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£500 Gaming machine

I have been looking at the GPUs on ebay and there seems to be some nice cards available where people are simply upgrading. So I ask guys, say I got for example the following GPU which I think might be a bargain as it is the same rank as the one I use currently. How do I know which motherboard I need. Also I'd like suggest that I would want this initial cheaper card and that I would down the line improve the GPU.

So can I have the linked GPU whilst future proofing with a decent motherboard. I'll not purchase the linked card, just using it as an example. Basically want to cover different ways of doing this. I think this could be one way of keeping the overall price down, or spend elsewhere like a 2TB HD instead of a 1TB or even two 1TB Hard Drives.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti
 
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Boonie said:
I would steer away from the AMD chips to be honest mate, heres a good comparison site.

http://www.anandtech.com/Bench/CPU/2
Click to expand...

Why? AMD seem to always be dismissed because Intel and their heavy marketing.

The top end performance as shown on your link refer to the high end spectrum of gaming which holds little importance when considering the budget.

Having said that if you look at the 'gaming' tab on your link the AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE comes third while being 75% cheaper than the Intel Core i7 975 Extreme.

I have used both Intel and AMD chips in the past. From my experience Intel is better for top end gaming (high performance, expensive machines). AMD however offer excellent value for money and little (if any) performance difference noted.

Users will most likely experience weaknesses in other components (hard drive, graphics card) before the CPU issues comes into affect.
 
Superhudd said:
So can I have the linked GPU whilst future proofing with a decent motherboard.
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As I understand it, yes. The card in the link was PCIe 2.0, and a current high water mark PCIe 3.0 slot would be backwards compatible, it'll just run as if it's a PCIe 2.0 slot with that card in it.
 
I have that exact 560Ti you linked there. Its a great card. I have it running with an AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition OC'd running at 4.0Ghz and it performs great. It certainly runs the newer games and games which are 1 to 3 years old it runs at full spec. Infact the Phenom II x4 955 BE is a great CPU for you to look at. Its one of the best CPU's to OC ever. Some have OC'd it to over 7.0Ghz running stable.
 
Ok, moved on a bit since the original posts. My Nephew has just had his birthday and with his savings has £660 to spend. I have tried to get him to spend it on a XboxOne and a Galaxy tablet but he has his heart on a gaming PC. So I am now actively looking to move this one to the next stage and purchase components.

I have started putting together some items and wondered what others thought about them, I need to somehow get cheaper as I as yet not added a case or CPU cooler, also I need a wireless connection for it as it will be impossible as it stands to do a wired connection, that is until next Spring when his mum and dad take on a 120k house extension and refit the whole house with wiring.

Anyway using that pcpartpicker to help below is the link to where I am. to this point. As I said I would like reduction in price with little reduction hopefully in product.


PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1OUE9
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1OUE9/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1OUE9/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£176.39 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£105.59 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£57.47 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£47.38 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card (£134.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£49.57 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer (£43.61 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.19 @ Aria PC)
Total: £682.19
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-15 16:09 BST+0100)
 
I bought windows 7 on ebay for about £35. It was a dell disk but works fine. I would then go for a bigger psu but the rest looks good.
 
Boonie said:
I bought windows 7 on ebay for about £35. It was a dell disk but works fine. I would then go for a bigger psu but the rest looks good.
Click to expand...

Not just bigger, but make sure it's quality. You don't want to skimp on the PSU as that can negatively affect your entire system's performance/integrity.

And as I mentioned, GPU prices should be falling if they haven't already (by the end of the month).

Lastly, I would look into SSD in addition to a large storage physical drive. SSD gives a huge increase in performance/load times, but it is an expensive option so I can't see you getting more than 128GB without breaking your budget. This is mostly for your OS and frequently used software.
 
Don't use wifi for gaming. Use Ethernet over power lines if there's no wired connection available.

Or is there an old, obsolete telephone extension to the room? You could salvage that.
 
scaramanga said:
Don't use wifi for gaming. Use Ethernet over power lines if there's no wired connection available.

Or is there an old, obsolete telephone extension to the room? You could salvage that.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, good idea, could you possibly suggest one that would do a decent job on a budget. Cheers
 
papaspur said:
Not just bigger, but make sure it's quality. You don't want to skimp on the PSU as that can negatively affect your entire system's performance/integrity.

And as I mentioned, GPU prices should be falling if they haven't already (by the end of the month).

Lastly, I would look into SSD in addition to a large storage physical drive. SSD gives a huge increase in performance/load times, but it is an expensive option so I can't see you getting more than 128GB without breaking your budget. This is mostly for your OS and frequently used software.
Click to expand...

I am so toying over the idea of doing the initial build with an SSD drive, 128GB. Because later down the line it will be easier to install a normal hardrive, having to reinstall windows if I got him a SSD down the line would be a big pain in the ****. If he was to put on Santas's list a 2TB Western Digitial it might be better logistically.

At the moment he plays Settlers 7 on mine, he adores the game. He has planned to stay over on the school half term with my family just so he can play the new Rome game. So my thinking is whether that 128GB would be big enough for windows 7/8 64bit and those two games. I think it will be, so right now its like I am edging towards SSD.
 
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Superhudd said:
Thanks for that, good idea, could you possibly suggest one that would do a decent job on a budget. Cheers
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Depends on what budget means ;) Something like
http://www.dabs.com/products/tp-lin...powerline-adapter-starter-kit-7KJ7.html?src=3

?

I've got a pair of Devolos from way back that were always very solid.

Only thing to watch with powerline is that it's on the same ring (modem might be downstairs, PC upstairs, sockets wouldn't necessarily be the same ring main). Never had that problem myself but probably depends on the size of your house.
 
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TBH Ron, I didn't have a clue what he was talking about and wanted to see what he mean't. :oops:

Anyway, now seeing your link, I now understand what was mean't . Totally forgot you could do that now.
 
Yeah, that's what I thought about the Mains Ring. Is there a way of knowing before purchasing. In the fuse box it might state upstairs sockets and downstairs sockets like upstairs lights and downstairs lights on the fuses thus meaning 4 different rings possibly.

He lives in a 1930s built 3 bedroom house and I think there would be a chance that the rings might be different. I'll have to phone later tonight to find out.
 
I'm pretty certain that if you only have one meter reader then you'll be fine :)

And what's with the AMD hatred? :( they're good chips!! Honestly in your budget you should seriously consider going AMD. It'll leave more money for a better PSU (Seasonic for example) or using an SSD as a boot drive as mentioned. Personally thats what I would do
 
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I'd expect them to work too Hudd, the ring main thing is something I remember from when I got mine (ages ago), but looking it up now I can't see anything definite. Some stuff about maybe if you have separate fuse boxes but I doubt that'll be the case.

If they don't work you can just send them back anyway.
 
Superhudd said:
Thanks for that, good idea, could you possibly suggest one that would do a decent job on a budget. Cheers
Click to expand...

Gaming doesn't need throughput so unless you're planning on streaming HD it's fine to go for low speed ones. It's latency you want to avoid, which is why wifi is no good.
 
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