• Advice on a £400 budget build for a friend.
    10 replies, posted
Hi, so I've been asked to set up a PC for a friend with a budget of £400. She'll be playing games like BF4, Thief 4 and The Sims 4. (that's a bunch of 4's). I set up the following build for it, but I'd like to see if any of you guys have any ideas about it. CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£45.99 @ Amazon UK) Motherboard: MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£53.66 @ Amazon UK) Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£65.56 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.49 @ Amazon UK) Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£106.99 @ Amazon UK) Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£44.99 @ Amazon UK) Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£35.33 @ Amazon UK) Total: £392.01 Thanks!
That build looks good.Although you should get Z97 board since you have to flash the bios with the Z87. Pentium G3258 is overclockable so you can go for Z97.
if i'm right, you may not need a Z97. [url]http://www.techpowerup.com/202196/asus-enables-overclocking-on-h97-h87-b85-and-h81-series-motherboards.html[/url] why shell out the extra cash for a Z97 chipset, if you can overclock the pentium on a board with a H87, B85, or H81 chipset? [img]http://img.techpowerup.org/140618/Untitled.png[/img] apparently, that is a list of non-Z87/Z97 mobos capable of overclocking.
[QUOTE=Slippery-Q;45701945]if i'm right, you may not need a Z97. [url]http://www.techpowerup.com/202196/asus-enables-overclocking-on-h97-h87-b85-and-h81-series-motherboards.html[/url] why shell out the extra cash for a Z97 chipset, if you can overclock the pentium on a board with a H87, B85, or H81 chipset? [img]http://img.techpowerup.org/140618/Untitled.png[/img] apparently, that is a list of non-Z87/Z97 mobos capable of overclocking.[/QUOTE] You need a previous generation Haswell CPU to flash the update.
Yeah, only problem is the flashing. If you have a friend with a haswell chip, or get an H97 board, this won't be a problem.
Go with a 270x, you can even do what i did and fish for a second hand 7950 off ebay, got mine for 70 but there is no shortage of them at 110 buy it now Also got an i5 3330 for 65, requires patience but worth it
Overclocking on non-Z series motherboards is not reliable since Intel can patch the exploit the motherboard makers are using. The motherboard makers would be required to use that patch in their next update, meaning you'd lose overclocking capability It's not worth the risk for a few pounds saved
Also this is a much better psu [url]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00GRTS7HQ?cache=4ce733995df50a4bc523c4d212ba0e68&pi=SX200_QL40&qid=1408201181&sr=8-2#ref=mp_s_a_1_2[/url] [editline]16th August 2014[/editline] Or this one if you dont want to strain your budget [url]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B004BLMFSE/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1408201333&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX110_SY165[/url]
The MSI Z87 PC-Mate also does not require a BIOS update for the anniversary pentium, according to intel's compatibility list [editline]i[/editline] oh dear my automerge How is it dumb? Intel already fixed it the last time a motherboard maker made a H-series chipset overclock
Source!
[QUOTE=RandomGamer342;45707433]The MSI Z87 PC-Mate also does not require a BIOS update for the anniversary pentium, according to intel's compatibility list [editline]i[/editline] oh dear my automerge How is it dumb? Intel already fixed it the last time a motherboard maker made a H-series chipset overclock[/QUOTE] It's in the bios. They can force manufacturers to take the BIOS down, but they can't make you update it
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.