New PC

[Eric the Bard]

Does this sound good for 758 British pounds/1 275 U.S. dollars? It is alreade built and is supposedly cheap for being returned/not claimed. There is no OS installed, but I'm guessing installing one won't be much hassel. If it's a good deal, what OS should I choose?

 

766047 AMD AM3+ FX-8350 Black Edition
744179 Crucial DDR3 BallistiX 1600Mhz 8GB KIT
777315 Crucial M500 SSD 2.5" 240GB SATA 3.0
802658 Toshiba Desktop 1TB SATA 3.0
798673 Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 PCI-E
759848 ASUS M5A97 R2.0, Socket-AM3+
769187 Corsair Cooling Hydro H55 CPU Cooler
795138 Cooler Master G650M, 650W PSU
808805 Corsair Obsidian 450D Midi Tower Black

[Fergal]

Yeah, that is a very solid build. Overall it is very good bang for the buck (at least where I'm from - America seems to be much cheaper, not sure about how it is in general up there ). Obviously if you choose Windows the price will shoot up a bit because it is fairly expensive.

 

Windows 7 vs Windows 8 (64 bit obviously, home premium is fine unless you want to add over 16gb of ram) is your personal preference really, just do a bit of research and see which fits you better, as far as I know, Windows 8 has come a long way but I'm not really up to date with it. You could go with Linux if you are willing to learn, your games will be limited, but there are more and more games going to Linux particularly because of Valve and Steam OS. As far as I see it, Linux is free, so you aren't investing anything really, maybe time. Just grab Ubuntu to get started, if you really want the extra games, buy a copy of Windows. Simple as.

 

Really I'm not entirely up to date with the prices of these builds because I've lost touch with what's going up and down, but to me it seems like a good deal. If you want a comparison, you can build the same PC on http://pcpartpicker.com/ and see from there, but really prices in your area is the important factor here.

[David]

Get Windows 8.1 OEM for ~$90. No reason to get Windows 7 anymore.

 

There's also a rumor that Windows 8.1 will get a free / reduced upgrade path after 8.2 to 9.

[Eric the Bard]

I'll probably buy it then, and Win 8.1

[David]

Thought I'd total up you prices if you were in the states and had access to Newegg / Amazon. Didn't take waiting for sales, alternative stores, or anything like that into account; just the current Amazon/Newegg price.

 

AMD AM3+ FX-8350 Black Edition ---- $179.99 Amazon/Newegg

Crucial DDR3 BallistiX 1600Mhz 8GB KIT ---- $78.85 Amazon

Crucial M500 SSD 2.5" 240GB SATA 3.0 ---- $114.99 Amazon

Toshiba Desktop 1TB SATA 3.0 ---- $57.99 Amazon

Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 PCI-E ---- $274.99 Newegg 

ASUS M5A97 R2.0, Socket-AM3+ ---- $83.83 Amazon

Corsair Cooling Hydro H55 CPU Cooler ---- $60.13 Amazon

Cooler Master G650M, 650W PSU â€‹---- OOS, ~$87.98 SuperBiiz

Corsair Obsidian 450D Midi Tower Black ---- $119.99 Amazon/Newegg

 

Total: $1140.91

 

You'd have to build it yourself though, of course.

 

Do you have a monitor?

[Fergal]

^ I wish we had those god damn prices in Europe... Just a quick check from amazon.co.uk, I'd be paying an extra $20 on just the 8350. :/ And much worse on even the cheapest available Sapphire 280x.

 

Just out of curiousity, which Sapphire card was it, they have a couple of models with a pretty hefty price gap.

[David]

^ I wish we had those god damn prices in Europe... Just a quick check from amazon.co.uk, I'd be paying an extra $20 on just the 8350. :/ And much worse on even the cheapest available Sapphire 280x.

 

Just out of curiousity, which Sapphire card was it, they have a couple of models with a pretty hefty price gap.

 

I did 100363L, which I believe is the cheapest.

[Fergal]

Oh er, I phrased that wrong. What I meant was edition or whatever. That seems to be the standard base level edition, which isn't on amazon.co.uk from what I can see.

 

What I meant was Dual-X vs Vapor-X vs Toxic, but that probably isn't relevant if it wasn't mentioned in the OP.

[Eric the Bard]

I get it delivered to a store close to me for free as well, so I guess it's the cheapest I can get it for. And I don't have a monitor really, I'd have to buy one. I have to buy keyboard and mouse as well. Got any tips on those three things?

 

EDIT: I'm not really on a budget but I don't need/want anything too expensive

[Fergal]

Need a budget for them.

 

Keyboard can really be any ol' cheap thing, unless you want mechanical, lol. Mouse depends on the person, but if you determine your mouse grip (claw, palm, fingertip) and a budget I can give you a few recommendations.

[Eric the Bard]

I think I want a rather silent mechanical keyboard (I think you posted something about that some time ago Fergal?), and I use a palm grip. I'm willing to spend about 100-150 £ combined for it. Unless you recommmend spending more, than I would consider that. Got any tips when it comes to monitor? I got a maybe 32" TV (might be larger than that) that I'd probably hook up as well as a normal monitor, but I think 32" would be way too big for normal use.

[Fergal]

If you really want mechanical, and silent - Then just find a keyboard available in Cherry MX Browns or something for the keyswitch. Stay away from blues. You can look up the different keyswitches, but I'd just get brown and then unless you can master not "bottoming" out your key press, you can stick O-rings underneath the keys, but they can expensive enough I believe. If you want to fit within budget, I'd recommend something from Cooler Master or Corsair - the keyboard only companies are rather expensive.

 

£100-150 is should be fine. Its the mechanical keyboard that will drive that up. Mice aren't overly expensive for the most part. For palm grip, I think the obvious choice is the Razer Deathadder (the only thing Razer have done right), or, if you'd like a Logitech gaming mouse, because the Deathadder seems to be stuck at a high price at least on Amazon.

 

For your monitor, you will probably want a 24", seems to be the sweet spot, 1080p, probably TN panel (which is almost all of them). That would be reasonably cheap. If you have cash to spend you can always look into 1440p with IPS (27") or a gaming monitor with say 120HZ refresh rate (although I deem that a poor choice unless you are a professional gamer). If you go with the 24", I'd personally just find the cheapest one from a reliable brand name that seems to have a decent reviews.

[Eric the Bard]

Thanks, I'll look into it. When it comes to monitor, that is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Probably gonna go for 1080p, don't see the need for 1440p.