Budget Gaming System for latest games

[afterburner]

Hi, I've been agonising long and hard over the components for a new build. My ideal realistic budget is £550 (max).

Anyways, this is what I've come up with:

Antec 300 - £55
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 125W C3 (Socket AM3) £ 93.99
G.SKILL RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz £ 69.49
Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3 AMD 880 (Socket AM3) DDR3 PCI - £ 68.99
Sony AD-5260S-0B 24x Internal DVD±R/RW Drive - £ 11.99
Zalman ZM600-ST 600W Two-Forward Switching Power Supply #39461 £ 53.45
VTX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £ 89.99
Samsung HD103SJ SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 3.5" Hard Drive £ 35.99

Comes to about £550.

No OS, and no MS Office either although I can probably get some cheap copies of those elsewhere.

If anyone can recommend anything I may have forgotten then that'd be appreciated: cooler for DDR3?, is that CPU necessary? - can I overclock a cheaper one?

Thx.

[sneeker]

That is all +vat though?

Other than that, looks like a ddr3 version of mine, the 955's overclock ok, mines at 3.82 at the moment.

[RawZ]

Not to discourage you from building your own awesome PC, but we offer a great budget gamer here

http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Range/Trident/Gladiator+Trident+Vanquish+4.50GHz+Quiet+Gaming+PC +?productId=41179

499.99 inc.

[wonderlust]

you may wish to look at a different PSU as this model hasn't had overly good reviews:-


For USD 25 less you can buy OCZ ModSTtream Pro 600 W, which provides better performance, comes with a modular cabling system and has video card connectors on separated cables. This unit from OCZ also has presented noise/ripple levels a little bit above what we’d like to see, but lower than ZM-600ST’s.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Zalman-ZM600-ST-Power-Supply-Review/981/1

Abeit Aria have the OCZ for £2ish more ;)

[afterburner]

Hi, that budget system looks like good value. However, I'm just wondering if I should go the little bit extra to ensure I've covered every base: i.e. min 500W PSU, a high ranking CPU (cpu benchmark), and maybe even SATA 3.

That would probably end up costing me £650 (still without OS or MS Office). Also, I'm not exactly an experienced builder and so wouldn't want to mess it up if I do a build myself.

[wonderlust]

the system Rawz linked to is a bargain, all built and the overclock done already.

Can't see you going far wrong with it.

[afterburner]

All unbiased views here of course - :)

[wonderlust]

All unbiased views here of course - :)

I am not an Aria employee!

I live something like 250 miles away lol

[waba]

he gets paid by aria in cats though...

[brendanb581]

Nice system, I wish i had the money to upgrade my parts. xD

[tentimes]

Why not go with a core 2 system, maybe an e8400 on the cheap and OC on air to 4Gig? System looks good though - just my personal pref - I think the 45nm core 2's OC cooler.

[theelusiveyoda]

he gets paid by aria in cats though...

the special dancing cat kind.




And to the op i would go for a x6 cpu much better in the long run.

[Will]

Why not go with a core 2 system, maybe an e8400 on the cheap and OC on air to 4Gig? System looks good though - just my personal pref - I think the 45nm core 2's OC cooler.

or not, core 2 is getting on now.

The Aria system is only a dual core if your into your gaming you'd want that quad Phenom II.

[Tyke2701]

Budget PC building, dig out an old PC mag from 12 months ago and look up the bets components at the time. Now look at what you can by them for today, you'll have a great PC and the costs will be suprising...........except for the memory which is a bit of a bitch at the moment due to global pricing.

I put together my last PC for no more than £40.00 per component with the exception of the hard drives which I keep buying (Samsung, but those are now less than £40)

M/B - Asus M2N SLI Delux, Memory 4Gb Corsair, Saphire ATI 512Mb 4870, OCZ 600W PSU, NZXT Case - excluding Hard Drives less than £200, I'm not an overclocking gamer, but I can run everything I've tried without any problems. Get a good monitor your going to spend a long time in front of it...