Guild Wars 2

Hi guys i have a friend that would like to build a pure gaming PC he has a £600 budget (some what flexible) but me and him don’t have that much experience. So i was wondering if you guys could help

he’s like to play most games in high-ultra if possible (mainly guild wars 2 ;p)

Please use this website for parts as these guys will build the computer for you

http://www.cclonline.com/

http://www.cclonline.com/product/137963/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Raven-III-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-RAV3/

that build seems ok i guess?

i would add a hyper 212 evo cpu cooler, change the ram to the g skill ripjaws cas9, switch to the western digital 7200 caviar 1tb hard drive from the seagate, and up the power supply to a 500w one from a good brand (ie corsair, antec). The 7870 is a great card but powercolor is a eh brand for me and their upgrade pricing on cards seems a bit dodgy. Also pick a case you like?

Tbh building a computer these days is pretty simple, most of it is just some simple screws to mount stuff and then plug and play everything else, and then install some drivers.

I would go for something like the picture attached. Grand total is £700 here, but that’s pretty much the only thing that made sense to me. The pre-built suggestion there looked good, but it was lacking OS and with all those changes it would’ve been more expensive with less power. The graphics card is a bit more powerful than necessary but the sufficient ones were only like 10 pounds cheaper so I went with that. It has overclockable CPU and mobo as well as a cooler, all of which you kinda need to get decent framerate in big zerg fights and world boss events, but if you decide not to go that route £40 can be saved downgrading CPU and mobo (regular i5-4670 and Gigabyte B85-HD3, or H87-HD3 if H87 chipset is required, only 6 pounds more but I didn’t see too much benefit in it), aftermarket cooler can be dropped then too if needed, another £25 saved. that makes it £635.

Since you seem to live in the UK I have a suggestion: Germany. Hardware prices are cheaper there and the shipping cost isn’t too bad. In the second pic is pretty much the same machine from a german hardware store, with shipping cost included it’s gonna be about £640. Up to your preference but I just want to give you that as an option.

I will point out that u will need to get in contact with the company u buy from if ur getting a prebuilt rig. Ask them specifically what PSU is in the computer, a lot of the time pre built rigs will have a very low end cheap PSU, which is not recommended. Just stating its a 450w is not enough, u need to know the brand, the available power connectors, and the Rail design (Single or Dual, and what amperage on each rail).

If your friend is a PC gamer it would be in his best interest to build the PC himself, if he doesn’t know how he should learn. Using a computer and not knowing how one works is just asking for trouble.

£600 is very tight for a gaming rig that needs to handle High-Ultra in games, I would suggest more in the £800 range at least.

Places I suggest to buy parts within the UK:

Novatech.co.uk
Scan.co.uk
Dabs.com
Overclockers.co.uk
Aria.co.uk
Also check Amazon and Ebay as some Large stores also have a Amazon / Ebay account store that can have cheaper prices (like Scan for example).

Aria has some nice prebuilt rigs made by themselves, however the good ones start at about £1000, BUT they are not overpriced, ur paying maybe £60 over the top of the actual individual parts cost for them to build , overclock, test, and guaranty it. (last time I checked that is). For example : http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Range/Award-winning+Gaming+PCs/Gladiator+Punisher+7870+LE+i5-3570K+4.30GHz+LAN+OC+Gaming+PC+?productId=55342

£650 is pretty much the max he can go ;/

Well if it were for other games it would easily be possible, you simply build around a AMD core, but since he wants it for GW2, then Intel is pretty much a requirement, and as such ur spend a premium on the CPU and motherboard, leaving little for the rest of the rig.
And since he wants a prebuilt, u again pay a premium….. on top of, sometimes, (if u buy the wrong rig) substandard components, usually the PSU or motherboard. PC gaming isn’t cheap, u pay for the advantages over consoles, but IMO at least ..its worth it. I guess it depends on how much of a gamer he is.

My advice in the end is for him to save up more money, don’t worry about the time it takes, there will always be something better on the horizon for PC components.
Maxwell is coming in regards to Nvidia GPU’s, which ‘should’ be a great GPU performance wise, though it is uncertain if the entire 800 series cards will be Maxwell or if only the top end ones are. If it is only the top end ones then its likely out of budget for ur friend, but even so ..the lower end 800 series will still be equivalent to mid to high end current 700 series but cheaper.
Ontop of that u have Broadwell Intel CPU’s coming which wont be a huge improvement tbh, maybe 5% ..just like Haswel was over Ivy, and Ivy was over Sandy ..so its nether a good or bad thing for som1 who is waiting on money to build a rig.

If he simply hasn’t got a PC or his current one is just that bad that he cant wait, then all I can advise is that he gets a Intel based rig with the best CPU he can find and a GPU that is at least a 650ti or AMD 7790.

what would be the best out of these computers

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-I5-4670-Quad-Core-Gaming-Pc-Computer-1tb-16Gb-Nvidia-GTX-660-2GB-Galaxy-/121187226489?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item1c37525379

http://www.cclonline.com/product/102535/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Raptor-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-RAP/

http://www.cclonline.com/product/111868/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Condor-III-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-CON3/

or do they all suck ;p?

For GW2, the ebay one is the best as it is Intel. Bottom line, get the best CPU you can and like Nova said, HD 7790 or GTX 650 Ti or above. You can’t really compare “other games” as that’s quite a huge span. Hoping to play Crysis 3 on Ultra? Heh, expect single-digit fps. Minecraft with original texture pack? What doesn’t run it? For most games, modern FPS’es at least you want stronger GPU. You have to make sacrifices somewhere, either CPU power, GPU power or cost of the machine.

people on toms hardware suggested the build in the link below and to upgrade the GPU in December. They claimed that this is the best all round computer no “cheap” unknown parts unlike the ones in the links above where you have a good GPU and a kittenty CPU est. Can you guys confirm what they said is correct?

http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/warbird-se-mkiv

PS I really appreciate all the help you’re giving me.

If you need help hop over to overclockers.com forums for more in depth help…. That YoYo Tech place has a cheap power supply which I wouldnt trust. At least for me it’s an unknown brand.

If you buy prebuilt you will always pay extra, it’s that simple. They buy the same parts and sell them to consumers, building a machine out of it requires extra work so that’s added to the price. That being said, yes that computer would run GW2 pretty smoothly, apart from it having a weird PSU (and an overclockable mobo paired with non-overclockable CPU?). I’d still say you would get better performance with my suggested £635 computer. And also as stated by Nova building a pc isn’t too hard, just follow the manual and all you need is a screwdriver and a few hours (extra time there if you’re new to it). Like playing with hi-tech legos.