Budget gaming build; acceptable? Suggestions?

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Hey, it's been a long time coming but I've finally decided to build a new gaming desktop from scratch. I'm a complete novice when it comes to hardware related stuff, but I've done a modicum of research and I've decided on this budget build:

Mobo: Asus P7P55-M P55
CPU: Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz
GPU: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme
Case: Cooler Master Elite 430 with a 500w Elite PSU
RAM: Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2)
Hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB
Optical drive: LiteOn IHAS324-32 24x DVD±RW ReWriter SATA



Judge away! Bear in mind I'm a complete newb so go easy if I've made any blatant mistakes, by the way this build will cost £454.91 not including the OS of course. I'm also planning on upgrading the CPU to a i5 2500k a few months down the line If you need me to elaborate on anything just ask

Thanks a lot guys!!

[Pantsalot]

You might want a G.Skill RAM pack for the better CAS Latency, though indeed they don't have as much
memory in total as yours, you could just another pack after, my computer works perfectly well with
4GB of RAM

Plus you might want to see about a Z68 motherboard, they might not have as high transistor power at
your budget but they have pretty worthwhile features.

[BunnyPoopCereal]

You might want a G.Skill RAM pack for the better CAS Latency, though indeed they don't have as much
memory in total as yours, you could just another pack after, my computer works perfectly well with
4GB of RAM

Plus you might want to see about a Z68 motherboard, they might not have as high transistor power at
your budget but they have pretty worthwhile features.

Benchmarks have shown many times (google it yourself) that RAM speed is just a marketing tool that barely affects FPS in games. BUT games do require a certain amount of ram size that it needs to run.

[Freddie]

If your "planning on upgrading the CPU to a i5 2500k a few months down the line" then I suggest you wait a few months and get a 2500K (or an AMD 8 series) as it means you will have not only replace the CPU but also the motherboard.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

You might want a G.Skill RAM pack for the better CAS Latency, though indeed they don't have as much
memory in total as yours, you could just another pack after, my computer works perfectly well with
4GB of RAM

Plus you might want to see about a Z68 motherboard, they might not have as high transistor power at
your budget but they have pretty worthwhile features.

I'm sorry, a Z68? What's the price of one of those and are there any other comparisons to my motherboard? Thanks for the input nevertheless! I'm living off an allowance as a student and I'm a schedule to buy this thing.

If your "planning on upgrading the CPU to a i5 2500k a few months down the line" then I suggest you wait a few months and get a 2500K (or an AMD 8 series) as it means you will have not only replace the CPU but also the motherboard.

Ah okay. I thought my motherboard was compatible.

[Pantsalot]

I just noticed indeed you have chosen a 1156 CPU for a 1155 motherboard ^^
I'd advise you keep with a 1155 motherboard though, should be a long time before they
get supplanted & instead you should maybe temporarily just live with one of the pentium
range & replace it with a better one when the time comes. 2.8GHz is not too bad I guess.

The cheapest Z68 motherboard would be the Asrock Z68 PRO3, reasonable since
it has integrated graphics.

But if you possibly can then you may be better to get the Asus P8Z68-V PRO.

I advise you to not go for a gigabyte one, not exactly value for your money.

[Freddie]

I'm sorry, a Z68? What's the price of one of those and are there any other comparisons to my motherboard? Thanks for the input nevertheless! I'm living off an allowance as a student and I'm a schedule to buy this thing.

Ah okay. I thought my motherboard was compatible.

Oh hold on, you picked out a P67 board, that motherboard is incompatible with your current CPU selections if you want to use that motherboard you will need to buy a Intel Core i3, I5 or I7 LGA1155 based CPU. Your CPU is a Core i3 LGA1156, the difference is only one pin but that's enough to render the socket incompatible, if you want to stick with that CPU you need to get an LGA1156/P55 motherboard.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Oh hold on, you picked out a P67 board, that motherboard is incompatible with your current CPU selections if you want to use that motherboard you will need to buy a Intel Core i3, I5 or I7 LGA1155 based CPU. Your CPU is a Core i3 LGA1156, the difference is only one pin but that's enough to render the socket incompatible, if you want to stick with that CPU you need to get an LGA1156/P55 motherboard.

Any specific suggestions? I wouldn't want to chance picking one myself

It took me 2 months for me to finally decide on my computer build before I ordered it
Shouldn't be any harm in getting a Nvidia Ti at all.

Well I've been mulling over this for about a week now and I won't be able to afford the thing until July-August

[Pantsalot]

Any specific suggestions? I wouldn't want to chance picking one myself

For an 1156 motherboard this will do, there's a more expensive version but all I see from it is USB 3.0 ports
which are certainly not necessary though it could have a better transistor power..
One good thing about 1156 boards is that they can more comfortably have higher voltage RAM, you might
like to make use of that.

If you want to keep your P67 motherboard then get this or this CPU.

& if you want a Z68 motherboard then get this.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Thanks for pointing that out I've just taken the budget Intel build from the Overclockers forums and replaced the Geforce 560Ti GPU with an 5850 to cut down on the price, I just assumed they'd be compatible. Perhaps my product searching skills aren't up to scratch.

[Pantsalot]

It took me 2 months for me to finally decide on my computer build before I ordered it
Shouldn't be any harm in getting a Nvidia Ti at all.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

for P67 get a 2500k

if you can afford that id suggest P55 + i5 760 and overclock it altho the 2500k + p67 is really the best platform to shoot for in terms of performance.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Thank you very much! I think I'll stick with the i3 and buy the first motherboard (Asus P7P55-M) you suggested, even though it's apparently very mediocre.

for P67 get a 2500k

if you can afford that id suggest P55 + i5 760 and overclock it altho the 2500k + p67 is really the best platform to shoot for in terms of performance.

Too expensive unfortunately, that's why I'm planning on getting a 2500k replacement a few months after. My budget is in the mid four hundreds.

Sorry double posting.

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Sorry double posting.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

ram speed and latency only matter with high end gpus and multi gpu setups the more gpus you have the more bandwidth you need only way to get more bandwith is faster ram and lower timings

phenom II hits its scaling limit at 1450mhz CL7
Core i7 1336 tends to hit its limit around 2000mhz timings didnt matter as much
Core i5 i7 1156 tend to hit there limit around 1800-2000mhz
Core i5 i7 sandybridge tend to hit there stride at 1800-1900mhz

[Brain_in_a_vat]

On second thoughts, I'll stick with the P67 and buy the i5-2400 as recommended. It'll give me the opportunity to purchase the 2500k later on too. I'll have to spend an extra £60 but I'm assuming it'll be worth it.

[Pantsalot]

More money spent on a computer is always great value if you know what to spend it on

Sorry double posting.

Next time you can just edit your last post

Benchmarks have shown many times (google it yourself) that RAM speed is just a marketing tool that barely affects FPS in games. BUT games do require a certain amount of ram size that it needs to run.

Kk never heard that before, though isn't it that when it get's over 8gb size fails to do anything?

Core i7 1336 tends to hit its limit around 2000mhz timings didnt matter as much

I got told off once when making my build for getting RAM which had poor CAS Latency >.<

[Crazyeyesreaper]

More money spent on a computer is always great value if you know what to spend it on



Next time you can just edit your last post



Kk never heard that before, though isn't it that when it get's over 8gb size fails to do anything?



I got told off once when making my build for getting RAM which had poor CAS Latency >.<

some ram does have bad timings.... a good example the newer corsair sport kits are like 1333 or 1600mhz 10 10 10- 28 1t timings or some such which is utter garbage when for the same price you can get 1333mhz 7 7 7 21 1t or 1600mhz 8 8 8 or 9 9 9 timings for the same price or cheaper but in general Intel scales well with clock speed AMD scales only if you overclock the northbridge to bat crazy lvls aka 3000mhz + on the NB when only a few Phenom II x4s can hit 2800 and only a few x6s can hit 3000.

lol well the whole point of triple channel was the insane bandwidth which = awesome for multiple gpus,

a good example is look at Everest or Aida64 memory benchs or Maxmem bench runs


1333mhz cl7 Phenom II dual channel 8500 read 8000 write 10000 copy
1900mhz cl7 Phenom II dual channel 14000 read 13000 write 19000 copy * it should be noted the Phenom II has its NB overclocked which improves memory performance but very very very few phenom II chips will ever hit more then 1700mhz on the ram its an extreme rarity

1066mhz cl8 Intel i7 x58 triple channel 11000 read 10000 write 12500 copy
1600mhz cl7 Intel i7 x58 triple channel 14000 read 13000 write 16000 copy
1700mhz cl8 Intel i7 x58 triple channel 18000 read 14000 write 20000 copy
2000mhz cl9 intel i7 x58 triple channel 19000 read 17000 write 22000 copy


1800mhz cl9 Intel P67 i5 2500k dual channel 19000 read 17000 write 21000 copy
2200mhz cl10 Intel P67 + 2600k dual channel 27000 read 25000 write 28000 copy * this is also extreme most P67 Sandybridge systems will tend to hit a wall around 2000mhz but as you can see memory does scale with speed on Intel not so much amd as the average AMD user will struggle to hit more then 1600mhz stable since it requires a bus overclock which in reality isnt the best way to overclock for those chips afterall theres a reason so many AMD chips are unlocked multi

overclocking also effects the above numbers as the QPI link helps increase memory performance but i digress the difference on any intel platform vs AMD the bandwidth is huge, on Intel you wont notice it as much but imagine the bottleneck AMD has on ram bandwidth when trying to feed multiple graphics cards... this is the reason Intel just rocks the bandwidth neccessary, i mean look at the 1066mhz i7 at very loose aka bad timings for those clocks 1066 ddr3 can hit cl6 running cl8 it still maintains 2000mb/s better performance vs 1333 cl7 on Phenom II, and as you can see the ram scaling on Intel is superior from 10k to 20k phenom IIs typical scaling range is 8000-15000 vs x58 at 10000-20000+ and sandybridge well its insane lol

quoting myself to respond to the OP

also to the OP if your going to buy a 2500k later seriously just save up and buy the damn thing outright, im not even joking just do it right the first time and save yourself the overall hassel its easier to save now and get a newer pc that hits all the rights notes then it is to buy now have to upgrade multiple times. as i know all to well only 1% of ppl actually buy what they say there GOING to buy in the future. it never happens usually they settle for the performance they get instead of saving the extra week and getting what they originally wanted.

[Pantsalot]

You should be making guides for the Basement

& I'm not too sure if OP's going to be willing to wait, mostly depends on if he's got a functional
computer of his own to bide the time

[Brain_in_a_vat]

Next time you can just edit your last post

I'm aware. I couldn't be bothered.