Living room gaming PC

[Srober99]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some help - I've always been a console gamer but have decided a PS4 makes no sense next to a new PC build. That said, I have no experience of putting together a PC system!

I would like to set up a new PC in my living room (so must be fairly quiet) to serve as a gaming machine and media centre on my HD TV.

I want to be able to play Watchdogs (best benchmark I can think of) when released, and would ideally only like to spend a couple of hundred pounds on upgrades before replacing the whole system when new consoles are released. Essentially, I don't want the system to become incapable of playing games at high settings in 2-3 yrs time.

I've got about £600 to spend. Is this doable? If so, how so?

Thanks for your help!

 

[AMD Radeon]

it is doable, you can start from here

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B85M-G43 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£49.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£61.85 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£186.98 @ Dabs)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£32.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.72 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £550.49
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-19 19:59 GMT+0000)

and use this tutorial
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274745-31-step-step-guide-building

 

[HiTechObsessed]

Can get a 770 instead going AMD, and if you don't overclock, the 212 EVO will be very quiet:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£77.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.45 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£47.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£61.85 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (£238.04 @ Aria PC)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£38.65 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.72 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £582.64
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-19 20:06 GMT+0000)

 

[sora]

Go for a GTX760/770 or go for a R9 280/290, it really depends on your brand preference for a graphics card.

I'd personally go for HiTech's build, the 212 EVO is GREAT for the price.

 

[Srober99]

Thanks guys, that's a really helpful start. Would you recommend a SSD or is that not too important? A couple of people have told me installing my OS and games on this will make a big difference.

 

[Icaraeus]

An SSD makes a significant difference in terms of booting, restarting, updating and general use of a computer. It is an amazing investment if you have the money for it. You only really need 120GBs for an SSD, for installing the OS and having some space for any software you wish to install. In terms of gaming, there is a very minimal (if any) improvement in load times comparing HDDs to SSDs - a HDD is perfectly fine. I'd recommend to you the Samsung 840 EVO 120GB (less than $90 in US and $100 in Australia), though you'd need to increase your budget or compromise your other parts if you wish to use one.

This may not be completely accurate but when I used my laptop it took between 40 secs-2 minutes to start up, and up to 5 minutes updating. This was with the stock HDD, whatever it was. My custom PC I built last month that contains a Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD takes around 5-8 seconds to start up.