Building a mid-range gaming PC

[nrage]

Hi,

So I have recently arrived in the UK and am looking to put together a PC for some gaming. Obviously I want to get the most I can for my money and I have a budget of perhaps £1000, though I would like to stay closer to £800 if possible.

I'd like to source it all from one store/place if I can. I have been looking at tekheads.co.uk but they are missing the LCD display (for example).

I have done some research and come up with this list of components. The important parts being MB, CPU, GPU and LCD. The DVD, PSU and Case are less important (but I still want a reliable PSU and a Case with adequate cooling) and the KB and Mouse almost irrelevant (I'm not serious enough to go for a hardcore gaming KB or Mouse, or I might do that at a later stage).

My basic questions are:

- Is there a piece of equipment below which you would avoid?

- Do you know of a better piece of equipment for a similar price?

- Is there some problem with the system as it stands? i.e. not enough cooling

Anything you guys can comment on will be helpful, thanks in Advance!

nRage.

£93.94 - Asus M2N32 SLI Deluxe

£138.65 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, dual core, socket AM2, 3GHz

£81.06 - Crucial 2GB (2x1gb) Ballistix CL4

£68.15 - Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache

£19.96 - Samsung SH-S183A S-ATA 18x18 Dual Layer DVD-Rewritable Black

£155.45 - ViewSonic VX922

£145.00 - Club 3D ATI Radeon X1950XT Arctic X2 512MB

£3.29 - Windows Keyboard Black USB

£3.99 - Genius X-Scroll Mouse USB

£46.99 - Hiper HPU-4M530 SLI Ready 580W ATX2.2 PSU - Black

£39.95 - Coolermaster Centurion 532 Black - No PSU

TOTAL £796.43

 

[Mr. Smith]

Get a Core2Duo. They overclock like a charm and outperform the AMD's.

2.4ghz e6600 is about £130. Clock it to around 3.3-3.6 and you are flying. Hell, I'd sell you mine for a £100 lol.

Get the cellshock sticks for £95, see in my sig, XMS review and Kemps sig what they can do, over 1000mhz

Gotta go mate, I'll get back on this when i get home

 

[nrage]

Get a Core2Duo. They overclock like a charm and outperform the AMD's.

2.4ghz e6600 is about £130. Clock it to around 3.3-3.6 and you are flying. Hell, I'd sell you mine for a £100 lol.

Get the cellshock sticks for £95, see in my sig, XMS review and Kemps sig what they can do, over 1000mhz

Gotta go mate, I'll get back on this when i get home

Assuming I went with Core2Duo, what Mobo would you recommend?

In order to overclock like that what cooling would I need and what would that cost? I'll be honest I haven't previously done any overclocking but I do understand the basics.

nRage

 

[Ham]

Swap out the AMD for c2d parts as Mr Smith says. Mobo, go for the P5K-E or (prob better) IP35-Pro

If you've got a grand budget spend the extra £40odd and get a 22" (LG do a nice cheap one @ scan). The difference really is worth the extra.

So sum up...

£140 - E6600

£120 - IP35 pro

£95 - Cellshock (2GB set, PC6400)

£200 - LG 22" (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/productinfo.asp?WebProductID=631807 ITs actualy on today only for £178 atm)

£68.15 - Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache

£19.96 - Samsung SH-S183A S-ATA 18x18 Dual Layer DVD-Rewritable Black

£145.00 - Club 3D ATI Radeon X1950XT Arctic X2 512MB

£3.29 - Windows Keyboard Black USB

£3.99 - Genius X-Scroll Mouse USB

£46.99 - Hiper HPU-4M530 SLI Ready 580W ATX2.2 PSU - Black

£39.95 - Coolermaster Centurion 532 Black - No PSU

 

[ionicle]

Assuming I went with Core2Duo, what Mobo would you recommend?

In order to overclock like that what cooling would I need and what would that cost? I'll be honest I haven't previously done any overclocking but I do understand the basics.

nRage

Asus P5b Deluxe is a nice motherboard

anything thats better than stock is good, but each obviously vary's

 

[nrage]

Swap out the AMD for c2d parts as Mr Smith says. Mobo, go for the P5K-E or (prob better) IP35-Pro

If you've got a grand budget spend the extra £40odd and get a 22" (LG do a nice cheap one @ scan). The difference really is worth the extra.

So sum up...

£140 - E6600

£120 - IP35 pro

£95 - Cellshock (2GB set, PC6400)

£200 - LG 22" (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/productinfo.asp?WebProductID=631807 ITs actualy on today only for £178 atm)

£68.15 - Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache

£19.96 - Samsung SH-S183A S-ATA 18x18 Dual Layer DVD-Rewritable Black

£145.00 - Club 3D ATI Radeon X1950XT Arctic X2 512MB

£3.29 - Windows Keyboard Black USB

£3.99 - Genius X-Scroll Mouse USB

£46.99 - Hiper HPU-4M530 SLI Ready 580W ATX2.2 PSU - Black

£39.95 - Coolermaster Centurion 532 Black - No PSU

This is the reason I picked the ViewSonic VX922:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/27/the_spring_2006_lcd_collection/page35.html

Note the response times. Comapre that to say...

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/08/four-wide-screen-19-monitors-compared/page15.html

Granted, that's not the one you suggested, it's not even a 2ms panel... I am just a bit hesitant to believe manufacturers when it comes to latency times.

nRage

This is the reason I picked the ViewSonic VX922:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/27/the_spring_2006_lcd_collection/page35.html

Note the response times. Comapre that to say...

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/08/four-wide-screen-19-monitors-compared/page15.html

Granted, that's not the one you suggested, it's not even a 2ms panel... I am just a bit hesitant to believe manufacturers when it comes to latency times.

nRage

I found a review here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2133304,00.asp

which says... "The L226WTQ really shines when it comes to displaying moving images. I was blown away by how it handled motion while I was playing a few rounds of F.E.A.R., a notoriously fast game with lots of explosions and detail. The monitor showed no signs of ghosting or background noise, and game play was as smooth as can be"

Which sounds good...

nRage

Asus P5b Deluxe is a nice motherboard

anything thats better than stock is good, but each obviously vary's

Does it do PCI-E at full 16x?

http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=307&l4=0&model=1179&modelmenu=2

It seems not? One at 16x and one at 2x or 4x??

I want to keep my options open, I may in the future upgrade to a faster GPU and it might be an nVidia and I might want to buy 2.. you get the idea

nRage

 

[llwyd]

Please use the Edit button in future

 

[browney]

£862 Posted

 

[nrage]

Where did you price that? and what can you do for closer to £800 say?

 

[browney]

Are you after a monitor as well? and what OS?

 

[browney]

£761 Posted

 

[Mr. Smith]

£862 Posted

This set up is nice, not sure how the ram clocks... Anyway, you can knock just over 100 quid off just be dropping the gaming mouse and keyboard.

For a 'mid-range' gaming pc a MS bundle for 20 quid will be fine... TBH thats what I use

I like Hams too...

I'd get the e6600, 8800gts 320mb, cellshock d9's.

Then work around what you have left. The hyper psu will do you fine, maybe the corsair 520w would do the job (NickS powered a quad core and gtx sli iirc)...

 

[browney]

It's great ram and very good for overclocking (reaching 1000mhz) and great RMA

 

[Rastalovich]

I'd get the e6600, 8800gts 320mb, cellshock d9's.

I`d call that the high-end of mid-range spec tbh.

But if the funds are there - knock u`rself out. Did see something about a monitor.

 

[Mr. Smith]

I know... I know... I figure spend the money where it matters the most, graphics card (180), processor (120) and ram (95). PSU, the Hiper is a bit old but it is solid (50), keyboard and mosue for like 10 squid, 22" monitor can be had for 180.

Whats that, about 650? 150 left for a mobo and a heatsink...

 

[browney]

I know... I know... I figure spend the money where it matters the most, graphics card (180), processor (120) and ram (95). PSU, the Hiper is a bit old but it is solid (50), keyboard and mosue for like 10 squid, 22" monitor can be had for 180.

Whats that, about 650? 150 left for a mobo and a heatsink...

HDD?

Case?

 

[Mr. Smith]

HDD?

Case?

They are overrated IMO

Good point.

Swap the cellshocks for the other ram that saves 40ish, wait for the 22nd of this month, price cuts on processors and in that time he saves an extra 50 and we are laughing

 

[browney]

I'd go for my £761 spec and add on a 19" for £120

 

[Rastalovich]

I know... I know... I figure spend the money where it matters the most, graphics card (180), processor (120) and ram (95). PSU, the Hiper is a bit old but it is solid (50), keyboard and mosue for like 10 squid, 22" monitor can be had for 180.

Whats that, about 650? 150 left for a mobo and a heatsink...

Ya I`m almost with u on that. The variable for me is the gfxcard. If the best game ever to be played on this is WoW.. skim some money off for the likes of the monitor, or maybe channel it to the keyboard - WoW loves a G15, but keep the cpu/mobo power. Depends what he feels is mid-range I guess.

Maxing cpu/mobo/memory will help all situations.

 

[Mr. Smith]

nrage I have the solution! I'm getting a new proccy and have a spare mobo... PM me if you're interested