Decent Desktop PC wanted for £600

[howlinstein]

I'm wanting to purchase a new desktop PC after struggling for years with a fairly poor laptop. I'm wanting to play games such as Terraria, Minecraft, Guild Wars on pretty standard settings. I'm not too bothered about how it looks as long as it allows me to run said games as well as multi-task with Ventrilo and Itunes etc etc. So pretty basic gaming and multi-tasking with I'm-ing and music. I've been thinking about an 15 sandybridge with 8gb of ram along with probably windows 7 as most games are not really designed for windows 8. My budget is £600 and I know very little about computers as a whole. I'd really appreciate a few answers about what is best for my purposes.
Help is very very much appreciated.

 

[keynes]

If you go with an i5 you may need to compromise on other components like the graphics card, you could consider an AMD CPU instead.

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 430 BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD FX-4100 Quad Core CPU (3.60GHz/4MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A97 R2.0 (DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, Windows 8 Ready!)
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7850 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 3 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS 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 (£79)
Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2010 Professional Edition
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £599.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/amd-bulldozer-top-spec-pc/2SprqGTCD9/

 

[Fear]

I would go with keynes spec above not really anything else you can do to improve on it unless you can up your budget.

 

[Grimezy]

Yea Keynes is probably spot on. To get a decent i5 that has an equal graphics card to match the processing power you'll have to spend around £900+. My i5 spec was £1015 which has a Nvidia GTX 670 in it. I also chose to go with a SLI motherboard and 750w power supply though so there are rooms for savings if that is way over budget. You could probably get an i5 with an AMD 7850 for around £800 if you could push the budget that far but if not you'd probably be best with Keynes's build. I would personally save up that little bit more for the i5 but most people would argue that AMD's are just as good for the price anyway.

I only play Guild Wars 2 out of the list you posted and my rig handles it on max settings for everything no problem at all even in like 30 player events (haven't got to anything bigger yet, still a newbie). The only thing that holds me back is my internet connection! But I'm sure Keynes's build would still handle it just fine, even if you do have to turn the settings down slightly in big events. I'm like you, I'm not that bothered about graphics as my LCD tv is a pretty terrible spec anyway but I do like being able to start up a game and not having to worry about fiddling with the different detail levels.