£500 Budget - new PC for gamin

KTJ_2

As the title suggests, I need a new PC. It has to be able to play the latest games.

I would prefer to buy the components separately but unfortunately I've lost touch with whats good and whats not in the world of computing

so...can someone tell me what the best motherboard, CPU & fan, Graphics card and case is for my budget of £500.

I already have a monitor, keyboard, mouse & 5.1 sound card & other peripherals so I dont need those.

Gib_Gib

7300gt ddr 3 £58
gigabyte s3 £64
160gb hdd £30
geil 512x 2 1gb ddr2 pc6400 £96
E6300 £117
xilence 550 psu £40
Arctic cooling freezer 7 £17
Lian-Li PC-7 £56

Should be good

possibly swap motherboard for an Asrock conroe board for £30 and spend the money on a 7600gt for £100

johnmcn

I bought a new pc a few weeks ago,i upped the original spec but even the base system is fine for playing all new games..Its £599 inc xp , delivery and vat which imho is hard to beat if you intend on building your own..

# Intel Core 2 Duo 6300
# Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (SP2)
# Intel P965 + ICH8 PCIe Motherboard
# ATi Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
# 1024MB DDR2 PC5300 Memory
# 320GB Hard Drive Serial ATA II
# 18x DVD±RW DVD Writer
# NSK4400 Mini Tower Silent Cool ATX Case
# 380W High-efficiency ATX12V v2.0 Power Supply
# 1.44MB Floppy Drive
# 8-Channel High Definition Audio
# 10/100/1000Mbps LAN
# 8 x USB 2.0

http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductDetail.aspx?StockCode=PCSCENCB6300&CategoryId=5.18&Link=SpecialOffers

Gib_Gib

I must say that I do rate gladiatorcomputers very highly is you do want to go the prebuilt route.
Yet using the gladiator computers case and psu (thus saving £40)

7600gt £100
gigabyte s3 £64
160gb hdd £30
geil 512x 2 1gb ddr2 pc6400 £96
E6300 £117
Arctic cooling freezer 7 £17
SK4400 Mini Tower Silent Cool ATX Case
380W High-efficiency ATX12V v2.0 Power Supply £60

All this would come in at £484.
I assume you still have your old dvd rom and copy of windows.
johnmcn's pc would be VERY hard to build for that money and if you are willing to save up another £100 its a nice option.

Darksun

The latest games need a good graphics card and processor - I'd look at adding at least £200-300 onto your budget if you want to avoid an upgrade a year down the line.

Darksun

The latest games need a good graphics card and processor - I'd look at adding at least £200-300 onto your budget if you want to avoid an upgrade a year down the line.

Gib_Gib

Personally I would say that the E6300 processor is a very good one.

As for graphics cards in the long term, I would find it hard to recommend any cards apart from the 8800gts or gtx but cost £315 and £390 (from pcnextday) since these are the only directx 10 cards out. When someone wants to spend £500 on a pc, I find it quite hard to recommend spending £315 of that on the gfx.

7300gt or 7600gt are fine for the money.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/11/07/the_best_video_cards_for_your_money_uk/ - nice gfx card comparison

webhamster

no direct x 10 games at present so forget about the highs of having any cards , shows up people for being clueless ie blingers that are really mingers or a salesman.

Get your self one of the last remaining socket 939 boards with agp and maybe pci e 40 quid , get 2 gig of ram matched 512 sticks of ddr 400 cas 2.5 £160 to unlock motherbaord multichannel goodness , and decent retail dual core 64 bit amd chip 4400 x2 with the 1mb BUT not the 4600 with 512 for £160.Get a 7800 gs agp card preferably a gainward for just under £200 rather than a 7600 i tested both last week and the 7800 was more than 4x better in the real world.A Decent ide hd costs less than its sata counter part in the performance version , theres not so much a noticable difference than sata for gaming unless your raiding and even then its less than a second for load times , good sata drives cost money that could be used elsewhere where as for gaming numbers its ram , cpu and most inportantantly vga when talking games.

Should be able to get that for under 520 ex hd , reduce the price by getting a non x2 chip and save nearly a 100 if you get a retail 4000 amd chip.

Gib_Gib

I see no point in recommending someone to buy pc parts that are at the end of their life cycle and ddr, slot 939, ide and agp are all old technology.

And 7800gs might well be better than a 7600gt, but its also twice the price.
For that money you would have to recommend a x1950pro which trounces the 7800gs.

The setup that I or johnmcn recommended both have an upgradeable future, webhamster has just come out with an answer which was correct around 2 years ago.

There are many highs in the 8800 gtx and gts and one of them is the fact that can run DX10, I am not suggesting you should buy one. DX10 is going to kick in when Vista comes out early next year, until this appears there will be no dx10 games. But the 8800gtx is the most powerful card out there and the fact that it runs dx10 is a plus. If someone was going to spend £300 on a gfx card I believe that a 8800gts is the best buy.

By the way I am not clueless or a blinger definitely not a minger or a salesman, but thank you all the same.

wolfman

I'd go with Gib Gib.

In fact I have a Core 2 Duo myself, an E6300, overclocked @ 2.8Ghz. Check these benchmarks out:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802&p=11

And that's with the E6300 at 2.59Ghz, mines at 2.8Ghz. It idles at around 40C and goes to 50C under load. Not too bad, I've got most of my fans at 5v or 7v.

So without a doubt the E6300 is the best value cpu if you're overclocking. Even if you're not it's still a better choice than most AMD's. The Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (cpu heatsink/fan) is the best choice too for someone on a budget.

If you do want to overclock I wouldn't get a nVidia card. Some of them have limiters which can stop you overclocking, or at least cause problems. Pick up an equivalent ATI card. Something like an X1900GT shouldn't break the bank.

Also you need to make sure you get ram that can run at 1.8v. If you google around or ask on here again there'll be plenty of suggestions. I'd go for 1gb if I were you. 512mb is a little light, and 2gb is overkill.

For cases, the Antec Sonata II is very good bang for your buck. £80 and it comes with a pretty reasonable 450W psu. Well built case, cools well and is designed at being silent.

KTJ_2

thanks everyone.