Budget gaming PC, which GPU?

[evilsatan]

Gaming is my weak area so I am needing to seek some advice here. I have been asked to build a budget gaming PC, they want to spend £500 but I think it's going to cost more. I have told them that I will focus on the mobo and CPU as the rest will be upgradeable in the future so my plan:

Decent ATX gaming case
Samsung DVDrw ODD
Gigabyte Sniper Z87 mobo or similar
Intel i5 processor, think the K series may be a stretch so any advice on if the i5-4440 is any good please
4GB Ballistix RAM
120GB Crucial M500 SSD
Appropriate PSU (probably 500-550W)
GPU?

The idea is the mobo and CPU will be mid-spec and the RAM can be upgraded over time and a storage HDD can be added later. The GPU should be decent but I know they become outdated quickly so he can just replace that when his needs dictate.

Any input appreciated Intel is always my go-to brand for CPU and it is what I am comfortable with, I know AMD is cheaper but Intel always seems to come out on top.

[reverend]

They've got the Fractal Design cases on offer at Amazon at the moment - I'm tempted to replace my old noisy Lian Li with one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fractal-Desi...sign+Define+R4

If you're not getting a K series chip to over clock you may be able to save and just use an H87 board?

I built a box on the cheap and just went with an ASRock H87 Pro and tbh I can't fault it - it's flimsy but once it was in the case it's not skipped a beat. I did want it for VMware more than anything (and as a bonus it's Hackintosh compatible) and it's got an AMD 7970 in there I bought for password cracking

PSU wise that lot all runs on a 600W Corsair PSU so you should be fine at 500-550

Toms Hardware just did a thing on best GPUs for various price ranges here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3107-8.html

[evilsatan]

Cheers mate, just spoke to him and I need to get the cost down and he reckons his son will be mainly using his Xbox for gaming and PC for homework in the near future so I may just ditch the dedicated GPU so he can add it in the future as the embedded HD graphics are supposed to be decent on the CPU, especially if he won't do any proper gaming right away.

Thanks for the heads up on the chipset, I just saw a good Z87 deal but if there is no benefit I will give it a miss

[MsDG]

It a gaming PC... the processor makes little difference once you hit the i5 level. It will be a waste of time buying a more expensive i5 or cocking about with over clocking. You will get very tiny FPS improvement for your efforts. However, you are right about Intel its a no brainer when choosing a processor.

I would personally pay extra for 8gb ram now. Its not a huge price jump and you should need no more for games. Anyone who tells you 16gb is needed is talking bollocks.

As far as the GPU goes, it really is a Spectrum V C64, Megadrive V Snes, Xbox V PS thing. You will get different camps entrenching into their separate opinions. There is no clear winner and they both (for shits or giggles) give approx the same bang for buck. What I would say is that spend as much as you can afford on the GPU. Nothing is ever future proof, but a GPU £200+ is going to last you a good few years (especially if you are just single screen).

Your PSU will be driven by your GPU choice, they can be a real cunt on the power draw.

[reverend]

Yeah to be fair the Haswell GPUs are more than enough for 2D stuff, how much was the Z87 mate?

The biggest plus point of the Z87 last time I looked was the over clocking side of things plus they have more PCIe slots for dual GPUs etc. I did really want one but wiped out more than 50% of the cost just by getting the ASRock H87 Pro4! Madness really!

[MsDG]

Cheers mate, just spoke to him and I need to get the cost down and he reckons his son will be mainly using his Xbox for gaming and PC for homework in the near future so I may just ditch the dedicated GPU so he can add it in the future as the embedded HD graphics are supposed to be decent on the CPU, especially if he won't do any proper gaming right away.

Thanks for the heads up on the chipset, I just saw a good Z87 deal but if there is no benefit I will give it a miss

Cock... you just changed it all!

In that case... yeah get the best i5 you can get (it does pretty decent graphics)

[evilsatan]

Gigabyte Sniper Z87 is under £100 on Amazon. I just received an email and he will be showing his son all of the emails from me so he can make a decision on to game or not to game. Thanks for the replies, will probably get the cheapest i5 Haswell, decent H87 mobo and the GPU is to be decided. Will probably get the Fractal case with the window because this Ballistix RAM has LEDs on which flash all the time and this is a fairly young lad so would appreciate a lit up windowed case.

To be continued...

[pattikins]

It looks like your trying a build a mid range gaming rig on an unrealistic budget. If I was building a gaming PC for less than £500 it would look like this:

Asus H81M-PLUS

Corsair Memory Desktop 4GB

Seagate ST1000DM003 1TB

2GB MSI Radeon R9 270 Gaming 2G

Intel Core i3-4330

Silverstone SST-ST50F-ES-230

DVD writer

Zalman Z3 Plus

Total: £413 @ Scan. There is plenty of scope in that list to swap or add items. As it stands, it would blow an i5 GPU based system out of the water. Have a look @ this review:
http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4993...soft-word-2013

[Over Carl]

Dunno how much the case is costing you, but decent gaming cases I've looked at aren't cheap.

Why not spec it up with the absolute cheapest case available and explain you've put the money on the bits that make it run games well, and his budget doesn't cover a fancy case.

[evilsatan]

The plan is for them to have a functional PC immediately which they can add stuff to as they go along to increase the performance. The Fractal case is £65 which is a good price for that case, as it's for a young lad I think he would appreciate a nice looking case but I will give them the option.

I think I will use the on chip graphics for now as apparently he is mainly using his xbox at the moment, decent case, mobo and i5 CPU, 4GB ram as the prices will fall as the factories come back online and a good PSU.

thanks for all input, just waiting to hear back.

[evilsatan]

Got there in the end:

Fractal Design Define R4 Windowed case
ASRock H87 PRO4 Motherboard
Crucial M500 120GB SSD
4GB Crucial Ballistix LED RAM
Samsung DVDrw
Cooler Master Devastator Gaming Backlit MB24 Keyboard & MS2K Mouse
Intel Core i5 4440
500W Corsair CXM Builder series, Hybrid Modular, 85% Eff', SLI/CrossFire

Should be a good starting point, over the next year I expect they will add a HDD for data storage, upgrade the RAM and add a dedicated GPU.

Thanks for all input!