Cheap basic gaming setup. New build.

[Danny93]

I'm building a new compter for running games, here's what I have. Tell me what you think;

Asus M4N68T-M LE V2 Socket AM3 DDR3 - £34.14
EXTRA VALUE 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Memory - £30.18
Casecom Black Mid Tower Case - Front Blue LED 120mm Fan - £19.89
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition 3.2GHz - £70.48
DESKSTAR COOLSPIN 500GB SATA-II, 3.5" 5400RPM - £30.11
LiteOn 24x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - £11.99
MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone - £130
A copy of 7 Ultimate, retail edition - £73

Around £395, with free delivery and that includes VAT.

In the future I'll be upgrading that case to a more expensive, better one (or not, if it turns out to have good cooling and accessability). Not sure if I'm keen on that HDD, 7200RPM may be better... That processor should be more appropriate for gaming over my current 1.8 quad core, right? I will even OC it to 3.6, hopefully.

I'm not looking for a hardcore gaming rig. Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Sims 3 etc on medium settings at 1440x900.

 

[Aastii]

What power supply will you be using with this?

You can get an Athlon II x4 for about the same price, which would be the better choice.

And +1 for you not liking the hard drive, I would stay away from Hitatchi DeathStar's, even if it means staying with a 5400RPM drives, better to have reliability than performance

 

[Danny93]

What power supply will you be using with this?

Already got a spare PSU which is 650W, dual 12V rails with 20/19 amps on each. It's not a reputable brand but it will suffice until I purchase another.

You can get an Athlon II x4 for about the same price, which would be the better choice.

I don't know, maybe. The Athlon II processors have a lower cache, and most games only utilize 2 cores, rendering a quad core not as useful. (I'd rather have 2 cores with a high speed, than 4 at a lower speed)

And +1 for you not liking the hard drive, I would stay away from Hitatchi DeathStar's, even if it means staying with a 5400RPM drives, better to have reliability than performance

I think I'll go for a Western Digital.

 

[Aastii]

Already got a spare PSU which is 650W, dual 12V rails with 20/19 amps on each. It's not a reputable brand but it will suffice until I purchase another.


I don't know, maybe. The Athlon II processors have a lower cache, and most games only utilize 2 cores, rendering a quad core not as useful. (I'd rather have 2 cores with a high speed, than 4 at a lower speed)

I would make the PSU priority rather than "something to do after". What is the point in buying a system that will either be underpowered, or draw too much and make the PSU blow, clearing out your shiny new components, voiding their warranty and putting you out of pocket, with no computer to use.

Athlon has slightly different architecture and no L3 cache. Most newer games utilise 3 cores, CoD4 and Crysis only uses 2, but Sims 3 uses 3 and out of games, a quad core will serve you better if you have several things open at once.

 

[Danny93]

I'll consider a 3 or 4 core processor then, not sure if I'll go for Athlon or Phenom though.
As for the PSU, I won't be able to afford it around Christmas because of the amount of money I've been spending on people, I'd probably leave the video card out for a small amount of time until I get enough for a good PSU also.

I was looking at my current PSU on YouTube, it's a cheap one. CiT brand or something. Someone was running 2 Radeons in crossfire with it, but I'm not sure if I'll take that chance now you mention warranties etc.

 

[Aastii]

If they were running something like 2 HD3650's, that will draw very little power compared to your single GTX460.

Also, building a system from Scan, you can get better for your money, basically a PSU included, better mobo and couple higher quality components (notably memory and hard drive), and it is only in Bolton, so atoun 45 min drive from you:

CPU: Scan.co.uk: AMD CPU Athlon II 640 Quad Core Processor - ADX640WFGMBOX £74.78

Memory: Scan.co.uk: Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 1333 Mhz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop - TW3X4G1333C9A £42.42

Motherboard: Scan.co.uk: MSI 870C45 Motherboard - 870-C45 £46.98

Graphics Card: Scan.co.uk: MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 768MB NVIDIA Graphics Card - N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC £122.74

Hard Drive: Scan.co.uk: 500 GB Samsung Spinpoint F3 Hard Drive - HDD - HD502HJ £30.89

PSU: Scan.co.uk: Silverstone Tech. Strider SST-ST50F-ES 500W Power Supply (PSU) £45.74

DVD RW: £12.56: Scan.co.uk: Sony Optical DVD Writer, AD-5260S-0B, SATA, Black, OEM

£396.05 total inc VAT.

If you can't pick up, 35 posts on the Hexus forums will get you free shipping with Scan, even if you never go to their forums again, so a couple hours over there and you can get it delivered if you are unable to get to Bolton to pick it up

 

[Danny93]

Thanks for that, I might actually order all that.
I'm only in Bootle Merseyside so Bolton is like... 30 or 40 miles I think. Not far.. I would prefer to pick up in person too.

 

[~Darkseeker~]

If they were running something like 2 HD3650's, that will draw very little power compared to your single GTX460.

Also, building a system from Scan, you can get better for your money, basically a PSU included, better mobo and couple higher quality components (notably memory and hard drive), and it is only in Bolton, so atoun 45 min drive from you:

CPU: Scan.co.uk: AMD CPU Athlon II 640 Quad Core Processor - ADX640WFGMBOX £74.78

Memory: Scan.co.uk: Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 1333 Mhz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop - TW3X4G1333C9A £42.42

Motherboard: Scan.co.uk: MSI 870C45 Motherboard - 870-C45 £46.98

Graphics Card: Scan.co.uk: MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 768MB NVIDIA Graphics Card - N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC £122.74

Hard Drive: Scan.co.uk: 500 GB Samsung Spinpoint F3 Hard Drive - HDD - HD502HJ £30.89

PSU: Scan.co.uk: Silverstone Tech. Strider SST-ST50F-ES 500W Power Supply (PSU) £45.74

DVD RW: £12.56: Scan.co.uk: Sony Optical DVD Writer, AD-5260S-0B, SATA, Black, OEM

£396.05 total inc VAT.

If you can't pick up, 35 posts on the Hexus forums will get you free shipping with Scan, even if you never go to their forums again, so a couple hours over there and you can get it delivered if you are unable to get to Bolton to pick it up

much better imo.

the only difference i could tell between the Athlon II x4 and the Phenom II X4 was the lack of a L3 cache in the Athlon.

what Aastii put here would be one of the best choices available as a build without breaking the bank. The build in my sig was *supposed* to end up being cheap, seems it didnt really happen since i ended up getting ebtter quality stuff than i thought i was gonna.

oh and also, I get 90% of my computer gear from Scan. They have always been really good when i have ordered from them.

 

[Aastii]

much better imo.

the only difference i could tell between the Athlon II x4 and the Phenom II X4 was the lack of a L3 cache in the Athlon.

what Aastii put here would be one of the best choices available as a build without breaking the bank. The build in my sig was *supposed* to end up being cheap, seems it didnt really happen since i ended up getting ebtter quality stuff than i thought i was gonna.

oh and also, I get 90% of my computer gear from Scan. They have always been really good when i have ordered from them.

With the exception of my 2 storage drives, CPU Heatsink, video card and CPU, all of my components are from Scan, and most of the ones before that are from there too. The rest are from people off of other forums or old systems, my old video card from an Australian, my new video card from an American, my 200GB storage from a past HP system, my 320GB from an American in Germany, my heatsink from America and the only part new, from another etailer is my CPU, that was from OcUK.

The difference between Athlon II and Phenom II is just that, L3 cache, there isn't anything else that differs. That is, until you get to dual core CPUs, all Phenom II processors are quad cores with cores locked, which for Athlon II x3 and x4 CPUs is true, but for Athlon II x2, they do only have 2 cores on the die

 

[SC2RAGE!]

I have heard that AMD Tri cores are pretty good for gaming and you can possibly unlock the fourth core in BIOS. If you even need that fourth core...Doesn't have much cache but why would you need alot of cache for gaming?

OH AND NOTICE THIS -------GTX 460 is around the same price as an ATI Radeon HD 6850 and the 6850 is better than the GTX 460 so I recommend that. LOL just trying to keep AMD in this race with Nvidia and Intel even though AMD almost died....IMA LOL until my 50 years of age if AMD actually dominates the graphics and micro-processor region of computing.