£500ish to spend on building a gaming PC, specs please?

[Jimmy the Rogue]

So, basically I'm new to this PC gaming thing, as for the past couple of years I haven't had much time for games in general but I was looking to get "back into the game" so to speak. I used to PC game as a child, but eventually I just didn't have the time, and when you're that young and you're using your parents hardware it isn't exactly much of a learning experience.

I have about £500 to spend with limited flexibility, interpret "limited" as you will. I was wondering if it would be too much trouble to ask someone to spec something for me, as I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing and I'm not going to pretend that I do. Also, you don't have to include an OS as this will be dealt with separately beforehand, otherwise it would eat into the budget considerably. Of course you don't need to be told that.

Also, almost as a separate question I did some quick searches to inquire as to what would be roughly affordable with my budget and came across some random components, and I was wondering if they're actually up to scratch, links below. Also noteworthy here is the fact that I could only find quite dated information, typically ranging from last year to about 2008!

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-650-P.../dp/B0030DL3FU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...rp.-_-20139046
http://www.pcupgrade.co.uk/productde...categoryid=538
http://www.amazon.com/Socket-Intel-M..._bxgy_e_text_c
http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Radeon-H...ecc_rvi_cart_4

Thanks in advance for any help you may offer.

[Ash]

I assume you need a monitor and keyboard/mouse included in this spec. Do you need wireless? What about speakers?

£500 is quite a low budget for a gaming PC unfortunately. I'm stuggling to come up with a spec within that budget, but I'm no expert. I guess somebody else might be able to.

[Wozza365]

This spec is £507 and will give you a pretty good experience


Case
InWIN MANA-136 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD A8-3870K APU (3.0GHz, 4 Cores) & AMD Radeon™ HD 6550D Graphics - Fast powerful CPU, with powerful graphics that will work in hybrid crossfire with the card I chose

Motherboard
ASUS® F1A75-M: FM1 A-SERIES, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0 - standard motherboard, usual features, SATAIII and USB3 being two advantage

Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB) - Plenty for now, you can add more later

Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6670 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11 - Alone it will achieve probably medium settings on most modern games, and much better with the 6550D integrated graphics, which combined makes it a 6990D2, which should be giving you very good settings

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE - Would recommend a caviar black, but these are still fast and has plenty of storage

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
350W Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5) - Dont forget this
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

[Jimmy the Rogue]

I assume you need a monitor and keyboard/mouse included in this spec. Do you need wireless? What about speakers?

£500 is quite a low budget for a gaming PC unfortunately. I'm stuggling to come up with a spec within that budget, but I'm no expert. I guess somebody else might be able to.

I don't need anything like speakers or wireless at the moment.

This spec is £507 and will give you a pretty good experience


Case
InWIN MANA-136 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD A8-3870K APU (3.0GHz, 4 Cores) & AMD Radeon™ HD 6550D Graphics - Fast powerful CPU, with powerful graphics that will work in hybrid crossfire with the card I chose

Motherboard
ASUS® F1A75-M: FM1 A-SERIES, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0 - standard motherboard, usual features, SATAIII and USB3 being two advantage

Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB) - Plenty for now, you can add more later

Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6670 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11 - Alone it will achieve probably medium settings on most modern games, and much better with the 6550D integrated graphics, which combined makes it a 6990D2, which should be giving you very good settings

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE - Would recommend a caviar black, but these are still fast and has plenty of storage

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
350W Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5) - Dont forget this
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

And without the Windows 7 OS? What if I didn't include the case in this budget either? I've looked some up and I can probably also deal with that outside of the 500 budget, I like the sound of the HAF 932, I'm guessing that would that be quite advantageous over the InWIN MANA-136 for the sake of future-proofing in general. But again, I know little about these things so I'm relying on your expertise.

[Ash]

What about a monitor? Do you just need the tower and that's it?

[Wozza365]

I think W7 on here is £80, although may be less now, you will also have the option to a £15 upgrade to W8 ultimate (i think) when its released

There is no point getting such an expensive space when you are on a low spec, you would be much better off spending that money on better parts within the PC, they will make the PC more futureproof