Is it possible to build a mid range gaming PC for £650, And it is litterally only going to be used for games..

I'm so out of touch with these things now, not having actually built anything for at least 3 years! (It's not for me, but for a friend)

Mouse, keyboard and monitor are not needed..

..If anyone has done similar recently and has the specs let me know, or if you are feeling bored and want to spec one up

Will also need to include a copy of W7 in that price, and ideally he wants 2 HDs to split the OS and the games, but don't bother with SSD, and as budget is tight 1 HD might have to do, he's not going to need a massive amount of storage.

Case doesn't matter too much, as long as it is reasonably quiet, but is going under the desk so doesn't need to look great!

ASUS P8P67 Pro Intel P67 £140
Intel Core i5-2500K £173
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 XMS3 £32
Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic 1024MB £130

CM Storm Scout + Coolermaster Silent Pro 700W Modular PSU *Special Offer Bundle* £110
Samsung SH-S223L 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM with LightScribe SATA Optical Drive £11
Samsung HD204UI Spinpoint F4 2TB £55

This is the build I did in Jan without SSDs and 'extras' parts are likely cheaper now, and you could buy a cheaper case.

i5 760
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair 'Dominator' DDR3
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3
1GB nVidia EVGA GTX 460 SC
CoolerMaster 430 w/ 500w PSU
Samsung 12x BluRay
500GB Samsung F3
3x 2TB Samsung F4

Cost me £700 back in December. Drop the 3x 2TB drives and it knocks it down to £520ish back in December time so its easily done.

The PC easily plays everything at 1920x1200 at either High or Med (Crysis 2 at Ultra )

Your prob better off going for a SandyBridge chip but it just gives you an idea.

Quote from: matt5cott on May 20, 2011, 13:20:37 PM
ASUS P8P67 Pro Intel P67 £140
Intel Core i5-2500K £173
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 XMS3 £32
Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic 1024MB £130

CM Storm Scout + Coolermaster Silent Pro 700W Modular PSU *Special Offer Bundle* £110
Samsung SH-S223L 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM with LightScribe SATA Optical Drive £11
Samsung HD204UI Spinpoint F4 2TB £55

This is the build I did in Jan without SSDs and 'extras' parts are likely cheaper now, and you could buy a cheaper case.

As Mattscott has pointed out pretty much the best bang for buck.

Some alternatives:

Asus P8P67 (Non Pro) has all features you need, save some money for something else.
Cooler options are various: Gelid Tranquillo, Thermaltake Frio, Corsair Air Series, Noctua, all depending on what you want to spend or how far you want to push an OC.
An alternative to the 460 is 560ti (Flavour of the month), 6850/6870 if you like the Red Team.
Cases vary, i chose the Thermaltake Dokker recently, £35-40 and has a built in SATA dock in the top.
PSU: i always try and buy Corsair, you could get one with the cash you saved on the mobo

You could also view the Bit-Tech Buyers Guide which has been updated now that the Intel chipsets have seen their latest revision that came out due to the previous revisions issues.

This one rings in at £645 http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2011/05/10/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-may-2011/3

Was about to suggest the Bit-Tech buyers guide.

Those bit-tech builds are good, haven't seen them before and they seem to be kept up to date

Cheers guys, that's helped him out a lot, the bit tech guide is really good... Will let you know what he goes for, told him to come on here if he has any questions

I cannot believe veteran forum posters have never seen the link to Bit Tech, its almost as bad as someone admitting to me the other day they had never seen Star Wars! 

Awww come on its not THAT bad. Over the years I've seen quite a few hardware lists on websites (maybe including bit-tech) but I've never found one thats kept up to date or that I've fully agreed with.

It's nice that they actually give justification for their choices / swap outs as well

 

Shows how out of the loop I am now! Although TBH the last 3 or 4 computers I bought all consume less than 30 watts each!

Although this and the watercooled thread are making me want to spend some money

Indeed, my PC is fine and only 6 months old but I was to just spend out for the hell of it on some uber overpower watercooled thing... not going to happen but the geek in me wants it!

I've sold my old rig, and wondering what to spend the cash on

Quote from: soopahfly on May 20, 2011, 17:00:30 PM
I've sold my old rig, and wondering what to spend the cash on

My Blue-rays?

Buy this Acer Predator G5900 Desktop PC using the code buy-4 for £399 and you'd have £250 to add another harddrive, RAM maybe even a better graphics card. You're laughing.

Processor         Intel® Core™ i5 (i5-650, 3.2 GHz, 8MB Cache)
Chipset         Intel® H57 Express
RAM             4 GB RAM DDR3 (8 GB maximum RAM capacity)
Operating System   Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
Hard Drive      500GB (7200RPM)
Optical Drive      DVD Rewriter (Records DVDs 8x & CDs 24x & Dual Layer Super Multi)
Graphics         Dedicated (NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 340 1Gb)
Sound         7.1 Channel Digital Audio Output
Network Card      10/100/1000 Gigabit Fast Ethernet
USB Ports         10 USB 2.0 ports (four front, Six rear)
HDMI         1x HDMI Port
VGA Port         1 External VGA Port
Warranty         12 Months Acer Collect & Return



The £250 would get you a Gigabyte GTX 560Ti OC 1GB GDDR5 (£190) and another 4Gb stick of DDR3 (£35), if you get £20 for the card it has you'd also have space for another 1Tb HD in the budget.

Found the deal via a HUKD post by crosswski.

Quote from: sexytw on May 21, 2011, 12:39:26 PM
Buy this Acer Predator G5900 Desktop PC using the code buy-4 for £399 and you'd have £250 to add another harddrive, RAM maybe even a better graphics card. You're laughing.

Processor         Intel® Core™ i5 (i5-650, 3.2 GHz, 8MB Cache)
Chipset         Intel® H57 Express
RAM             4 GB RAM DDR3 (8 GB maximum RAM capacity)
Operating System   Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
Hard Drive      500GB (7200RPM)
Optical Drive      DVD Rewriter (Records DVDs 8x & CDs 24x & Dual Layer Super Multi)
Graphics         Dedicated (NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 340 1Gb)
Sound         7.1 Channel Digital Audio Output
Network Card      10/100/1000 Gigabit Fast Ethernet
USB Ports         10 USB 2.0 ports (four front, Six rear)
HDMI         1x HDMI Port
VGA Port         1 External VGA Port
Warranty         12 Months Acer Collect & Return

(Image removed from quote.)

The £250 would get you a Gigabyte GTX 560Ti OC 1GB GDDR5 (£190) and another 4Gb stick of DDR3 (£35), if you get £20 for the card it has you'd also have space for another 1Tb HD in the budget.

Found the deal via a HUKD post by crosswski.

£650 including decent GPU? Same price as the 2500k system above, i know which one i would be going for.