Building a new PC, Budget of ~£500

[Felix]

Someone I occasionally speak to on Twitter would like to build a new PC but doesn't really know what to get. He's stated that his budget is around £500, could probably go a bit over, but he isn't really sure what direction to step in.

I've shown him this image of my build/prices to get him started, but this doesn't include KB/M, Monitor, headset, harddrive or PSU and with those it would probably spill well into the £700 region.
http://i.imgur.com/DcJ2U.png

So, with that said, I know a lot of you have a lot of experience when it comes to which parts are best to aim for under a certain budget, so if you don't mind could someone channel their knowledge for the good of getting someone new to PC Gaming a place to begin? :)
Thanks!

[[L.o.N]Naed]

Do you know where he/she lives and which online retailer they prefer to use ?

That would help quite a bit, because we can base it around possible bundle deals and such from a known retailer then :)

[Felix]

I don't think he minds which online retailer, providing it's good value.
He's UK.

[Tusken GA]

Origineel geplaatst door FrazerJC:

I don't think he minds which online retailer, providing it's good value.
He's UK.

Probably won't be able to help too much then in terms of special deals, but for $500 the biggest limiting factor I've seen is whether or not your friend needs Windows. See, if he doesn't, then we can build him a gaming computer (sans KB/M) for $500 that will work great.

If he DOES need windows though that takes almost $100 off the budget. So we would have to build a gaming rig for $400 plus Windows.

Which frankly just doesn't work very well.

[Felix]

Origineel geplaatst door Tuskan GA:

Origineel geplaatst door FrazerJC:

I don't think he minds which online retailer, providing it's good value.
He's UK.

Probably won't be able to help too much then in terms of special deals, but for $500 the biggest limiting factor I've seen is whether or not your friend needs Windows. See, if he doesn't, then we can build him a gaming computer (sans KB/M) for $500 that will work great.

If he DOES need windows though that takes almost $100 off the budget. So we would have to build a gaming rig for $400 plus Windows.

Which frankly just doesn't work very well.

Don't forget this is GBP, not USDollars. That roughly equals $800, which l'm sure looks quite a bit better to you? :P

[Tusken GA]

Origineel geplaatst door FrazerJC:

Origineel geplaatst door Tuskan GA:

Origineel geplaatst door FrazerJC:

I don't think he minds which online retailer, providing it's good value.
He's UK.

Probably won't be able to help too much then in terms of special deals, but for $500 the biggest limiting factor I've seen is whether or not your friend needs Windows. See, if he doesn't, then we can build him a gaming computer (sans KB/M) for $500 that will work great.

If he DOES need windows though that takes almost $100 off the budget. So we would have to build a gaming rig for $400 plus Windows.

Which frankly just doesn't work very well.

Don't forget this is GBP, not USDollars. That roughly equals $800, which l'm sure looks quite a bit better to you? :P

Hahahaha! Yup. My bad, sorry. So yeah, $800 dollars would be a killer gaming rig, but the windows issue still exists. Don't know how much Windows costs where you are but I imagine it's pretty similar.

[Felix]

Origineel geplaatst door Tuskan GA:

Hahahaha! Yup. My bad, sorry. So yeah, $800 dollars would be a killer gaming rig, but the windows issue still exists. Don't know how much Windows costs where you are but I imagine it's pretty similar.

Indeed, that would be. It was something I had completely forgotten about! :(

[Tusken GA]

Origineel geplaatst door FrazerJC:

Origineel geplaatst door Tuskan GA:

Hahahaha! Yup. My bad, sorry. So yeah, $800 dollars would be a killer gaming rig, but the windows issue still exists. Don't know how much Windows costs where you are but I imagine it's pretty similar.

Indeed, that would be. It was something I had completely forgotten about! :(

You'd be surprised how common that is. Truth told I actually have a list of parts available in my area including windows for $800 but obviously conversion across countries might mess things up.

Here's my list. You may want to substitute a 7850 for the GTX 560 Ti, they're about the same price.

Case: NZXT Source 210 / Gamma Classic - $40

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V - $70

CPU: Intel i5 3450 3.1 Ghz - $190

CPU Cooler: Hyper 212+ - $26

RAM: Kingston 8GB 1600 Mhz - $40

GPU: Asus GTX 560 TI - $240

PSU: Corsair CX V2 500 - $44

HDD: WD 500GB 7200 RPM - $68

DVD: Samsung 22x DVD drive - $20.30

OS: Windows 7 H.P. x64 - $91

[Tusken GA]

I'm not sure if they do this in the UK, but in the States Microsoft has this program for math and sciences majors in college/university. Basically if you qualify you can get windows for free legally from Microsoft's partners. Might be worth looking into.

[_I_]

ms has a colledge student thing to get windows for about $65
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/pd/productID.216644200?Icid=Student_HUB_4up_Windows

[Felix]

Origineel geplaatst door Tuskan GA:

<Snippy, Snippy>

Cool, thanks for this post. I'll pass it on to him! :)

@Tuskan and _I_, I think they do have the same thing in the UK, depending on which university you go to and which course (and possibly a few other factors). I'll let him know that, too. Thanks!

[[L.o.N]Naed]

Just a quick heads up, windows 8 will be quite cheap from launch next month till january 2013, and from now til sometime in october, he could "just" use the windows 8 beta

[Stead]

just gonna say this, I have a i3 2100, 8gb of ram, ATI 7770, and it plays everything i've thrown at it with full settings at 1080p, i'd recommened a better video card than the 7770, I got it for a quiet pc, but personally i'd buy the fastest ivy bridge i3 with at least a 7850 or nvidia equivilant.

its not exactly budget but i'd go with an i3 over an i5 and spend the extra spare change towards an ssd, makes the biggest difference!

dabs have some awesome prices on used mobo's, you can get a H67/P67 board for around £25 used, still comes with a warranty.

software4students.co.uk has cheaper windows 7 normally, and they don't check if you are a student

[Felix]

Thanks for your replies. I'll let him know :)

[Adobe Flosh]

500 isn't very much. You can get a pretty good desktop for that price but 800-1000 is where you get the more decent stuff.
Try getting an AMD fx-4100 processor and maybe a geforce 550ti and 8Gb cheap RAM.
That should end up less than 500.

[King Candy]

a good cheap build would be an AMD APU dragon system or something like that