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[gigaraptor487]

Western Digital WD20EURS 2TB AV-GP Hard Drive 24 x 7 Enterprise HDD £71.16
LiteOn IHAS122-14 22x Quiet Internal DVD Writer SATA Black OEM £12.47
Microsoft Windows 7 Premium SP1 64-bit OEM £70.44
Corsair Builder Series 80+ Bronze CMPSU-430CXV2UK 430W Power Supply (PSU) £35.32
XFX Core Edition Radeon HD 7850 AMD Graphics Card - 2GB £116.14
Silverstone RL04B USB 3.0 Red Line Black Gaming/Performance Tower ATX Case No PSU £32.46
AMD FX 6300 Black Edition Six Core Processor Socket AM3+ £84.76
Corsair Memory XMS3 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 11-11-11-30 Dual Channel Desktop £59.76
Asus M5A97 R2.0 AMD 970 AM3+ Motherboard Socket AM3+ £67.16


Total : £549.66


I am buying everything from Scan.co.uk(although if aria is better I may look there). My main intention of this is to be a gaming pc as well as something that I can get good compile times on C code as well as just a general purpose programming machine.

Is there a better combination of parts that I can get to get more performance for my money?

Thank you for your time.

EDIT: Looking into a 600w version of the aforementioned psu, which seems to be about £30 more, good idea?

[foil]

Seems decent.  MAybe worth spending an extra £50 and get an Intel i5 instead, they have roughly double the ipc of AMD cpu which helps loads in games and single threaded apps.

[nenjin]

Seems pretty good. Biggest savings on there is a copy of Windows 7, although it may be one of those crappy system image disks instead of a full copy of Win 7.

PSU seems a little weak for what you're running. It's probably enough but not enough to sustain future upgrades or crazy peripherals.

The HDD is a pretty nice deal, although its spec seems curiously under-detailed on Newegg. Still, it has good reviews. If you get that as a component and not already built into the machine, be aware it might not come with the SATA cable.

[Caz]

Seems nice. Is that what Windows 7 goes for these days? Jeez, OS's be expensive.

[jaass]

If you are looking into upgrading your graphics card in the future, spend the extra money on the PSU. Everything looks solid although I would switch the GPU for a nividia of similar power and the CPU for a Intel, although that is your choice.

Also use this website for PC builds.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/
and
http://www.logicalincrements.com/

[Moogie]

Seconding for the NVidia GPU and Intel CPU. Both manufacturers are currently the leaders in their respective markets, in terms of bang for your buck. Also, being a lifelong user of NVidia cards, my most recent build has a Radeon Sapphire 6850HD. It's a fantastic card, but that whole thing about Radeon having poor driver support is so true. I only got it due to its benchmark performance and price. But next time I'm going back to NVidia because more things seem to support/be optimised for them.

[gigaraptor487]

That is interesting, I assumed that since there are more cores in the CPU it may become more sustainable as more programs become multithreaded, and TBH I didn't consider Nvidia.

Won't that drive up the motherboard price if I use LGA 2011?

[foil]

That is interesting, I assumed that since there are more cores in the CPU it may become more sustainable as more programs become multithreaded, and TBH I didn't consider Nvidia.

Won't that drive up the motherboard price if I use LGA 2011?

Na AMD cpu cores are about 1/2 as powerful as Intel ones.  Their 8 core cpu running 30% faster speeds is still slower than a recent Intel cpu with 4 cores.

It also makes AMD worse for gaming as games only use 1 or 2 cores and with about 1/2 the ipc(instuctions per clock cycle) of Intel cpu it leaves a huge gap in performance while also burning a lot more power.

Even Intels dual core i3 beats AMD biggest cpu in almost all games.

Im pretty sure the 2011 motherboards are only for supporting the extreme editions of i7 and they are wildly expensive.

You will need a lga 1150 motherboard if going for a newer Haswell based 4k Intel cpu or lga 1155 for any 2 or 3k intel i3-i5.

[Moogie]

^ This person knows his stuff.

Also, if you do go for the Intel, it is seriously worth springing that little extra for the i5 over the i3. You'll end up extending the lifetime of the build for a few years, at least. I have the 2400 variety because... I don't remember why. I think it was all I could afford at the time. But I haven't seen it break a sweat yet.

Well, if you don't count the time speedfan messed up and disabled the fans while I was playing games on a Wii emulator. I glanced at the systray and nearly had a heart attack when I saw core temps over 98c. I could've fried an omlette in there.

Never again, my sweet PC... shhh... it's ok. I'll never let that happen to you again... *hugs tower*

[lordcooper]

Seconding for the NVidia GPU and Intel CPU. Both manufacturers are currently the leaders in their respective markets, in terms of bang for your buck. Also, being a lifelong user of NVidia cards, my most recent build has a Radeon Sapphire 6850HD. It's a fantastic card, but that whole thing about Radeon having poor driver support is so true. I only got it due to its benchmark performance and price. But next time I'm going back to NVidia because more things seem to support/be optimised for them.

NVidia are definitely not the king of 'bang for your buck'.  They have the most powerful card out currently (and better driver support), but you definitely pay a premium for them.  If I was spending under £250 on a card I'd go with AMD without a second thought.

[Bdthemag]

The AMD CPU you picked out is perfectly fine for the kind of budget build you're going for, and despite what some people may say AMD gives out the best price over performance ratio. I'm assuming since you're going for a low priced build in the first place, you don't exactly have the extra money to throw around on upgrades. If you're not aware of the website, logicalincrements.com is a perfect website to get a general feel for what kind of parts you'll want to choose depending on the amount of cash you have available. If you also want to be able to compile all of your parts into a list, see the total price/discounts available from different retailers, along with the estimated energy usage use pcpartpicker.com

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, depending on your view of it, pirating the OS of your choosing might be your best option. It's not as difficult as people sometimes make it out to be, and you'd be freeing up some cash to make one or two nice upgrades.

[foil]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2s3V0

£542


Intel i5, r9 270x/7870 OC.  Also aftermarket cpu cooler as standard Intel one makes a lot of noise even with no overclocking.

Might need a different motherboard depending on what bios flashed to it but plenty Micro-ATX in that range.

Also no Os but easy enough to recycle an old Windows product key, or just Yarr it.

[gigaraptor487]

I actually now have the capacity to increase my budget £100, hooray!

[lordcooper]

I actually now have the capacity to increase my budget £100, hooray!

SSD.

[gigaraptor487]

Really? over the ability to improve CPU, GPU and Motherboard spec?