New PC £500 Budget - What shall I do?!

[sonofsanta]

Repeat after me - "Windows 7 was NOT designed to run on a 486 processor!"

 

What? 486 is x86 almost by definition, I don't see the problem...

 

(more an issue of startup crud and full HDD, SSD sorted it right out though )

[tmcd35]

What? 486 is x86 almost by definition, I don't see the problem...

 

Actually, niether do I. Sort of thing I'd try if I had one lying around. That said, remembering how well Win95 ran (full IE active desktop and compressed hard drive on a 486DX2/50 with 8Mb RAM) - it's probably for the best we don't.

 

(more an issue of startup crud and full HDD, SSD sorted it right out though )

 

>mode -evangilise /enabled

 

That's why I hate PC's. I don't think I've ever had one that's lasted more than 6 months before the HDD needs reformatting and everything loading on from scratch. Never seem to have that problem with Macs.

 

At home I find the combination of PS4 and iPad gives me 99.999% of all the computing power I ever need. And they are instant on

[steveg]

I'd leave out the monitor for now, spend more on the core spec if you can borrow or steal one from somewhere for now? I'm still using an old dell 19" one at home and it does me fine. Would mean you can upgrade to a new monitor in the future without having to throw out anything you've spent money on, and would make the budget for the pc stretch a little further.

 

Steve

[L3OUGH]

I'd leave out the monitor for now, spend more on the core spec if you can borrow or steal one from somewhere for now? I'm still using an old dell 19" one at home and it does me fine. Would mean you can upgrade to a new monitor in the future without having to throw out anything you've spent money on, and would make the budget for the pc stretch a little further.

 

Steve

 

I would do that but don't have one lying around and I can't think of anyone who would have a spare I could borrow for a few months :/

[sonofsanta]

That monitor you have picked out is VGA only, btw - DVI is (to my eye) much sharper. I'm particularly fussy about image quality though (where I can't really tell the difference between audio quality, MP3 bitrates etc.) so YMMV.

[L3OUGH]

That monitor you have picked out is VGA only, btw - DVI is (to my eye) much sharper. I'm particularly fussy about image quality though (where I can't really tell the difference between audio quality, MP3 bitrates etc.) so YMMV.

 

Yeah, I decided this morning a DVI would be better! Just picking a decent one now!

[L3OUGH]

I'm ordering tonight for those of you who wanted to know what I went with. Ended up spending double the original budget mentioned in this thread. Oops! Haha Ordering from Chillblast!

 

Specs:

 

Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case

Intel Core i5 4670K Haswell Processor Overclocked to up to 4.2GHz

Xigmatek Gaia Quiet CPU Cooler

 

Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste

Asus Z87-K Motherboard

8GB PC3-10666 1333MHz DDR3 Memory Vengeance Black (2 x 4GB sticks)

Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Graphics Card

1000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps

24x SATA DVD-RW Drive

FSP Premium Grade 80+ Certified 600W PSU

Onboard High Definition Audio

Windows 8.1 64 bit

23" Iiyama Prolite X2377HDS IPS Widescreen TFT Monitor

 

802.11N Wireless PC E Adaptor

K&M too!

 

Thanks for all the help!

[sonofsanta]

Ended up spending double the original budget mentioned in this thread. Oops!

 

That's always the danger, you look at a PSU (say), then notice there's a better one that's only a small bump in price, but then the next one gets you modular cables, then one above that is 80+ Silver not Bronze, but then 80+ Gold isn't that much more... and before you know it you've got a PSU costing more than double where you started.

 

Still, that's a nice case (still wish I'd gotten that one instead of the Silverstone I have), nice CPU & mobo, decent GPU that'll eat anything current at 1080p... you'll not be disappointed, I don't think

 

But no SSD? I'd really thoroughly recommend one as a boot drive... you know, if your budget can stretch...

[L3OUGH]

That's always the danger, you look at a PSU (say), then notice there's a better one that's only a small bump in price, but then the next one gets you modular cables, then one above that is 80+ Silver not Bronze, but then 80+ Gold isn't that much more... and before you know it you've got a PSU costing more than double where you started.

 

Still, that's a nice case (still wish I'd gotten that one instead of the Silverstone I have), nice CPU & mobo, decent GPU that'll eat anything current at 1080p... you'll not be disappointed, I don't think

 

But no SSD? I'd really thoroughly recommend one as a boot drive... you know, if your budget can stretch...

 

Thanks, I've been thinking long and hard on things, this being my first high end one I don't think I've done too bad. Even though you'll ALWAYS find someone giving something a bad review no matter what! So I've gone for that setup and not changing it now. And yes, I'd love an SSD but I just can't afford to stretch my budget any further! But it's deffo something that'll be an upgrade in the future along with 16GB Vengeance RAM!!

 

And yeah I hope the GPU is going to perform as well as I think it will! As I can't go SLI I wanted a beefy one!

[3s-gtech]

That's a great setup - SSD, more RAM, even more powerful GPU - you have to draw the line somewhere and that looks like a decent place to do so.

[L3OUGH]

That's a great setup - SSD, more RAM, even more powerful GPU - you have to draw the line somewhere and that looks like a decent place to do so.

 

I'm glad you think I have drawn the line at the right place, an SSD and more RAM will go in eventually like I've mentioned but that's lot alone has already totted a pinch above 4 figures! No more now haha! Pretty excited tbh! Gotta wait for it to be built, stress tested and delivered now!

[sonofsanta]

I don't think anyone would argue that was a bad build - everyone will have preferences on where they'd spend the money (for gaming, I'd still emphasise the GPU over CPU, even more than you've done here) but you'll find a lot of sites recommending something very close to what you've gone for, and everything looks a decent component (i.e. you've not skimped on the case or PSU).

 

I would say: SLI/Crossfire aren't worth it, IME. I had CrossFired 5770's until recently and the grief with drivers, stuttering and constant nagging worry of "is it working as well as it could?" isn't worth the aggro. A powerful single GPU is better than a pair of GPU's. If you can get a 760 cheap off eBay then it might be worthwhile, but otherwise I'd just sit on the 760 for another three or four years and then splurge on a big GPU upgrade then - the rest of your kit will still be solid and sufficient by that point, it's a really good foundation you've got there. The 760 is at least on a par with anything the consoles will push, and 2GB of RAM is as much as you'll get on all but the priciest of cards now, so it'll serve you well for a good few years yet

[CHR1S]

Cough http://www.edugeek.net/forums/classified-adverts/129323-custom-built-gaming-pc.html Cough

[L3OUGH]

I may have the SSD and case fans off you if you'd split it up? Not prepared to pay mega bucks though

[L3OUGH]

I don't think anyone would argue that was a bad build - everyone will have preferences on where they'd spend the money (for gaming, I'd still emphasise the GPU over CPU, even more than you've done here) but you'll find a lot of sites recommending something very close to what you've gone for, and everything looks a decent component (i.e. you've not skimped on the case or PSU).

 

I would say: SLI/Crossfire aren't worth it, IME. I had CrossFired 5770's until recently and the grief with drivers, stuttering and constant nagging worry of "is it working as well as it could?" isn't worth the aggro. A powerful single GPU is better than a pair of GPU's. If you can get a 760 cheap off eBay then it might be worthwhile, but otherwise I'd just sit on the 760 for another three or four years and then splurge on a big GPU upgrade then - the rest of your kit will still be solid and sufficient by that point, it's a really good foundation you've got there. The 760 is at least on a par with anything the consoles will push, and 2GB of RAM is as much as you'll get on all but the priciest of cards now, so it'll serve you well for a good few years yet

 

^^ That was my thinking when I decided to 'draw the line'! Glad people agree with me and think it's a solid first build!

[CHR1S]

Cough http://www.edugeek.net/forums/classified-adverts/129323-custom-built-gaming-pc.html Cough

 

Id like to sell it as a whole at the moment... I am flexible on price however.

[L3OUGH]

Id like to sell it as a whole at the moment... I am flexible on price however.

 

PM me if you decide to split it up!

[CHR1S]

Will do

[abillybob]

Sorry to just drop by into this post like this although I built a gaming desktop a while back when 1155 socket was new and bought a Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor around £30 but spent £150 on the HD 7770 GPU I never came across any game that struggled... heck I only sold it 2 months ago it was playin Batman Arkham Origins at almost Ultra settings and getting a decent 52fps average aswell! With an SSD you may not believe it but this thing flew it was fast to boot and open programmes never had an issue even though the processor was just a lil Pentium handled tasks amazingly! I think spending more on a GPU and a few quid less on CPU is always the better option!

[mac_shinobi]

Actually, niether do I. Sort of thing I'd try if I had one lying around. That said, remembering how well Win95 ran (full IE active desktop and compressed hard drive on a 486DX2/50 with 8Mb RAM) - it's probably for the best we don't.

 

 

 

>mode -evangilise /enabled

 

That's why I hate PC's. I don't think I've ever had one that's lasted more than 6 months before the HDD needs reformatting and everything loading on from scratch. Never seem to have that problem with Macs.

 

At home I find the combination of PS4 and iPad gives me 99.999% of all the computing power I ever need. And they are instant on

 

A Mac Mini with an SSD and an external graphics card using thunderbolt ??

 

Although well outside of the £500 limit lol

[um1t]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2rNwi

 

I just built that, its silent and fast. It costs around 500 at the moment, the mobo is cheaper at currys but partpicker are an amazing website for price comparison.

 

Monitor wise: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BLZJL30/?tag=ho01f-21 83 quid for a very sweet monitor.

 

Sign up for a free months of amazon prime as well. I would literally get everything from amazon apart from the mobo, I would get that from currys and you can go and collect it from any currys or pc world.

 

Under 600 and you will have a really good PC. My lowest windows rating is 6.7, which is for graphics. The cpu has graphics and no need for a dedicated graphics card. Im not a gamer at all, I just do a lot of browsing and watching movies.

 

To build this it took like 30 mins, and it was a lot of fun.

[L3OUGH]

But no SSD? I'd really thoroughly recommend one as a boot drive... you know, if your budget can stretch...

 

Just so you know, this is all your fault, I've just ordered and ended up tagging a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD onto my order!!

 

What have you done!?

[sonofsanta]

Just so you know, this is all your fault, I've just ordered and ended up tagging a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD onto my order!!

 

What have you done!?

 

Ah you'll love it, SSDs are to hard drives what broadband was to dial up... you are going to be blown away first time you get this PC up and running you should get yourself some good lookin' games lined up to play first, so you can appreciate how gorgeous gaming on PCs is, especially compared to PS3/360. Crysis 3 or Witcher 2 would be good places to start, IMHO, they are beautiful to look at. Skyrim modded to the nth degree can look beautiful as well, though a bit more faff doing that.

[L3OUGH]

Ah you'll love it, SSDs are to hard drives what broadband was to dial up... you are going to be blown away first time you get this PC up and running you should get yourself some good lookin' games lined up to play first, so you can appreciate how gorgeous gaming on PCs is, especially compared to PS3/360. Crysis 3 or Witcher 2 would be good places to start, IMHO, they are beautiful to look at. Skyrim modded to the nth degree can look beautiful as well, though a bit more faff doing that.

 

I'm starting with DayZ end of. Hahah need to get onto Fibre Broadband now so I have a decent speed to download games!