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Gaming computer for ~£500.

K

Koko56

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2007
Messages
1,342
Hi all.

If any of you can give me advice/suggestions on the following two variants that would be great.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
£500, tax included, shipping about £10 total.
3) Where do you live?
UK
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, RAM, Mobo, GPU, OD, HDD, PSU.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
The case – seems a generic ATX case, should be alright cooling-wise.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Does not seem like it.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
19”, 1280x1024.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
As soon as the parts get decided.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
To be stable I guess. :p No RAID/Xfire/SLI though.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Yes.


I have either a Phenom X4 build in mind or a i5 750, the GPU is likely to be an XFX 4870 1GB version. I am not sure about the type of RAM that the Phenom CPUs take - is not it DDR2 and DDR3? Though... does it depend on the motherboard? ... and yes - almost forgot - is this Phenom triple channel, or is it both double and triple depending on the mobo/RAM etc?

So here are the two:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition_____Core i5 750
ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO 785G_________Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R iP55
4GB Corsair XMS3 1600Mhz 1.65V C9____4GBCorsair XMS3 1600Mhz 1.65V C9
Samsung 1TB F3_____________________Samsung 1TB F3
XFX 4870 1GB 750M(?)________________XFX 4870 1GB 750M(?)
Corsair 650W TX_____________________Corsair 650W TX
Sony 7241s ODD_____________________Sony 7241s ODD

Total: ~ £550_________________Total: ~ £610

Both CPUs seems pretty good, however in some tests the i5 750 has a few more FPS than the 955 X4, but I could not find anything regarding GTA IV - just curious about how the two would fair.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated! Thanks a lot! :D
 
Last edited:
All Phenom II socket AM3 CPUs supports DDR2 and DDR3 RAM. It is a bit dependent on the motherboard since true socket AM3 motherboards are DDR3 only. AMD CPUs do not support triple channel.

It's pretty much a toss-up.
 
Danny Bui said:
All Phenom II socket AM3 CPUs supports DDR2 and DDR3 RAM. It is a bit dependent on the motherboard since true socket AM3 motherboards are DDR3 only. AMD CPUs do not support triple channel.

It's pretty much a toss-up.
Click to expand...

Interesting.

So now the following - how much difference would there be between DDR2 and DDR3 with the Phenom II setup? :p
 
Koko56 said:
Interesting.

So now the following - how much difference would there be between DDR2 and DDR3 with the Phenom II setup? :p
Click to expand...

In terms of performance, very very little. However, the price difference between DDR2 and DDR3 RAM is pretty much nil. Considering that most socket AM3 mobos costs about the same as socket AM2+ mobos and the fact socket AM3 would be better compatible with future socket AM3 CPUs, little reason to go with a Phenom II DDR2 based setup.
 
I see. You could save about £30 by going to DDR2 in the UK, but have slightly lower performance as I understand...

Hmm... so as far as speed goes there is not too much between the two CPUs at stock, with the i5 750 having a ~ 5%-10% lead in games at times. I could look for some results for OCing both with the stock HSF, but I'm not sure if there will be many. Will have a look though.
 
The performance difference between DDR2 and DDR3 on PhenomII platform is negligible. As Danny mentioned, the main reason to go with AM3 + DDR3 is for future upgrade ability, as DDR3 prices should continue to decrease while production of DDR2 decreases (prices for DDR2 increase) -- also, AM3+ CPUs would probably not support DDR2.

So, if you don't plan on upgrading to more RAM nor a newer CPU within the next couple of years, then DDR2 should be fine for you. :p
 
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