Building a £500 gaming PC

[Guest]

I'm wanting a build a Gaming PC and have about £500-£600 to spend, but I don't really know where to start, can anyone help? P.S Im a Total War fan and am needing one with the ability to play Rome TW 2 and hopefully its successor's

 

[JRAtk94]

Coincidently, I have a design that fits your criteria perfectly.

I designed it for a friend, who is also a TW fan, but he can't pay for it anymore. Nevertheless, here is the design...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£88.79 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£68.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£52.10 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£65.10 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card (£149.99 @ Novatech)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.95 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.86 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £547.91

 

[Madn3ss795]

Do you need an OS? Monitor?

 

[JRAtk94]

Do you need an OS? Monitor?

I completely overlooked both of those factors :lol:

How daft.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'm fortunate to have a good OS and Monitor already, thank you so much for the help

 

[Madn3ss795]

A bit over 500, but will let you play your game maxed out at 1080p. Total Wars series is heavily CPU intensive, but can only utilize 1 CPU core, making an i5 sits at the sweet spot. The 7870 XT picked is almost as strong as a HD7950, while costs almost 50 less than a 7950 card. Good motherboard with many connectors, high quality PSU ( PSU ranked list here: http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx ), roomy mATX case that's also packed with 2 hi-performance XtraFlo fans :


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£142.79 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock B75 PRO3-M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£54.36 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: PNY XLR8 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£40.49 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£45.59 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7870 XT 2GB Video Card (£161.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Cooler Master NSE-200-KKN1 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£33.24 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: XFX 450W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£34.99 @ Maplin Electronics)
Total: £513.45
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 15:08 BST+0100)

@JRAtk94 still many things for your to learn

 

[Guest]

Im a big Pc gamer will it struggle with other games like the men at war series?

 

[Madn3ss795]

I don't think there'll be any problems unless you play at resolution bigger than 1080p. But if you do, or just want to spend all 600 for the strongest possible setup ( to make it future-proof ) then here you go:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£142.79 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock B75 PRO3-M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£54.36 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: PNY XLR8 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£40.49 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£45.59 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£219.00 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Cooler Master NSE-200-KKN1 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£33.24 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.86 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £585.33
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 15:27 BST+0100)

 

[Guest]

Thank you both that has helped a lot

 

[n1ghtr4v3n]

Here is my recommendation for your needs and budget. It will run anything just fine for quite sometime, you shouldnt be worried. Good luck...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor (£113.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.62 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme3 ATX AM3+/AM3 Motherboard (£83.43 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£49.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£72.98 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.39 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card (£131.59 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Zalman Z5 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£38.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£49.82 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £627.95
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 15:37 BST+0100)

Note: Compared to previous posts. I chose a slightly less strong cpu and graphics card to squeeze a SSD and Overclocking Ability in. For me, an overclocked 8320 will be better than a stock 3470. SSD real world performance will be loved for good and 650ti boost will run anything smooth in 1080p. Ofcourse you shouldnt go crazy with AntiAliasing and Anisotropic Filtering stuff.
But in the end its a personal choice. Peace..

 

[JRAtk94]

@JRAtk94 still many things for your to learn

Indeed! And it always seem to be you who "teaches" me 😛

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the posts this really help