Gaming spec under £800?

C

cheezing

Member
I'm looking to replace my decade old computer and move on from console gaming back to where I first started off :p I have a budget of £800 and was wondering if this spec was up to the job of playing modern games at high/max settings. Cost comes to £784

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 965 (3.40GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION

Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0

Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)

Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 6850 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

2nd Graphics Card
NONE

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

2nd Hard Disk
NONE

RAID
NONE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM (£35)

2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NONE

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND

Floppy Disk Drive
NONE

Firewire & Video Editing
NONE

TV Card
NONE

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Monitor
NONE

2nd Monitor
NONE

DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
NONE

GeForce 3D Vision
NONE

Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Wireless Desktop® MK250 Keyboard and Mouse Combo (£19)

Mouse
NONE

Speakers
NONE

Webcam
NONE

Headsets (VOIP)
NONE

Surge Protection
NONE

Printer
NONE

External Hard Drive
NONE

Home Installation
NONE

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Data Recovery
NONE

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days


I went with the Corsair PSU as they seem to be the best brand for PSU but I'm not sure whether or not it will be enough. PCS advised me that this only needs 450w PSU but when I configged a similar rig elsewhere they suggested I need a 800w PSU.

Comments on any changes I should make and how future proof this spec is would be very welcome.

Thank you
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
Go for the silver warranty, it only costs a fiver, and means you get 1 year return and collect instead of one month :)
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
Most sites trry to overcharge you PSU-wise. Consider a 5850 GPU, it is better than the 6850. Yes, I know, ATI is doing some odd stuff with their version numbers and stuff, but the 5850 is better than the 6850, the 6850 is better than the 5830.

Rest of spec is great, nice choice of 64mb cached hdd
 
C

cheezing

Member
Thanks for feedback!
Yeah, I will upgrade to silver warranty as it seems a no brainer for a extra fiver. From what I gathered there isn't much difference between 6850 and the 5850 to justify the price difference? If I go with the 5850 then that puts it over £800. I could always upgrade the graphics card at a later point.
 
C

cheezing

Member
I'm not in a rush to get a new computer but with VAT going up next year is it best to get one before 2011? Will there be upcoming tech early next year that could lead to better and lower priced parts which outweigh the added cost of VAT?
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
New parts coming out next year will be more expensive, no doubt about it, either that or of equal price to price the previous generation went to launch at
 
JSG10

JSG10

Expert
I'd drop the copper cooling for the stock which will be fine if you're not overclocking, also if you want to save money maybe downgrade the CPU slightly the the 955 instead of 965, you won't notice a difference in performance for quite some time.
That PSU will be fine, I've got the same one running a 970 and a GTX470 (more power hungry than the ATIs) and its coping no problem :)
 
JSG10

JSG10

Expert
Don't fall into that trap, thats what I did and ended up with the 970 because it was "only" x amount more than the 965 which was only x amount more than the 955 lol You could keep on spending like that. I didn't mind so much but if you're on a strict budget then that extra £10 will help and you won't lose much in performance. :)
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
JSG10 said:
Don't fall into that trap, thats what I did and ended up with the 970 because it was "only" x amount more than the 965 which was only x amount more than the 955 lol You could keep on spending like that. I didn't mind so much but if you're on a strict budget then that extra £10 will help and you won't lose much in performance. :)
Click to expand...

Haha, they dont call me evil Slein for nothing y'know? :p
 
Phoenix

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
Sleinous said:
Most sites trry to overcharge you PSU-wise. Consider a 5850 GPU, it is better than the 6850. Yes, I know, AMD is doing some odd stuff with their version numbers and stuff, but the 5850 is better than the 6850, the 6850 is better than the 5830.

Rest of spec is great, nice choice of 64mb cached hdd
Click to expand...

Fixed that for you :)
 
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