looking for some advice on building a gaming pc

[moonrat]

Hey all, how do....

well as the title suggests I’m looking for some advice on building a budget end gaming pc. My friend’s son has just got his first job; and consequently has £600 to spend building a machine.

I am just wondering if it is even possible to build/buy a machine for this sort of money. He has a monitor he can use for while, so it is just the tower needed (hopefully this will bring cost down a lot)

thanks in advance for any help/info received (I know your all very busy peeps)

[apllrd]

I have built a few 'budget gaming pc's' in the past,i would reccomend you start from your graphics card down, look at the £150+ mark, (try geforce 8800) then decent mo-board and memory, a GOOD stable psu is essential. fast hard drives would be next, 2 relatively small in a raid and a larger, slower drive for storage.
cases can vary widely, even some of the cheapest can offer optimum cooling with little to no modification, depends on if you want to put syle in front of practicality.
everything besides would be trivial.

[Mickey]

like what Ap said
i can rec a 8800 GTS/GTX as they will do all you need and not too expensive
now due to the ultra coming out
go for a good mobo like asus abit
go down the sata route as they are fast and becoming cheap
and get a decent psu like Ap said about 650 is about the norm now

[apllrd]

Qty Product QuickFind Stock Price (ex VAT) Line Total
EVGA 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card 125105 66 in stock £153.09 £153.09
2* WD Raptor WD360ADFD 36GB SATA 10KRPM 16MB Cache - OEM 115410 210 in stock £56.16 £112.32
Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 16MB Cache 7200RPM - OEM 113428 2010 in stock £52.71 £52.71
Gigabyte GA M57SLI-S4 SKT AM2 Nvidia MCP55P PCI-E 8Channel audio ATX 113844 2 in stock £46.69 £46.69
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (2.3 GHz) Socket AM2 Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor 125197 51 in stock £43.73 £43.73
2* Crucial 1GB DDR2 PC2-6400/800MHz CL4-4-4-12 Ballistix 2.2V SLI Ready 119273 89 in stock £29.78 £59.56
Antec NEO HE500GB 500W Modular PSU With 80mm Low Speed/noise Fan 18db 099137 58 in stock £62.47 £62.47
Casecom Black Mid Tower Case - Front Blue LED 120mm Fan - With Side Window 115479 766 in stock £15.31 £15.31
Cart Total: £545.88

Approx Cart Weight: 14.00Kg (with shipping offer)

Total (inc vat) £653.44

just after a quick glance this is what i came up with, most are 5* rated on ebuyers feedback system, a little over budget but you can shop around or trim back some components ( i.e. 1gb of ram for now and upgrade later, just buy the raptor hd's then buy a larger one when you need the space or buy 2 larger sata2 drives instead for a slight drop in performance).

there are plenty of people on here who can give advice on specific components.

don't forget floppy drive/dvd drive but they are relatively peanuts these days.

[moonrat]

thanks guys you have gave me lots of things to think about,atleast now i know it is possible,so trawling through ebuyer it will be for me,unless i can persuade him to bump up the budget a wee bit

[Mickey]

when i need pricing on computer parts i use
pricegrabber
it compares your specs with a few thats on its list
.co.uk

hope this helps