How good is this gaming PC? And how much can I expect to sell my old one for?

[KKSlider1337]

Hi guys. I'm after buying a new gaming PC, as my old one is getting a bit slow now. In particular, its dual core cpu is holding it back, and it can't play games like Crysis 2 and BFBC:2 very well, even on low settings. Ideally my budget is £600, and I've found a deal which I thought looked OK, but I'm not an expert.

http://www.arbico.co.uk/Arbico-Phenom-7795-Quad-Core-Custom-Built-Gaming-PC-p-.html

A quick summary is that it comes with:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition, Quad Core (AM3, 3.2GHZ, 8GB Cache)
ASUS M4A77T/USB3, 4xDIMM, Max. 16GB ATX Motherboard
ATI HD5850 1GB GPU
8GB Mushkin PC12800 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
Quiet Xilence 580W 2 x PCI-E PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium

for £570.

I haven't got the money for an uber system, but with a couple of games I already have that my current PC struggles with, and some on the horizon that I'm really interested in like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, I think it's time for an upgrade. I'd like this PC to be future proof in that I can upgrade it easily (mistake I made with current one is that PSU isn't great, and motherboard doesn't allow quad core, only has one PCI-E etc.) Is this likely with this PC?

I also wondered how much out of interest I'd be able to sell my old PC for, to put towards the new one. It has:

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+ (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
4096MB DDR2 RAM Kingston 800MHz
Two HD's totalling 750 GB
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb
Asus Xonar D1 soundcard
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Asus M2N-MX Motherboard
600W PSU (it's not a very good one apparently, but I don't know much about them).

Any idea what kind of price I should ask for that? Obviously I'm expecting it's not worth loads. Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

 

[erocker]

Other than the GPU, not much of an upgrade. Try pricing your own custom system together.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Case: Fractal Design Core 3000 - if you can't recycle your old one - £63

Mobo: MSI P67A-GD53 - £334.99

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K pre OC'd to 4.5GHz - ARIA BUNDLE.

RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) 1333MHz Mushkin Silverline - ARIA BUNDLE.

Cooler: Gelid Tranquillo - ARIA BUNDLE.

PSU: Corsair HX650 - £87.28

GFX: Keep your 4850 and OC it!

HDD: Keep your two HDDs or upgrade to 2 1TB Samsung F1s or an SSD.

AUDIO: Keep your sound card.

So, £485.28 roughly and that rig will fly!

 

[KKSlider1337]

Case: Fractal Design Core 3000 - if you can't recycle your old one - £63

Mobo: MSI P67A-GD53 - £334.99

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K pre OC'd to 4.5GHz - ARIA BUNDLE.

RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) 1333MHz Mushkin Silverline - ARIA BUNDLE.

Cooler: Gelid Tranquillo - ARIA BUNDLE.

PSU: Corsair HX650 - £87.28

GFX: Keep your 4850 and OC it!

HDD: Keep your two HDDs or upgrade to 2 1TB Samsung F1s or an SSD.

AUDIO: Keep your sound card.

So, £485.28 roughly and that rig will fly!

Thanks for those suggestions, that all looks quite good. My current case could be recycled I reckon, quite like it with its daft lights and see through side. I could also re use the hard drives and sound card, as they've served me well. If I'm too wimpy to fit all this myself - the only thing I've fitted before is a graphics card, and even that ended up wonky - I have a local family-run computer shop nearby that will put a PC together for £25. So are these components likely to be future proof, letting me upgrade when the time comes?

P.S. what parts there are improvements over the link I posted? I'm guessing the CPU, mobo and PSU are better?

 

[Law-II]

Thanks for those suggestions, that all looks quite good. My current case could be recycled I reckon, quite like it with its daft lights and see through side. I could also re use the hard drives and sound card, as they've served me well. If I'm too wimpy to fit all this myself - the only thing I've fitted before is a graphics card, and even that ended up wonky - I have a local family-run computer shop nearby that will put a PC together for £25. So are these components likely to be future proof, letting me upgrade when the time comes?

P.S. what parts there are improvements over the link I posted? I'm guessing the CPU, mobo and PSU are better?

Hi

£25 to assemble a PC is a little to cheap; "radar turns on" make sure the parts you gave them are in the PC before you hand over any money or leave!

atb

Law-II

 

[KKSlider1337]

Lol I understand your concern, Law-II. I've used them several times before and not had any problems, as far as I know. I haven't checked to see if any of my parts have been sneakily swapped out though They've been around for years and years and the bloke sorta knows me so I hope he wouldn't rip me off. For the purposes of ease in buying a ready-built system (and the fact I can sell my old one, I have a mate who may be interested), how is this one for £599?

http://www.easypc-uk.com/gamers-systems/89-eco-gaming-water-cooled-36ghz-core-i5.html

Xigmatec Midgard case
Corsair CX 600W 80+ PSU
ATI 6850 1GB
Intel Core i5 2500K Quad CPU 4 x 3.3ghz Std, Will run at upto 4.8Ghz
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 silent cooler.　
4gb Corsair DDR3 1600Mhz (System Max 8gb)
500GB SATA II Hard Drive
ASUS SKT-1155 P8P67 -M Rev 3 Intel P67 Chipset

Of course if you do think buying parts seperately is the best way to go, then I will.

 

[Crap Daddy]

That's too expensive. The Innocent Criminal nailed it although I'd go with a TX Corsair, non modular and cheaper. Your old card will get a second life with this machine and you can put a better GPu in it when you have the money.

 

[kurosagi01]

If i was going go full on upgrade in your shoes and you have £600 budget,i would keep your HDD,sound card and OS.
It go someit like this:

If you have free delivery on scan then you can save yourself £10 on shipping.
As for case i would go for this:
Casecom 5288 Black Mid Tower Case With Full Black....

 

[hat]

I would urge you to buy your own parts and build it yourself. It's really not that hard, honestly the toughest part is cable management, if you decide to do it. As for your initial parts list, looks good, except 8GB ram seems a little overkill for a gaming rig (4GB is fine), and I'm a little leery of that power supply.

 

[KKSlider1337]

Thanks for all your input so far everyone, I've got a lot to think about. I can definitely understand the advantages to building your own. That said, the idea makes me a bit nervous, and as I said I even managed to bork up the installation of a new graphics card I'm not dismissing it though. I do quite like the idea of buying a prebuilt just because the job's already done. And then I can sell my old PC afterwards, which I was thinking I could hopefully get about £150 for? Not sure though. Crap Daddy, your edit message got cut off, but you were saying the mobo won't support crossfire? I have to say, the idea of that has never appealled to me personally, I just prefer to have one powerful card. But I can understand why that would be a big downside for some.

 

[Hayder_Master]

U chose a good system in same time i agree with the guy of core i5 system it's really better but u need but u need better graphic card but there is also cheep solution with i5 system which is looking for another 4850 in crossfire and u can find good deal for this.

 

[Fourstaff]

If you are not comfortable with building your own computer, are there people living around your area who will be able to do that for you? If you want value for money (and also the best combination) usually you will need to build your own system.

At worse case scenario you fucks something up and you will have to replace the product through warranty. But unless you are completely retarded (I don't think so, since that you found TPU ) you will just do fine. Its almost as simple as identifying and plugging your electronic devices to either a EU 2pin or British 3pin. If you can follow road instructions or things like that you will be fine. We can talk you through this or you can search youtube/etc.

 

[OneMoar]

the one the op listed is overpriced but acceptable
also erocker how is a phenom II 955BE NOT much of a upgrade from a firstgen x2 >_>

 

[kurosagi01]

Where exactly do you live in UK?? If you live near me or in East Midlands i may consider helping you out with building the system for you.

 

[KKSlider1337]

Thanks guys. kurosagi, thankyou very much for the offer, although unfortunately I live a decent way away from Northampton.

My budget is £600 ideally if I can get £150 for my old computer/parts. I suppose at a push I could probably manage to spend that if I get £100 for it. If I go the parts route, not sure who's suggestions to take. If I can keep my HD's, tower etc then it could be quite a cheap option. My hard drives are a bit slow though, and my current tower does have a couple of niggling issues, like the front all-in-one usb/headphones etc. thing doesn't work. Not the end of the world though.

Out of the two prebuilt systems, which is better out of interest? Would I be right in thinking that the GPU, RAM and HD of the first are marginally better (and its cheaper and has Windows), but the CPU and PSU of the second are quite a bit better? If I bought the second and took one of my two old hard drives out (the one with the OS) and put it in the new PC would that work, or would it detect that it's a new PC and need a new license?

Bah, I'm terrible at making decisions

 

[cheesy999]

Thanks guys. kurosagi, thankyou very much for the offer, although unfortunately I live a decent way away from Northampton.

My budget is £600 ideally if I can get £150 for my old computer/parts. I suppose at a push I could probably manage to spend that if I get £100 for it. If I go the parts route, not sure who's suggestions to take. If I can keep my HD's, tower etc then it could be quite a cheap option. My hard drives are a bit slow though, and my current tower does have a couple of niggling issues, like the front all-in-one usb/headphones etc. thing doesn't work. Not the end of the world though.

Out of the two prebuilt systems, which is better out of interest? Would I be right in thinking that the GPU, RAM and HD of the first are marginally better (and its cheaper and has Windows), but the CPU and PSU of the second are quite a bit better? If I bought the second and took one of my two old hard drives out (the one with the OS) and put it in the new PC would that work, or would it detect that it's a new PC and need a new license?

Bah, I'm terrible at making decisions

Have you considered selling your old parts at TPU?

second one is better, and you can't move the hard drive over there's too much of a difference between the systems, i couldn't even change mobo without having to reinstall

 

[KKSlider1337]

Ah, good to know, thanks for that. One of the only things letting down the second system is the lack of Windows.

 

[Bo$$]

Case: Fractal Design Core 3000 - if you can't recycle your old one - £63

Mobo: MSI P67A-GD53 - £334.99

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K pre OC'd to 4.5GHz - ARIA BUNDLE.

RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) 1333MHz Mushkin Silverline - ARIA BUNDLE.

Cooler: Gelid Tranquillo - ARIA BUNDLE.

PSU: Corsair HX650 - £87.28

GFX: Keep your 4850 and OC it!

HDD: Keep your two HDDs or upgrade to 2 1TB Samsung F1s or an SSD.

AUDIO: Keep your sound card.

So, £485.28 roughly and that rig will fly!

this is probabily the best bundle, only thing is to change the video card to:
6870: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...ard++with+FREE+Shogun+2+Game+?productId=43808
or
GTX560 OC: http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...R5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=44565

all set for another 2-3 years of gaming

 

[KKSlider1337]

Hi again guys, sorry to resurrect the thread but I still haven't decided yet (taking my time to find exactly what I'm after at a good price.) Scan has a one day only deal for £395, and I think it has everything I want minus the GPU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/index.aspx?_s_icmp=AkaIX3H4

Thermaltake Dokker Black Mid Tower Case with built in HDD Hotswap Docking for 3.5/2.5" SATA w/o PSU
600W Corsair CMPSU-600CXv2 Builder Series, 80 PLUS, 80% Eff', EPS 12V, 120mm Fan, Single 12V Rail
Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.3GHz GPU 850Mhz 6MB Cache 95W Retail
Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3, Intel Z68, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1866/2133, SATA 3Gb/s, RAID, ATX
1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Classic, PC3-10666 (1333), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.50V
Pioneer DVR-S19LBK 24x DVD±R, 12x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, RAM x12, SATA, Black, Retail Labelflash

Bear in mind this is all of the separate parts together, unbuilt, as a bundle. To my amateurish eyes, this seems like a good deal, but please correct me if I'm wrong. All I'd need is a GPU for about £120-150 and the OS. I'm not sure how good the mobo and PSU are, however.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Looks good to me, apart from the ugly case.

 

[KKSlider1337]

Looks good to me, apart from the ugly case.

Haha, I have to admit, that thought crossed my mind too

 

[Fourstaff]

Looks good to me, apart from the ugly case.

Just shove it somewhere hidden and forget about it Just like what I did to my parent's Dell.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Word of advice...stay away from Corsairs CX (system builder) range of PSUs. I have read quite a lot of bad things about them. they are marketed towards those who cant quite afford a full fat HX or TX PSU. and from what i read. the reliability and quality of the product has really taken a huge bashing due to the corners corsair cut to give you the PSU at that price.

If your budget can push just a little further, Id highly recommend this PSU

I recently just finished a system build for a client with this this same PSU