Build a gaming computer for under £550
If you want a powerful but cheap gaming computer you have to build one by yourself. First of all you’ll need a case:Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Mid Tower Case – With 500W PSU £71.99
This case comes with 500W PSU and is very quiet. At rear it has one 120mm fan with 3-speed control to balance quiet with cooling and one front optional 120mm case fan. The case also comes with a built-in washable air filter to keep harmful dust out of your case.
Now I’m going to list all the components you are going to need and explain why I chose them:
1) ASUS P5K AiLifestyle Series iP35 Socket 775 ATX Motherboard £70.97
This motherboard supports Dual-Core and Quad-Core processors with up to 1333Mhz FSB, has 7.1 channel HD surround sound, a built-in 1Gbit Ethernet port, 4x Serial ATA-300 connectors, 2x ATA-133 connector, one external SATA (with RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD) connector. All cables are included and it also supports PC2-6400 RAM.
2) Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 Socket 775 (2.66GHz) FSB1333 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor £110.97
If you are going to do video-editing and 3D-rendering – Core 2 Quad processor would be your best choice, BUT if you are not, then Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 is what you need. This processor can be easily overclocked up to 3.6Ghz.
3) Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache £63.61
This SATA hard drive has 16 MB cache, it’s very fast, very quiet and reliable – simply the best.
4) OCZ 2x1GB DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC £35.00
2GB of DDR2 800Mhz RAM with 4-4-4 timings – best performance and stability. Heatspreaders allow increased ventilation and heat dissipation.
5) Inno3D 8800GT 512MB 256bit GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTVOut PCI-E Graphics card £152.99
I have 8800GT video card in my PC and I can confirm that you can play any latest game on the highest resolution with this card, except Crysis (this game needs two cards in SLI mode to run this game with the highest settings). The tests show that 8800GT card is only about 5% slower than 8800GTX.
6) Samsung SH-S203B 20X DVD±RW/RAM / DL SATA Black Bare Drive – OEM £18.50
Samsung SH-S203B is a very fast, reliable and cheap SATA drive and it comes with Nero 7 CD.
All prices are from eBuyer. They offer a free and fast delivery with City Link.
The total spend is only £524.03!
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