Gaming pc for son - please look at this deal

jackywhizz

Hi. Son is keen to get a gaming pc for birthday/Christmas. Our budget is tight so max we can afford is £500 which really isn't enough tbh.

Have found this on ebuyer which seems to be a much better spec than anyone else is offering for the price.



Far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth but I am thinking that although it has a good processor and graphics card that the rest of the kit maybe cheap and let it down.

Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully received.

gonzo127

seems ok
http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/weekly_sales_I/

this appears to be the same system direct from cyberpower so you can see roughly what other parts are included, although you have to drop the fx6200 to the fx4170 to get the same price, however buying direct might give you other options to 'play' with, such as dropping to the 4100 and doing a manual overclock yourself (it is easy enough and plenty of guides) and so free some money up for a upgrade else where

Cisco001

I would recommend intel i5 over amd

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=1570

CPU: NEW! Intel Core i5 3470
Included
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows 8 Standard 64-bit
Included
Motherboard: NEW! Asus P8B75-M LX
£8.80
RAM: 4GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (1x4GB)
£6.20
Hard Drive: 500GB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Included
Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Included
Graphics card: NEW! AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB
£7.90
Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio
Included
Case: Xigmatek Asgard
Included
PSU: 400W Xigmatek
Included
Warranty: 3 Year SureCare Warranty
Included

gonzo127

the intel one is a better processor, however bare in mind dino charge a £25 delivery charge which would take the system above the £500 budget,

however i have just noticed now i have had a bit more time, the one direct from cyberpower doesnt come with windows included in the price, which when included takes it well over the budget but at least it gives a good indication of whats included with the ebuyer one. however as stated the Dino one does have the better processor

rtho782

For gaming the GPU is going to make far more difference than the CPU. I've just built a PC for a friend from Novatech for £450, off the top of my head, the components were:

Their i3-2320/msi motherboard/4gb ram bundle at £149
Radeon 7870 @ £189
500gb hdd
650w PSU

Yes it's only a dual core with 4gb ram but normal 32bit processes (99.9% of games) can only address 2gb ram and the GPU makes far far far more difference than the CPU for gaming.

Also, bear in mind the AMD FX series have half the amount of FPUs. So an AMD "quad core" is 2 bulldozer modules, and in many ways is equivalent to a dual core with hyperthreading.

jackywhizz

Thanks very much for your help everyone. You have given me a lot to think about. Rtho thanks for the technical explanation. I will now sit down with my son and discuss the options.

bluesnake

ask your son.

I would be surprised if his old games work on windows 8. Some of his games may need a specific variety of graphics cards.

he may be happier with his current set up a and upgrading to an ssd with a good graphics card

gonzo127

rtho782 wrote: »

For gaming the GPU is going to make far more difference than the CPU. I've just built a PC for a friend from Novatech for £450, off the top of my head, the components were:

Their i3-2320/msi motherboard/4gb ram bundle at £149
Radeon 7870 @ £189
500gb hdd
650w PSU

Yes it's only a dual core with 4gb ram but normal 32bit processes (99.9% of games) can only address 2gb ram and the GPU makes far far far more difference than the CPU for gaming.

Also, bear in mind the AMD FX series have half the amount of FPUs. So an AMD "quad core" is 2 bulldozer modules, and in many ways is equivalent to a dual core with hyperthreading.

well building your own system is pretty much always better, and the spec you have put up is nice however your spec doesnt seem to include windows or some other bits which would take it over budget,

as £80 for windows,
plus a optical drive at £14,
case £30-50 for a case with decent enough cooling to power such a big GPU,
a better PSU than the cheap novatech 650w one as really when looking at powering a high powered GPU such as the 7870 long term will require a good quality PSU in the region of £50 or more, yes the cheap ones will power it but probably not for much above 1 year, and when a PSU blows up it can take the entire system with it!

so overall that system would cost in the region of £600-650, dropping it down to the £500 budget would require a reduction in some parts with the biggest spend being the 7870 that would be the most likely candidate for a reduction, and in doing so could maybe look at slightly lower PSU and not as good a case, but to drop it back to budget you would probably be looking at having to drop it to the 7850 or even 7770 which is included in the prebuilts that have been suggested, which when looking at having to 'drop' to a i3 and 'only' 4gb ram doesnt make it quite as good of a deal

also remembering that a GPU upgrade is generally easier then a CPU upgrade (due to CPU socket incompatability) if in a couple of years the system starts struggling with things

jaydeeuk1

bluesnake wrote: »

ask your son.

I would be surprised if his old games work on windows 8. Some of his games may need a specific variety of graphics cards.

he may be happier with his current set up a and upgrading to an ssd with a good graphics card

Que? Why wouldn't his older games work with win 8 if it works on xp, vista, 7? And even more so, what 'variety' of graphics cards are you on about? And if he was to be happier with his current setup, he would have said so. I'd imagine current computer offers little to no upgrade path, and in the long term a new setup would be more cost effective. As mentioned above, GPU makes far more difference to gaming than CPU, and both have far more impact than an SSD.

One option could be a prebuilt from ebuyer like a zoostorm, however the PSU are a bit naff for when you come to add a graphics card.

Best option imo is to get something customised, market incredibly competive nowadays so you'll get decent value for money, £500 for just a base unit should give you pretty punchy computer