How to build a £600 Gaming PC

Test Setup

Intel® Coreâ„¢ i3-540 Dual Core CPU – Overclocked @ 4.20GHz
4GB Mushkin Silverline 1333MHz 9-9-9-24
MSI H55M-ED55 Micro-ATX Motherboard
Coolermaster Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
Corsair TX650 PSU
PowerColor HD6870
Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB
NZXT Vulcan

Of course we need a system to run it up against. We could dig around in the cupboard and build a similar spec system but that really wouldn’t prove anything. So to really get a feel for how much juice we have available to us we’re going to put it up against the standard OC3D test rig.

ASUS EAH6870
ASUS Rampage III Extreme
Intel i7 950 @ 4GHz
6GB Mushkin Redline RAM
Corsair AX1200 PSU
Noctua NH-D14
Kingston SSD Now V+ 256GB
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Now you don’t need me to tell you that our test rig weighs in at a serious wedge. Especially when compared to our ‘affordable’ gaming rig. So obviously dual-core vs quad-core wont show up well in CPU based benchmarks but gaming will really show if you need a mental system to get playable frame-rates.

Overclocking

Naturally this is overclocking, hence the sub-title, but the cool thing is that Aria have done all the work for us. As you can see the i3 540 has got a pumping overclock all the way from 3.07GHz up to 4.2GHz.

  

Contrary to many pre-overclocked kits available, Aria haven’t given everything for a big “number” that looks good on the adverts without considering its usability.

8 hours of Prime95 thrashing away gave us a maximum temperature 69°C. Considering the Coolermaster is a 92mm fan and very quiet we were impressed indeed.