Budget Gaming PC

[MrTechProWannabe]

The only thing the extra tabs being open will do is hog up RAM. With how fast computers are these days your computer wont hamper the speed of your connection at all. My old 98se box handles my 20Mb cable connection quite well for being so old but I put a Gigabit card in there too.

To speed up general tasks and overall the general speed of your computer besides gaming an SSD will do that twofold.

An SSD meaning Solid State Drive? For arguments sake, let's say I keep the 500GB HDD, what would be a cheap yet efficient SSD I could purchase that won't bend my budget over but do the task of general speediness? To be honest I'm quite proud with myself, even though you've done all the work, 2 days ago I knew absolutely nothing about components, at least now I have some insight hehe, thanks.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yes Solid Sate. Due to the nature of the drive, they can't be any old random ones that are the cheapest like HDDs. Reliability and quality is as important to the SSD as it is the PSU.

These 2 are the cheapest you could get that I would recommend for their size groups.

60GB
Intel 60GB 330 Series SSD - Solid State Drive - SSDSC2CT060A3K5 - Scan.co.uk

120GB
Samsung 120GB 840 Series Basic SSD 7mm Slim Solid State Drive - MZ-7TD120BW - Scan.co.uk

Now you can get either one and install your OS, basic programs, ect on there and use the HDD for other things. I used a 64GB SSD for the longest time before getting this one. A 64GB is good for the OS, browser, few smaller programs, and 1 or 2 games depending on the size of them.

 

[MrTechProWannabe]

Oh I see, I guess I don't really a big Hard Drive anyway though, I don't really download much. I watch some Films on Netflix and YouTube etc. However I mainly download my Films, but after watching a Film there's not exactly much point keeping it, so they won't exactly take up space. I just don't want the PC to be slow, we know that the PC is going to be great For watching HD movies and playing Games on high>max settings, but considering I appear to have Fairly decent Internet, I just want the PC to start and load programs up quick, and maintain a good high download rate. Of all the parts you linked to me, The Final cost is £592.72 including VAT, excluding shipping prices etc. (Upgraded to 650W PSU) I'd guess around a Final Final cost of £600. I guess I could just wait a month and if I Feel like it's needed I can always add in the SSD then.

 

[PP Mguire]

Everything you just explained minus the download speed (your internet wont cap a HDD sustained speed unless you have Google Fiber, even then you are at the mercy of the uploading server) will come down to SSD speed. Instantaneous boots, and program loading are dependant on your drives speed of which an SSD will give you. It's not always about raw speed vs HDD, but rather seek times (SSD has none) and access latency. There is no spin, it's just there. Also add in IOPS. An SSD can read/write much quicker than a mechanical drive.

 

[steve10765]

I would definitely recommend an SSD, For your use you will most likely only need a 64GB, you can get a 128gb if your willing to spend the money.
BENEFITS OF SSD
fast start up time, its about 4X faster from the second you push the on button till you get to your desktop screen, then you can click on anything and it will load instantly. Its really awesome not having to wait a little bit for your OS to fully start and for other programs to load.
It can also help with some games. for example you will load maps faster but that usually wont make a difference if you have to wait for all the other players to load first, and it doesn't really make an ingame difference. I have a good amount of games, the only games I have on my SSD is ARMA II CO because it needs a fast hardrive(so i use ssd) . The game has options to load more lush trees and grass, and when I use my HDD with that setting on it loads slower(while actually playing)

I would grab the SSD, then you can grab a 1 TB HDD later, which will be faster because you dont have the OS(win 7) on it, so its a win win if you can afford the SSD. If you cant get a 64gb I would still recommend a 32GB SSD, its less value/dollar and wont hold much other than the OS, but you wont regret it.
"Your hardrive is the slowest component in your computer" - PP Mguire

sorry if it was difficult to read!

 

[MrTechProWannabe]

Oh wow, I guessed it would help but to be honest I didn't really know what an SSD was before but obviously I do now after research etc. I'm going to be ordering the 60GB one that PP Mguire linked to me on my Final Components Thread. But essentially having to Hard Drives I'm going to be a little confused, cause I know that when you click My Computer, it shows your HDD capacity and storage use/limits etc. How will I know which one is the SSD and how will I load the OS onto it?

 

[PP Mguire]

Keep the regular HDD unplugged during Windows install so you know exactly which drive is the SSD even though it will be the only 60GB in your machine. After Windows is installed your SSD will be the C: drive and you can rename it like I always do.

 

[MrTechProWannabe]

Keep the regular HDD unplugged during Windows install so you know exactly which drive is the SSD even though it will be the only 60GB in your machine. After Windows is installed your SSD will be the C: drive and you can rename it like I always do.

No need For sarcasm hehe.. No but seriously this being my First ever build including First boot up I don't know what to expect /: I have two more questions question though. What's over/super clocking? And my other question is, do you think I should buy a different Graphics card? I'm sure the GTX 660 Superclocked is Fantastic, however I think it's you who said that it's not really necessary since I'm not going to be over/super clocking. The GTX 660 Sc is £175, would it be better if I bought x2 of a different GPU? After all I just want the best performance For my PC and want my money to be well spent. I don't really care if it's a Superclocked version to be honest, the standard GTX 660 isn't much cheaper, and at least I have that SC Function if I decide I want to do whatever over/super clocking is. But yeah, For £175-180 my question is would I be able to get better Graphics on my PC if I bought 2 different GPU's For the price of £180?

 

[PP Mguire]

Superclocked is eVGA's name for a factory overclocked card. Overclocking is raising the frequency (or MHz/GHz/frequency) on the memory or CPU/GPU. The little OC they do on the card wont really grant that much of a difference. You can buy it if you want, but the difference is a few FPS at best depending on the game. Since you were saying earlier you were already over budget I don't think SLI is within reason.

I wasn't being sarcastic in my last post.

 

[MrTechProWannabe]

Oh, I wouldn't even know how to raise or lower the Frequency.. And when I said no need to be sarcastic I mean't when you said "Even though it will be the only 60GB in your machine" Like you said it's hard to tell if people are being straight up or sarcastic cause it's in writing, I apologise if you it wasn't sarcasm though. I think I'm going to have to go over all the parts again and check the total cost. I take it that SLI means dual GPU? If so, For the price of £180 that the GTX 660 costs, I could afford something like 2 1GB EVGA GeForce GTX 650's? I say I can afford to have 2 Graphics cards, which yeah in a way I can. But if having one 2GB GTX 660 would be better than having 2 of any other Cards then please say, as I wouldn't have a clue. For example though, stuff like the Performance Radeon HD 7850 with has 1024 Cores For £128.14 and I'm sure I can Find another AMD GPU For the remaining £55 Or For example the GTX 650Ti which has 768 Cores For £135 and again I'm sure I can Find another cheap GPU For the remaining £50, what do you think? c: