best budget gaming rig £400 UK

[mullered07]

ok so a friend of mine has asked me too build him a gaming rig, hes on a budget of £400 and doesnt require any os/monitor/peripherals etc literally just the base. now i havent built a rig in a while and would like some help regarding a motherboard, cpu, ram, gpu combo. must be intel, have 2 gig of good ddrII etc and a good gpu,

can anyone come up with suggestion builds for this budget ?

bear in mind its no good posting items from newegg as we get ripped off for every thing in this country and us prices wont reflect the same

thx in advance

 

[ghost101]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=736334 - E8400 [pm me to get info on how to get free delivery from scan]
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/105994 - AF7 Pro
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145750 - P5Q
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130454 - 500GB
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146428 - HD 4850
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131052 - VX 450W

Obviously shop around. Add a DVDRW for £20 and thats ~£400.

edit: ah crap RAM, in which case get a cheaper processor and get some RAM.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145258 and http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119279

 

[mullered07]

edit: ah crap RAM

lol

 

[oli_ramsay]

Does he need a case or hard drives?

 

[mullered07]

meh a cheap ass case would do fine and a 250gb should suffice, both of these can be ugraded easily enough at a later date

 

[oli_ramsay]

Here's what I've come up with for £404. I'm not 100% sure if that PSU can handle it maybe a the 520W Corsair would be better.

 

[ghost101]

Here's what I've come up with for £404. I'm not 100% sure if that PSU can handle it maybe a the 520W Corsair would be better.

Pretty much copied my revised system. Great minds think alike eh? Also, the vx 450w will be fine.

edit: the powercolor card is a bit cheaper, p45 is probably more futureproofed if he were ever to go crossfire. You can get the msi p45-fr for £7 more.

 

[mullered07]

thats not bad looking for £400, whats that msi p35 overclock like ? would like to get 3.2-3.4ish out of a proc

 

[oli_ramsay]

It's a great board for overclocking, I run mine at 486FSB 24/7. Also got nice heatpipe cooling over VRM area and NB/SB.

 

[mullered07]

ok oli, like your suggestions and have taken your build and altered it slightly, only thing im worried about is the motherboard . is this going to oc ok or not ?? i wanted a full tower case aswell, that looks nice and can be modded to add a window later and the hdd should be absolutely fine for what he needs

 

[oli_ramsay]

This motherboard is an excellent overclocker, that's why I bought it

I did a lot of research trying to find the best budget board and it defo paid off, it's stable as hell and has plenty of BIOS options. Also supports 45nm CPUs out of the box. check out this review(http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=161618)

560 FSB:

 

[mullered07]

oh damn i posted a sli mobo with an ati gpu

any crossfire mobos in that kind of price ?

 

[oli_ramsay]

I very much doubt you will get an X38 for under ~£120. The mobo I posted does do Xfire but at x16 and 4x which is pointless IMO.

 

[mullered07]

I very much doubt you will get an X38 for under ~£120. The mobo I posted does do Xfire but at x16 and 4x which is pointless IMO.

didnt notice it had 2c pcie slots (big ones) so would xfire with 2x4850 be pointless? and is the x38 16x + 16x or 8x + 8x? if its the first is there a cheaper 8x xfire board ?

 

[oli_ramsay]

The x38 and x48 is 16+16. The performance loss using 8+8 is quite big (http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/intel_p45_vs_x48_crossfire_performance/index.html)

THis is the cheapest x38 board I can find on ebuyer: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142650