core the 1st choice is the conroe, it performs better and can be overclocked much better than the AMD.

Only issue with overclocking is that "value select" memory. It will certainly limit you to whatever its operating frequency is. Value memory usually cannot be overclocked well if at all. If you get 800mhz DDR2, even though it is value selec, you should still be able to get that CPU from 1.86 Ghz up to 2.8Ghz without having to overclock the memory

With overclockable memory and a good Motherboard you can easily go over 3 Ghz.

The 1 GB might be ok for some games but a lot of newer games will like the 2 GB much more, for example Battle Field 2142. You can always buy a second stick of memory later I guess, watchout for dual channel, you will need identical memory.

As I said before I dont know anything about those motherboards. For a similar price can you get your hands on a Gigabyte s3 or Ds3? those are great overclockers

The video card will have to be upgraded again relatively soon


The system will definitely be a decent gaming system, but consider all these other things as well.

If you can spare more money what you should consider upgrading is the video card. BTW the memory prices should come down in the new year, so you might want to wait for that as well.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Hidden Hippo
I was planning on dual core purely becuase, with the release of quad core, developers are likely to be supporting multithreading more efficiently. Also, I assume he is gaming, but not entirely sure, it may also be used for other things. A second gig of memory would definately be nice, but to the best of my knowledge, 1 gig is still holding strong is it not? I use 2 gigs in my machine, but that's purely because I thought it would balance nicely.

don't hold your breath for smp/smt support in games....but fwiw whenever i game bf2 and look at taskmanager 1 core is ~60% and the other is ~40%...??? i thought it would be more like 90/10 or 80/20 but who knows.

you can keep certain games under 1GB and with that gpu you probably will - guessing 1280x1024 with certain settings but more is beginning to be needed.

with that said, if is strictly for gaming i would do a sc and more gpu/ram

 

[crimson117]

I don't buy into the "single core is good enough for gaming" because no one ever only games on their PC. You always have instant messages, or music, or downloading, or updating, or a virus check running, and any number of other things beyond your control like internal system tasks. Just because games are single threaded doesn't mean you won't benefit overall from a dual-core system.

If dual core was wildly more expensive than single core, it might not be worth the extra cost... but it's not that much more expensive.

If you're on a very limited budget, then sure a £40 difference might scare you off. But it's worth it, imho.

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: Hidden Hippo
Sony DDU 1615 DVD ROM - £12.34

How much more for a DVD Burner? They cost about USD$30 here across the pond, so that should be right around £15.

 

[Roguestar]

Go for the gigabyte S3 to shave off another £10, and in fact you can get the E6300 for £117 off scan.co.uk retail. If you haven't used it before I'd heartily recommend scan.co.uk as they have cheaper prices and seemingly a wider product line than dabs or the hideously expensive OCUK.

Ah hell I went all out and made the cheapest decent list I could.

http://www.imagepup.com/up/N3mr_1166127347_50025pennies.jpg

It's £500.25 so if you can spare the 25p over your limit then that should work .

 

[Hidden Hippo]

Hmm, I'm not a massive fan of Scan. When I ordered from them, they took the money from my bank and claimed that they never recieved it, even though the bank said that it was good for them to take, and banks don't lose money...

Anyway, this was sorted, and I have to admit they were good about it.

Rougestar, that is an impressive list. I'm sure he'll be able to spend an extra 25p, or I'll give it to him. I might have to recommend him that setup methinks, should be a pretty imptessive setup, although I may have to get him to spend an extra £15 on a Freezer 7 Pro .

Thanks for the help.

Edit: The price of the actual computer is £497.78. Your calculation didn't take of the VAT for the shipping .

 

[Roguestar]

I've used scan a few times and never had any problems, in fact I ordered my choice of components of my new PC off them today! Same mobo, CPU, got my ram already from crucial's UK website, and a 250Gb HDD and radeon X1950XT - I made up the list at about noon in work, then went for lunch and when I came back all three different brands of X1950Pro had sold out .

VAT on shipping too? Damn, we're ripped off over here. Well I guess I win the price war .

 

[Hidden Hippo]

Indeed you do. I noticed that when I put it in an excel workbook, just to keep it on record. Just be happy we're not in Canade, it's meant to be even worse over there.

 

[Roguestar]

True, and they're all spaced out and have less retailers to choose from as well. I guess it sucks to be them .

By the way, where did you get the prices for your first suggetions? Ebuyer, dabs or somewhere else? I'm always on the lookout for another place to shop around.

 

[Hidden Hippo]

The initial builds were from overclockers.co.uk. I like them for RAM especially, nice big choice there, same with graphics cards, although a little more expensive than others I always get my things next day.

For my main rig, I bought a couple of things from Dabs (who have gone seriously downhill since they started using Home Delivery Networks as their couried company), a lot from Scan (which caused the problem) and a couple of things from overclockers and Ebuyer.

 

[Roguestar]

They have a great choice of RAM there at OCUK but the rest of it is at first glance one or two pounds more expensive, then you forget that they display the ex VAT price big and the inc VAT price big . Dabs used to be phenomenal for delivery, for both reliability and price, but have gotten a bit worse lately. I also get annoyed when some companies charge a premium to deliver over here to Northern Ireland.

Edit: By the way, I got my RAM from Crucial, like I said; I got the 10th Anniversary DDR2 before it sold out (lucky guess on my part) and they delivered over here 20 hours after I placed the order at 11am . Their Ballistix is often slightly more expensive but for the reliability and service I'd pay it if I wanted more! We use crucial in work and they've never let us down.

 

[Hidden Hippo]

I myself use G. Skill. Works flawlessly, unless the mobo manages t forget the settings and change my voltages. In that situation I have to put in my spare stick of 1.8V RAM and change the voltages manually. A little annoying, but it's working now.