2 replies to this topic

[JamieG93]

I was looking at building my first PC and I'm under a strict budget of £3-500. I know It's not alot and I'm going to strugle to find something that will run the game at decent settings for that price, so I wanted to run a through ideas through you lot and your greater experience before I do anything I will regret.

I plan on running the game at 1920x1080

anyways this is what I was thinking (All prices are from ebuyer, if you know of anywhere cheaper I would appreciate it)

CPU - Intel i5 3550 3.3GHz (£160)
GPU - Saphire HD 7770 1GB (£95)
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-Z77-ds3H (£68)
RAM - 8 gig (around £30 - if you could reccomend one that'd be great)
PSU - Powercool modular 550w 80+ (£42)
Hard Drive - Segate 500gb Barracuda HDD SATA-III, 7200RPM, 16MB Cache (£40)

I already have a OS (win7), a disk drive and an old case, I think it's an old gaming case but I'm not 100% sure. I'm not entirely sure how important a case is, would I need to replace it?

What sort of specs will this pc be able to run the game on and what sort of frame rates would I be getting?

That comes to a total of around £440. I know that's cheap enough for a (hopefully) decent gaming pc but I was looking at saving even more money;

One way I was thinking was to upgrade the CPU to the i5 3570K (an extra £15), and then running the game with the onboard intel HD 4000 graphics. I know this wouldn't be the greatest gaming experience, but I was wondering how 'playable' it would be? ie, what sort of settings would i need to run on and what frame rate would I get?

Is there anyone running the game with similar processor/mobo with onboard graphics, and how bad is it? That way I could save up a bit more money and pay more towards the £200 mark for a graphics card in a few months time.

Also is there anything I have missed out. Will I need to think about CPU cooling? I imagine someone will reply something about overclocking, but I don't really know anything about it.

Sorry for the repetativbe nature of the post, I know there are alot of threads like this and i spent all yesterday afternoon and evening sifting through the forums, but found myself just as (if not more) confused this morning.

Jamie

[Quaker]

JamieG93, on 19 December 2012 - 01:15 PM, said:

I already have a OS (win7), a disk drive and an old case, I think it's an old gaming case but I'm not 100% sure. I'm not entirely sure how important a case is, would I need to replace it?

Well, there isn't really such a thing as a gaming case, except that they are often kind of ugly and have spinning/flashing LED lights. Other than that, a case is case. The only concerns with any case are having enough room for the desired components and good air flow. Unless it's very small, room shouldn't be a problem, and since you don't (yet) intend to overclock and you can't afford high-end, heat producing components, cooling shouldn't be a problem either. (The case should have some fans - at least one in front or one in back.)

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What sort of specs will this pc be able to run the game on and what sort of frame rates would I be getting?

You should expect medium graphics settings @ 60 fps, except ~30fps in WvW and large events (lots of players). The fps drop in WvW and events is mostly due to CPU limitations, and even a 3570 would perform about the same as the 3550.

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One way I was thinking was to upgrade the CPU to the i5 3570K (an extra £15), and then running the game with the onboard intel HD 4000 graphics. I know this wouldn't be the greatest gaming experience, but I was wondering how 'playable' it would be? ie, what sort of settings would i need to run on and what frame rate would I get?

One way to get an idea of that would be to look at this GPU chart from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardw...iew,3107-7.html
and note where the HD4000 sits on the chart relative to the HD7770.

Also note that the actual game performance increase from a 3550 to a 3570 is negligible. Btw., if you wanted to shave a bit more off the cost, you could use an i5-3350P which is basically a 3450 without the GPU and it should perform within a few fps of the 3550/3570.

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Will I need to think about CPU cooling?

If you are not overclocking, the stock cooler will do. You could get an inexpensive cooler such as the CM Hyper TX3 if you want better, quieter cooling. A TX3 will also handle a mild overclock, but you would want something like a CM Hyper 212 for higher OCs.


P.S. For specific recommendations it would help to know what country you are in (within Europe I assume) and/or where you plan to purchase items.

Edited by Quaker, 21 December 2012 - 05:07 PM.

[Elder III]

You won't be playing with anything better than Low Settings @ a low resolution if you just use the integrated Intel graphics.  Whether or not you can wait to buy a dedicated video card is really up to you and your wallet.    Also, you ought to make sure to invest in a quality Power Supply, the one you have is dodgy at best and that is one area that you do not want to skimp on at all.