Building gaming pc.

DonOcelot

1. What is your budget? [€500]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming, Day Z being the whole reason, but also to try older games with mods i.e. Half-Life, GTA, Oblivion, Fallout 3 etc...)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [No]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [DVD Drive/Case (fujitsu siemens scaleo p) Dont mind buying new case if needed]

5. Do you need a monitor? [No]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [n/a]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [Going to use my 32'' HD Ready Technika Tv (tesco) that i use for my PS3, not sure what exact res that is though] [No]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Wireless Card]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [No]

8. How can you pay? [Credit Card]

9. When are you purchasing? [Hopefully Friday 23rd this month]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [Building myself]

Just like to add, i have been gaming since i was a kid but never ventured into the PC side of things, only the likes of Football Manager, strategy games, old adventure games and little puzzle games. But a few weeks ago while doing my usual glance thru EDGE magazine in Tesco i came across an article on "Day Z", it was the type of game that the moment you see it you realize it was one of those game concepts you've always wanted someone to make. After watching youtube vids and talking about it with a friend who plays it, i was determined it was time to get a gaming pc.
I know it runs on ArmA 2 and is a bit requirement heavy but i only want to play it smoothly and to look decent, nothing spectacular. That stands for any game. In the future i will buy more powerful cpus and graphic cards and whatnot, but for now i need the cheapest way to play that game smoothly.

I know a fair bit about computing but when i started looking at all the varieties of cpus, graphic cards, motherboards etc.. on the likes of custompc.ie, uk sites, that german one people mentioned etc.. i was soon out of my depth. After browsing on here the last few days and then seeing guys posting links for this form filling concept i was delighted, i really appreciate how you guys go out of your way to help guys out. Thanks.

Sorry for my life story...

DonOcelot

Right, i was on that german site and after a few hours of picking each component then researching it over and over, learning about power input, apu's, atx and m-atx, am3 and fm2, intel vs amd etc... ive gathered what i think would do for a solid enough gaming pc.
Could one of you guys with much better knowledge of this stuff kindly give it a glance and tell me what you think of it. Thanks.

Fluffy88

I would go for something like this instead, a little over budget but I'll get to that

Item|Price
8GB-Kit Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1333 CL9|€32.62
WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3 6Gb/s|€54.15
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€32.10
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€42.35
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€88.19
Intel Core i3-3220 Box, LGA1155|€108.14
HIS HD 7850 GDDR5 1024MB DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP|€157.48
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€534.02

Firstly the Power Supply (PSU).
If there is one component in your PC where you shouldn't ever cut back to save a few Euro it's the PSU. I can't really comment on the one you have chosen as I know nothing about it, but my assumption is it's crap :P The Super-Flower Amazon is a good quality quiet PSU and pretty cheap too.

CPU
I went with an Intel processor as they offer a little better performance and more upgrading options since you could eventually slap in an i5-3570K or i7-3770K. The i3-3220 trade blows performance wise with the AMD pulling ahead for multi-threaded applications and the i3 being slightly better for single threaded stuff. IMO with the better upgrade options of the Intel, it's the better buy.

HDD
Hard drives have quite a high failure rate so you might aswell get a decent brand one.

If you wanted to bring the price back down below budget you can drop the GPU back to a 7770
Get a slightly cheaper motherboard such as this one, http://lb.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/69551/MSI+ZH77A-G41%2C+Intel+Z77%2C+ATX%2C+DDR3.article
And get 4GB of RAM.

DonOcelot

First thing first, thanks Fluffy88, appreciate the advice.

530 is kinda pushing it, also i will have to pay roughly €15 because i will be using paypal, so that makes roughly 550.
What i take from your changes is that you're sacrificing a little power for reliability and an eye on the future, which i guess i am probably better off doing it that way.

I have 3 questions:
1. Will 450w be enough, i got the general impression by reading around that 500w was the minimum for gaming, or is that just when you plan to overclock? Also, whats the downside if i went for a cheaper one, whats the chances of something going wrong?

2. On my travels over the last two nights ive learned that Intel is for performance but Amd gives more bang for the buck, so i was going to get an intel one but then read in a lot of places that intel keep changing their design or something like that, making upgrades more expensive because you have to buy a whole new motherboard to use their latest chip, whats the story with that?

3. RAM, would i not be better getting faster 4gb ram instead, at 1600, instead of the 8gb at 1330 or does those speeds not make that much of a difference?

I will be making my purachase next tuesday instead, hopefully, so i will be tweaking till then from what i learn on here and across the web. The one you laid out above, do you know how that will perform for DayZ?

Again thanks man and sorry for all the questions but i just try to learn as much as i can when getting something like this.

Fluffy88

An overclocked i5-3570K with a 7970 draws 450 watts so unless you plan to upgrade to a €400 graphics card and overclock everything you will be perfectly fine on 450 watts. If that is what you plan on doing you can get the 550W Super-Flower Amazon instead. PSU Calculator

With RAM especially on a budget the frequencies don't make a big difference and even more so on an Intel system so just get whatever fits your budget. Since 500 is above budget get the RAM you selected or this stuff http://lb.hardwareversand.de/1333+Low+Voltage/29674/4GB-Kit+G-Skill+PC3-10667U+CL9.article it will help pull things back down a bit and you won't have a problem running with 4GB RAM atm and you can always upgrade it later for very cheap.

Intel have been using the LGA 1155 socket for two generations of their consumer level products now. Sandybridge and Ivybridge both use this socket. Next year Intel will be releasing it's new CPUs and along with them a new Socket where as AMD will be releasing at least one more generation of CPUs for their current socket. So your right, the motherboard I selected is at it's end of life.
But the big difference is, the i5-3570K is a better CPU than anything AMD has out atm and any new processors AMD release will probably only be on par with it's Ivybridge counterparts. So when you do need to upgrade you can upgrade to an already known good CPU, either the 3570K or the 3770K and overclock them getting a lot of extra power over the i3.

The only other thing I would say is, using Paypal is a waste of money!! Just do a bank transfer, it's much safer and very easy to do. If you have online banking it's almost the same as using paypal anyway, so why waste 3%??

Item|Price
WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3 6Gb/s|€54.15
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€32.10
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€42.35
Intel Core i3-3220 Box, LGA1155|€108.14
HIS HD 7850 GDDR5 1024MB DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP|€157.48
2 x 2GB G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€16.74
MSI ZH77A-G41, Intel Z77, ATX, DDR3|€72.66
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€502.61

This build I have dropped the motherboard back and the RAM.
I would nearly consider going with the original one instead but dropping the GPU down to a 7770, it will save about €50 bringing you under budget and will still play DayZ pretty well with decent settings too. Sorry I don't have a benckmark for DayZ but here is a bench for a few other games. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/536

DonOcelot

Right, man this exactly the kinda stuff i wanted to know. Especially regarding the cpu's.
Also thanks for that link, very handy site.

Thanks a lot for your help, really appreciate it.
Now i'll mull over this for the weekend, although i'll probably be back soon with 100 questions.

rog871

Hi Guys,

I am hoping I can get some advice on this.
I have been wanting to build my own Gaming PC for a while now. I have decided to go for it and I have a budget of €800.



I would love any advice you could give me on how to improve this, save money, or even tell me if everything is compatible. I intend to use this for Gaming(on top settings) and general use. I also intend on overclocking.

Also having trouble deciding on a case and PSU.

Any thoughts? :pac:

JackieChan

Hi Rog,
It would be best to create a new thread for assistance.

rog871

Good idea,
Thanks