Gaming rig for >£600

[jcbdrzr]

This will be my first custom built pc.
I'm looking to spend £600 maybe slightly more...
this price does not include moniter.. but I could stretch my budget
to £650 for OS.

I was looking currently at:
Dual Core CPU maybe the E6750
500-600w PSU
nVidia 8000 series GPU or ATI X1950
200GB or higher HDD
2GB ram
I'm not too sure on MoBo but ive heard Asus Pk5 is good.
Windows XP Professional or Vista Basic 32bit.
Don't know about the case yet.



Please bare in mind this is my first time building a PC, and I am the UK.

Thanks for your help.

[nicky munchkin]

Remove link, Kustom PC's is a shop, not fair to pimp other sites, etc. etc.

[ali_james]

You'll have to get rid of that link before someone gets very mad because you didn't read the forum rules..

I've built a new system recently and it should be finished for aprox. £600. I went for:

Q6600
IP35-Pro motherboard
2 gigs of Corsair XMS2 6400 ram
Scythe Infinity cooler
Load of Sharkoon fans

Kept my original 7900 gto graphics card which will be upgraded to 8800 gt when they appear in stock.
Already had case, Antec SLK 3000
Harddrives, but they've been replaced with a new 500 gb Samsung :)
And finally kept my Hiper 580 watt psu.

The performance is great at stock, I haven't even contemplated overclocking the cpu which runs nice and cool with the big heat sink.

[jcbdrzr]

link removed.
I will be building the entire PC from scratch
as my old one is about 6 years old. :(

[nicky munchkin]

Go Quad core, much more future-proof. Q6600 is £160. 2gb Ram is a must. Maybe 4gb if your gaming and using Vista (you'll loose a small percentage of that ram if your going to use 32bit Windows). Why an 8xxx series card or a 1950? The 2900XT ATI cards are the ones comparable to the 8xxx series (both DX10). The 8800GT is the king atm, because its £150, and nearly as good as nvidia's £400 cards, saying that, AMD's new 3xxx cards are out soon, which support DX10.1 and will probably be cheap and powerful.

Why XP Pro or Vista Basic? Vista Business is the comparable edition to XP Pro. Vista Home Premium is the best edition for the money, comes with Aero, Media Centre etc. Although for gaming, Vista Basic uses less RAM. Your looking at 250gb+ of storage if your going to be gaming, and at the price of hard drives today you can pick up 250gb for £40.

[saltynay]

Windows Xp MCE if you don't mind losing the glirz of Vista for the performance increase of XP

[jcbdrzr]

* XP Home Edition
* Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU
* 320MB nVidia 8800GTS Graphics Card with Dualink DVI-I
* 2GB (2048MB) 533Mhz PC4200 DDR2 Ram
* 320GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
* 500 Watt Cooler Master Dual 12 V Rail PSU


I can get this for £750 as a package bundle. Comes with 20" TFT moniter, keyboard, mouse and speakers. Good deal or should I buy in parts separately
and build my own?

[ali_james]

Based on the facts it's carrying an 8800 gts I wouldn't. You can get a better card, in the 8800 gt for less.
RAM isn't that quick either and likely to be generic el cheapo stuff which could limit any overclocking ambitions you have.
Building it yourself is much more rewarding. It's also better as you can spend that little more and know you've got a good system and not have to worry about upgrading and spending heavily in the near future.

[nicky munchkin]

Definately build it yourself, RAM and Graphics are poor for that price.

Think your gonna have to compromise the CPU if you want the lot, including a decent graphics card, monitor, and XP for £600-650.

[Modd1_uk]

+1 ^, personally ide rather have the better pc and save extra for a monitor.

[jcbdrzr]

Thanks for the support.
I'm sure I could run it on my old dell moniter while I save up for a TFT.
I have had another look, and I think im going to stick with this.

CPU: Intel E6550 CPU @ 2.33GHz 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache 64-bit
Mobo: (Quad-Core Supports) ECS P965T-A P965 Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1066 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394& 7.1Audio
Memory: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Memory w/ Heat Spreader)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
HHD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
PSU: NZXT PP500 500WATT PERFORMANCE POWER ATX 2.0 POWER SUPPLY

Or looking from the AMD angle.

CPU: (Socket AM2) AMD Athlon™64 X2 6000+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
Mobo: (Socket AM2)MSI K9N Neo-F V3 nForce 560 Chipset DDR2/800 SATA-II RAID 16x PCI-Express MBoard w/GbLAN, USB2.0, & 7.1Audio
Memory: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Memory w/ Heat Spreader)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
PSU: 580 Watts Power Supplies (Hiper Type-M SLI/Crossfire Ready 580 Watt Power Supply)

I can order all these parts for £600 for both systems. Then just get my moniter later.

[Fireblade]

Can you interchange components?
If you can... I'd suggest swapping the PSU listed in the Intel (/1st) system, with the PSU in the AMD (/2nd) system.

And how much more would a 500GB hard drive add to the price? 500GB drives are probably the best £/GB just now.


Whatever... the Intel system would undoubtedly be the better choice.

[jcbdrzr]

I could change the PSU, but not the mobo. I think its AMD compatible only.
500gb would add about £20 to the price, but I don't need much HDD.
I could maybe strech a better Mobo.. maybe a Asus M5K, but that would cost £30-40 more.

[Fireblade]

I could change the PSU, but not the mobo. I think its AMD compatible only.

It is... which is why I never mentioned swapping over the mobo :D



500gb would add about £20 to the price, but I don't need much HDD.You might not need it right now... but it's surprising how quickly HDD space can get used up, if you start installing a number of games, +/or download (i.e.) game demos/video trailers etc, regularly?




I could maybe strech a better Mobo.. maybe a Asus M5K, but that would cost £30-40 more.M5K :confused:

Assuming you meant a P5K... it would be a good upgrade... but really only worthwhile if you need/would use the additional features such boards offer?

[jcbdrzr]

The difference between the first and second system
was only the mobo and PSU :/

But I might aswell get the P5k sorry about my poor spelling.
Although it costs about an extra £50 than the other mobo.
Are there any good reliable mobo's that dont cost to much. and whats am I looking out for. I always find its the hardest part to buy.

Thanks

[nicky munchkin]

The difference between the first and second system
was only the mobo and PSU :/

But I might aswell get the P5k sorry about my poor spelling.
Although it costs about an extra £50 than the other mobo.
Are there any good reliable mobo's that dont cost to much. and whats am I looking out for. I always find its the hardest part to buy.

Thanks
ASRock, made by Abit are around £30- £40. There are also various cheap Asus boards for £30- £40.

[Modd1_uk]

Have you considered the gigabyte DS3 ? this is the latest revision

http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2456

Excellent mobo and overclocks REALLY well. i have the same mobo but revision 2.