Guide - the Budget Gaming PC

coolmoose

Hi guys,

Have been reading through here the past few nights as I'm considering doing my first build, and I'm impressed at all of your abilities to put together such systems on a budget! Basically I have listed below what I require in this PC, can you recommend any components to me?

It will be mainly used for general computing and office tasks, internet, photo and graphic editing (Photoshop etc.), web design, media storage and server to HTPC and laptop, and as an actual media PC for the bedroom....needs to be a great all-rounder really. I'm not a PC gamer (Xbox) so gaming performace isn't important to me.

I would like it to have (if possible)

4GB RAM minimum
USB 3
Space to expand to 8TB (4 x 2 TB drives), will probably build it with 4 TB initially
Dual DVI/HDMI output (will be outputting to a 32" LCD at times for media, all other times it will be to a 19" Dell LCD at the mo until I can upgrade to dual 24" or something!)
Optical audio out
Plenty of USB ports and a few e-SATA ports
Built in card-reader that supports Compact Flash
DVD-RW drive
Built in WiFi and Bluetooth
Ability to add in PCI DVB-S and DVB-T cards in the future (not needed at the moment)


Budget is around €500, I really would like to keep it as low as possible though that will do what I need. I will need a case, and also Win 7 Home Premium (sister is a student so I think she can get a discounted version??) Have keyboard/mouse/monitor etc.

So any ideas for me? Thanks in advance!


edit:

1. I'd prefer to install the OS on a smaller SATA drive, and still have space for 4 x 2TB

Thanks!

Unregistered.

coolmoose wrote: »

(Photoshop etc.)

Definitely Photoshop?

coolmoose

Unregistered. wrote: »

Definitely Photoshop?

Yep, CS5 and Lightroom 3. Use Paint Shop Pro, Portrait Studio etc too.

Tom1991

Unregistered. wrote: »

What games do you play. Also, what do you have - monitor, OS, keyboard?

Wow ,team fortress alot of valve games

Unregistered.

Tom1991 wrote: »

Wow ,team fortress alot of valve games

Also, what do you have - monitor, OS, keyboard?

Tom1991

i have windows7 keyboards monitor mouse all the externals just looking for the best bang for buck inside a pc case .sorry for being vague

Marcus Suridius

I can get you a copy of Win 7 premium Coolmoose through a MSDN subscription someone I know has if you cant get one.

I made a budget PC when doing a FAS course about four years ago.

Intel Dual Core E2200 @ 2.2GHz Socket 775 - €80 Marx Computers.
2GB Single Channel DDR2 Western Digital - €40 Peats
IL9 Pro Socket 775 Abit Motherboard - €95 - Peats
Sony DVD-RW - €40 Maplins (Came with free Nero 6 which didnt work on Vista or 7)
C-Media PCI sound card - €50 Maplins
nVidia GeForce 7600GS - €85 Peats
Full ATX case - €50 Peats

I was making it as good as I could for as little as I could spend, the OS I used was a OEM of Window's XP. Got a monitor off a mate of mine.

The motherboard is SLi compatable, has four RAM slots 8GB total I think and hasn't given me any trouble in 4 years. I am going to be looking to upgrade the graphics card to a better GeForce one.

Tea_Bag

Marcus Suridius wrote: »

I can get you a copy of Win 7 premium Coolmoose through a MSDN subscription someone I know has if you cant get one.

I made a budget PC when doing a FAS course about four years ago.

Intel Dual Core E2200 @ 2.2GHz Socket 775 - €80 Marx Computers.
2GB Single Channel DDR2 Western Digital - €40 Peats
IL9 Pro Socket 775 Abit Motherboard - €95 - Peats
Sony DVD-RW - €40 Maplins (Came with free Nero 6 which didnt work on Vista or 7)
C-Media PCI sound card - €50 Maplins
nVidia GeForce 7600GS - €85 Peats
Full ATX case - €50 Peats

I was making it as good as I could for as little as I could spend, the OS I used was a OEM of Window's XP. Got a monitor off a mate of mine.

The motherboard is SLi compatable, has four RAM slots 8GB total I think and hasn't given me any trouble in 4 years. I am going to be looking to upgrade the graphics card to a better GeForce one.

make sure your PSU can handle an upgraded GPU.

dottsie

Hi guys! I know your probably sick of building pcs for people but yup you guessed it I'm looking for help. I read through some of the pages so I wouldn't have to bother you but nothing I found was really what I wanted .

I have a budget of 800 inc os(win7 64bit home) and delivery might be able to stretch to 850.Its going to be a gaming and multmedia pc. I play a lot of big games online and I use video editing and web designing software.I also want to hook it to my 42inch hd tv rather than a monitor(I can split screen it to play ps3 and have the pc on at the same time:D)


so here's a list of what I'd ideally want but feel free to change anything:

Processor: intel core i5-650 3.2ghz
motherboard: asus sabertooth 55i
ram: 4gb for now I will max out the 16gb when i get more money
graphics card:Club 3D HD5770 Radeon HD 5770 - 1 GB
Hdd: at least a 1T sata
dvd/blueray: sata blue ray+dvd player
sound card:creative sb x-fi titanium sound blaster
ports: 4/6 usb,1+firewire, hdmi,wifi,
cooling:whatever will handle this
power: 550w i guess?
case: whatever allows for all the ports and fits everything
Usb 3.0 would be nice but not essential.
No need for keyboard or mouse.


Thats just a rough outline of what I'd like,hope ye can find something along the lines f that.I was on the hardwareversand.de site but I just wasn't sure if everythig i picked was compatible.

Monotype

Maybe invest a bit more into the graphics card. Start thinking along the lines of the 1GB 460 or the 6850.

http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=39466
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=36451

Is there any reason for specifically wanting that motherboard? The colour scheme is different, but for the price it's lacking features available in others - USB 3, better sound, SATA 6Gbps. You'd need an add in card if you want USB 3 on that.

HUNK

Edit: Nevermind

Telos

Hi guys bit of a stupid question total noob to this building stuff just want some clarification, Op says P&P to Ireland is €30 when using www.hardwareversand.de. Is that for all the components in his pic? I assume it is but just want to make sure. Also if so how much do you think P&P whould increase by if a case was included in an order? Will most likely be a midi case if that helps. Thanks in advance.

deconduo

Shipping with HWVS is a flat €30 per order, no matter how much stuff you have or how heavy it is.

Telos

Oh wow thats cool. Thanks for the quick reply and clearing that up for me.

Telos

Sorry for DP but can you guys give me opinions on my first attempt at making a PC?

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4951/hardwareversanddemybask.png

Do these componenets go well together? Any that chould be changed/Are not needed? Anything missing? Thanks in advance ;D

deconduo

Stay away from 'Special Items' Thats their term for open box items. The few euro you get off the price isn't worth the risk of stuff being damaged or not lasting as long as they should.

The fan you picked is out of stock. You should always make sure all your components are ready to ship when you order, or you could be waiting weeks, as they wait for everything to be ready before sending it.

As for the actual parts, everything looks good. The 470 is pretty bad for heat and power, but thats a really good price for it. No hard drive or DVD drive so I assume you have them sorted.

Telos

Oh I see well the unopened is only €9 extra. I was also looking at the Sapphire HD 6870 1GB whould you consider it better or worse than the 470?

Regarding the fan is it best to have all the fans running at a similar rpm or whould having
2 at 1000rpm, 1 at 800rpm then another 1 at 1800rpm make any real difference?

deconduo

The 470 would be a small bit more powerful than the 6870. If you don't care about ESB bills then I would certainly get the 470 for that price. However the 6870 uses a good 70W less power under load which can add up to a lot of money if you are into gaming. Even just on idle, it will cost 10-20 euro a year.

Flaccus is the man to ask about fans, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make much of a difference.

sink

Friend asked me to spec him a budget gaming PC. His monitor is 1280x1024 and he will be playing the latest fps & rts games.

He has no over-clocking experience and not much computer knowledge. I live far away so I basically want something that will be very stable and won't cause me hassle having to help him fix problems.

This is what I came up with so far.



Total = €466.30 inc vat & free delivery

The Radeon HD 5770 at €104.95 seems a very good price but it is only 512mb when most reviews I have read are for 1gb models. How significant and impact will the smaller memory have on performance bearing in mind he will be gaming at a relatively low resolution?

I was aiming for €400 but went a little over any advice on trimming it down would also be appreciated.

Tea_Bag

sink wrote: »

Friend asked me to spec him a budget gaming PC. His monitor is 1280x1024 and he will be playing the latest fps & rts games.

He has no over-clocking experience and not much computer knowledge. I live far away so I basically want something that will be very stable and won't cause me hassle having to help him fix problems.

This is what I came up with so far.



Total = €466.30 inc vat & free delivery

The Radeon HD 5770 at €104.95 seems a very good price but it is only 512mb when most reviews I have read are for 1gb models. How significant and impact will the smaller memory have on performance bearing in mind he will be gaming at a relatively low resolution?

I was aiming for €400 but went a little over any advice on trimming it down would also be appreciated.

well, a simple problem you have is no PSU, but its gonna take a chunk out of the budget.
you could shave off €10 off your CPU, and get a slightly lower clocked athlon X3.
Id also swap the MoBo to this, saving a little bit more money.

is there anything you can source from his/her old PC?

dkmedia

The hd 5770 is overkill for that resolution, the hd 5550 (ddr3 version) or the hd 5670 would be perfect and they are cheaper. 512mb of video ram is ample for that resolution, the 1gb versions only come in handy at higher resolutions.

You don't seem to have a power supply included in the price, a quality 400w psu would be plenty for this build.

Make sure you shop around, I noticed that the dvd drive listed below is 26.50, I got the same one from dabs.ie for under 16euro.

I'd recommend pricing the components on dabs.ie, or misco.ie, you could try pixmania.ie as well but if anything goes wrong their customer service is terrible.

I've included an attachment which I have listed a similar build from dabs.ie for 406.79



add an extra 43.71euro if you do need a power supply, this one is the corsair cx430: http://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-memory-builder-series-cx430-430w-atx-psu-75S1.html?refs=52950000

sink

Yeah silly of me thanks for that. I had looked at the Corsair VX450W at €70 but must have forgot to add to basket. I will look around some other stores now that I have a good idea of spec.

Renn

Need a little bit of advice here. Looking to build a desktop for about €800, ideally don't want to go above that. Intending on ordering from hardwareversand.de also.

PSU - Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W €55.86
RAM - 4GB-Kit G-Skill RipJaws PC3-12800U CL7 €62.75
CPU - Intel Core i5-760 Box 8192Kb, LGA1156 €173.45
Motherboard - Undecided
Video/Graphics Card - Undecided
Harddrive - Undecided
Monitor - Samsung SyncMaster B2230H €136.53
Case and dvd burner - Undecided


Not even sure if what I've posted above is compatible with everything there. Is there anything else I need to get? Total newbie here. Thanks.

5uspect

Well first of all €800 isn't a budget build.

If you're going to spend nearly €200 on a CPU why not consider the shiny new Sandy Bridge CPUs. Mobos can be had for around 150 apparently.

Renn

Thanks, I've started a thread on it - didn't realise I posted it in the wrong section!

marco_polo

Jeebus just messing around on HVWS for a few minutes, you can sure get a fair bit of milage out of a little over €450 these days :eek:

Folks, I am thinking on building a budget media/gaming desktop for around E600 to use in my living room, hooked up by HDMI to a 42 full HD tv and surround sound. I plan to use it for internet, email, music/movie downloading & streaming, gaming, occasional light office work and dvd/blu ray playback. Im not looking for top end gaming performance, just to be able to play F1 2010 and similar new release PC games.
This is my first attempt at something like this and would appreciate any feedback on what i have put together will actually work and is overkill/underkill/parts missing for what i need:

thanks, Icky

AlmightyCushion

Deleted User wrote: »

Folks, I am thinking on building a budget media/gaming desktop for around E600 to use in my living room, hooked up by HDMI to a 42 full HD tv and surround sound. I plan to use it for internet, email, music/movie downloading & streaming, gaming, occasional light office work and dvd/blu ray playback. Im not looking for top end gaming performance, just to be able to play F1 2010 and similar new release PC games.
This is my first attempt at something like this and would appreciate any feedback on what i have put together will actually work and is overkill/underkill/parts missing for what i need:

thanks, Icky

Ditch the sound card and network card. The ones built into the motherboard should more than suffice.

sink

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Ditch the sound card and network card. The ones built into the motherboard should more than suffice.

Certainly the network card but as he's using it in the living room the discrete sound card coupled with a half descent set of speakers would be better for music, movies and games than the integrated audio. He particuarily needs the Dolby Digital Live feature of the card to get true surrond sound from the S/PDIF output. The digital out of the mobo will only do stereo or passtrough.

AlmightyCushion

sink wrote: »

Certainly the network card but as he's using it in the living room the discrete sound card coupled with a half descent set of speakers would be better for music, movies and games than the integrated audio. He particuarily needs the Dolby Digital Live feature of the card to get true surrond sound from the S/PDIF output. The digital out of the mobo will only do stereo or passtrough.

Does it? Didn't realise that. The one on my motherboard does 5.1 perfectly fine, I just assumed all the others would as well.