€300 Gaming Build

Bonesy.

nesf wrote: »

No, I've only bought good quality PSUs since I started building 10 years ago. You need steady, reliable power in anything as delicate as a PC, cheap power supplies don't guarantee this. If a power supply goes it can take out other components with it if it releases a surge of power on the 12V line and similar, so it's a really good insurance policy to take the power supply seriously and invest some money into it. This is especially true if you're going to be gaming and thus putting components and the PSU under strain.

That and you can get many years out of a good PSU.

But what if I got the case and swapped the PSU for a good one? Or is the case no good what so ever?

nesf

Bonesy. wrote: »

But what if I got the case and swapped the PSU for a good one? Or is the case no good what so ever?

This is a better and cheaper case: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-011-BX&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1850

Or get the Alpha version if you want more cooling potential down the line.

Bonesy.

This is the latest one I've put together, is it better then my previous one, could I get a better Gaming build for the same price and is everything compatible with each other? Sony 24x DVD-RW SATA Black Bare Internal Drive
In stock €16.45 Best Value Alpine 650W PSU 120mm Red Fan
In stock €17.18 AMD Phenom II X4 960T 3.0GHz 8MB 95W Black Edition
In stock €109.91 Gigabyte AM3 AMD 880G DDR3 mATX

In stock €64.46Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case (Black)
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 XMP
€39.85
Delivery (14.466kg) Free!
Total (inc VAT) €345.42

Monotype

PSU is not good, spend more on a good quality one. Even the 450W XFX has nearly as many amps on the 12V as well as higher efficiency. Don't believe the wattage ratings.

If I recall correctly, the 960t is not a bad processor as some people have had luck unlocking them to X6s. However, I don't really think dabs have any cheap AM3 boards that make them worthwhile over an intel board.

If it's a gaming build then where's the graphics card?

Bonesy.

Thought the intergrated graphics would do the trick for the moment but maybe not I'm smashed for money atm, and for the PSU yeh I'll get the 430W Corsair instead

Monotype

Don't you have another similar thread running?
Anything else other than minecraft and the sims? These will run fine on Intel current generation technology or the radeon 4250. With a bit of tweaking at least. That's more of low end gaming rather than medium.

As for the motherboard, I'm just thinking that if I were to buy an AMD board now, I'd really want the SB850 southbridge for the SATA 6Gbps and AM3+ compatibility. You could add in things like USB 3 and SATA 6Gbps later, but I'd keep an upgrade path open if possible. Cheaper boards on dabs have worse graphics though. Hardwareversand have a better selection overall, but the €30 postage would be too costly in this circumstance.
You could easily get a H61 board for the same price and an i3 - a dual core but with hyperthreading. It would trade blows with the AMD and be more efficient (although could lose out overall with overclocking and unlocking). The big advantage would be a far superior upgrade path.

nesf

Monotype wrote: »

Don't you have another similar thread running?
Anything else other than minecraft and the sims? These will run fine on Intel current generation technology or the radeon 4250. With a bit of tweaking at least. That's more of low end gaming rather than medium.

As for the motherboard, I'm just thinking that if I were to buy an AMD board now, I'd really want the SB850 southbridge for the SATA 6Gbps and AM3+ compatibility. You could add in things like USB 3 and SATA 6Gbps later, but I'd keep an upgrade path open if possible. Cheaper boards on dabs have worse graphics though. Hardwareversand have a better selection overall, but the €30 postage would be too costly in this circumstance.
You could easily get a H61 board for the same price and an i3 - a dual core but with hyperthreading. It would trade blows with the AMD and be more efficient (although could lose out overall with overclocking and unlocking). The big advantage would be a far superior upgrade path.

Better integrated graphics too with the H61 board?

Bonesy.

Monotype wrote: »

Don't you have another similar thread running?
Anything else other than minecraft and the sims? These will run fine on Intel current generation technology or the radeon 4250. With a bit of tweaking at least. That's more of low end gaming rather than medium.

As for the motherboard, I'm just thinking that if I were to buy an AMD board now, I'd really want the SB850 southbridge for the SATA 6Gbps and AM3+ compatibility. You could add in things like USB 3 and SATA 6Gbps later, but I'd keep an upgrade path open if possible. Cheaper boards on dabs have worse graphics though. Hardwareversand have a better selection overall, but the €30 postage would be too costly in this circumstance.
You could easily get a H61 board for the same price and an i3 - a dual core but with hyperthreading. It would trade blows with the AMD and be more efficient (although could lose out overall with overclocking and unlocking). The big advantage would be a far superior upgrade path.

That was a 150e budget a few weeks back, yeh I'd be playing the likes of FIFA 12, Valve games, Resi. It's just a coincedence I mentioned two low graphics games. I might just change the build and change the motherboard to a 1155, I want to upgrade to an i5 processor down the road and get a good Raedon graphics card, Problem is though I can never get a good i3 build without going over 400 with the case I like(Antec 900) I could get a cheap case with a window and buy the fans separate but it works out better if I just buy the 900.

Bonesy.

Also can someone explain Water Cooling and its advantages to me? Thanks!

Serephucus

On a €300 build? You haven't a hope.

Watercooling uses copper (usually) blocks in place of heatsinks. Water is fed through tubes, and absorbs heat from the copper, passes it to a radiator (which is cooled by fans) to get rid of the heat. The water is moved by a pump that's connected to your PSU.

You can get a decent CPU-only look for about €250-ish. Typically, you can get higher overclocks with much less noise.

nesf

Serephucus wrote: »

On a €300 build? You haven't a hope.

Watercooling uses copper (usually) blocks in place of heatsinks. Water is fed through tubes, and absorbs heat from the copper, passes it to a radiator (which is cooled by fans) to get rid of the heat. The water is moved by a pump that's connected to your PSU.

You can get a decent CPU-only look for about €250-ish. Typically, you can get higher overclocks with much less noise.

That and there's no point in watercooling a €300 build anyway given you won't have high quality overclocking friendly stuff in it.

Bonesy.

Alright thsanks

Monotype

nesf wrote: »

Better integrated graphics too with the H61 board?

IIRC on average, Celeron/Pentium HD graphics and HD2000 < 4250 < HD3000
Not sure how the 4290 in the 890GX boards compares.
The 4250 can usually be overclocked while the intel has some extra power in decoding videos. Neither are much of an advantage or will offer you a different experience.

Bonesy. wrote: »

That was a 150e budget a few weeks back, yeh I'd be playing the likes of FIFA 12, Valve games, Resi. It's just a coincedence I mentioned two low graphics games. I might just change the build and change the motherboard to a 1155, I want to upgrade to an i5 processor down the road and get a good Raedon graphics card, Problem is though I can never get a good i3 build without going over 400 with the case I like(Antec 900) I could get a cheap case with a window and buy the fans separate but it works out better if I just buy the 900.

As I said before, with valve games, you need very little and you could get by here. There's people playing Fifa 12 and RE5 with a 4250 on youtube so I suppose it is possible but detail is turned way down and it is probably on the edge of playability. If money was tight, yeah I suppose it could be done, really just a stop gap until you could afford a graphics card. It definitely wouldn't be enough for a lot of games out there.