Advice on New Setup (Gaming Orientated)

[PacMike]

Hi all,

I've been thinking for a while to upgrade my PC to run a few modern games. My PC has recently decided to give up the ghost, so I may as well upgrade earlier than planned. Therefore I haven't done much research into what would be a decent enough setup for me to get by with - help would be much appreciated!

I need a new mobo, RAM, processor, graphics card and psu. I'm thinking of buying second hand from the net for a budget of probably around £400.
Can anybody help give me some ideas on what I could/should buy?

As an idea of what sort of specs I'll need, here are a few links (please bear in mind these will probably be minimum spec, so I will most likely want slightly above the min spec to run smoothly and so I don't have to upgrade when new games are released):

Minimum Requirements - Information - Battlefield 3/BF3

Rage System Requirements and Rage requirements for PC Games

Crysis 2 System Requirements and Crysis 2 requirements for PC Games


Thanks in advance for any tips and advice!

 

[vistakid10]

I'm afraid for around £400 you're not going to get much But if you stretch your budget to about £500 you can get a nice bare-bones system.

MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard | P67A-C45-B3 - £82.99 - this is an ATX motherboard, I am assuming your case is big enough for ATX?
2nd Generation Intel® Core - £167.99 (that's a Core i5 2500K)
G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit | F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL - £44.99
Novatech Geforce GTX 560 OC 1024MB GDDR5 | NOV-560OC - £149.99
ThermalTake TR2 Series 800W 80 PLUS® Bronze Power Supply | TR-800P - £74.99
Total - £520.95

Alternatively you could use this CPU
2nd Generation Intel® Core (that's a Core i3 2120)

and then the system would cost £452.80, and maybe use a slightly less powerful PSU as 800W is kind of overkill for this system so maybe use a 650W and then it will be cheaper. That's about the best I can do.

 

[PacMike]

I'm afraid for around £400 you're not going to get much But if you stretch your budget to about £500 you can get a nice bare-bones system.

MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard | P67A-C45-B3 - £82.99 - this is an ATX motherboard, I am assuming your case is big enough for ATX?
2nd Generation Intel® Core - £167.99 (that's a Core i5 2500K)
G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit | F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL - £44.99
Novatech Geforce GTX 560 OC 1024MB GDDR5 | NOV-560OC - £149.99
ThermalTake TR2 Series 800W 80 PLUS® Bronze Power Supply | TR-800P - £74.99
Total - £520.95

Alternatively you could use this CPU
2nd Generation Intel® Core (that's a Core i3 2120)

and then the system would cost £452.80, and maybe use a slightly less powerful PSU as 800W is kind of overkill for this system so maybe use a 650W and then it will be cheaper. That's about the best I can do.

I've looked at buying second hand instead of brand new (like the prices you stated). I've had a quick check at similar sorts of spec as you mentioned, and managed to get to a total of around £350 for just over the minimums? But I wasn't 100% certain the hardware I looked at was the right sort of thing (hence I'm asking questions on here).
The case size isn't a problem, we have an abundance of cases in this house, some being perfectly big enough .
Sorry for my ignorance, but I don't really know too much about the differences in performance between processors. Would an i3 (assuming an i5 is a little too far out of my price range) be capable of running the sorts of games I mentioned?

 

[vistakid10]

Firstly, I don't think you're ignorant and the only stupid question is the question that isn't asked... an i3 would probably do you pretty well and a good substitute if you can't afford an i5, so go down those lines or consider looking at AMD if you want a cheap but pretty powerful CPU.

Yes, all the links are to brand new hardware, but of course if you can get the same sort of stuff second hand for £350 then that's the way I'd go providing it all works and you're OK about using second hand hardware. My experiences with second hand hardware have been good so far so definitely take that route if you want to. Just make sure the stuff you're buying hasn't been tampered with in any way and the CPU or graphics card has not been overclocked by some "enthusiast" to the point where it will melt and ruin your day. A good stable overclock is good, but sometimes overclocked stuff on eBay has been overclocked too far and they're selling it cheap for a reason.

What sort of hardware were you looking at earlier? You posted the links to the requirements of the games you wanted to play but didn't mention any hardware? When buying hardware you want to get the best you can for the cheapest price. If you're thinking about 4GB RAM over 8GB, go for 8GB. You can get good RAM really cheap these days as I think I've proven, I mean, £45 for 1600MHz 8GB DDR3 isn't bad at all, and of course 8GB offers you better future-proofing.

Anymore questions please feel free to ask!

 

[JCB1]

would you consider buying a PC from ebay? Im sure u will pick up a decent PC there

 

[PacMike]

Any idea how long an i3 would last me with gaming? I obviously don't want to buy an i3 only to find out it's useless with new games released in six months time
And well, I've got somebody helping me out who's away at the moment who can confirm for me if something is a good buy and would be wary for overclocked hardware, so I think I'm reasonably safe there.

I was going for 8GB of RAM, so no worries there either

Well, to give you an idea of the sort of thing i've looked at and been offered, I've posted a similar sort of post to this on the ocuk buyer's forum, and someone's offered to sell me an intel i5 - 750 processer, a gigabyte GA -P55-USB3 mobo and 8GB RAM (corsair vengeance) for £190.

In response to JCB, quite possibly. I might be able to pick up better and more reliable deals elsewhere, however.

 

[vistakid10]

Grab that i5 and 8GB RAM bundle as quick as you can before the price goes up, £190 is brilliant value for a bundle of that spec, so if you can, get it for £190! I think you'd have to search long ad hard to find a bundle with a quad-core CPU that strong and that much RAM for that price though. I bought my i5 760 as a bundle and it came with 4GB of generic Dual-Channel 1333MHz RAM (I added a further two sticks to get 8GB) and a horrible Foxconn motherboard, and it was about £270 if I remember correctly.

I'm not sure how long the i3 would last you as remember it is only a dual-core whereas the i5 750 and the 2500K are both quad-core i5s but it should do you for the next year or two I'd say until games really start taking advantage of the 4 or 6 cores most modern CPUs have to offer. I don't do a lot of gaming but I'm sure somebody who does a lot of gaming on their PC will correct me if I'm wrong there.

 

[PacMike]

I am doing, I've done a quick google and the i5 750 is £170 off amazon, so it seems like a deal that's too good to be true.

Fair enough. & thank you very much for all the advice!

 

[vistakid10]

yeah get the i5 and the 8GB RAM bundle cheap and then spend the rest of your money on a nice graphics card and a good PSU and you'll e happy for a while! Let me tell you, the i5 is pretty much a perfect CPU.