Requesting advice for building a budget gaming PC

^ I'd tend to agree. Which is why I suggested the Phenom II.

I didn't suggest an Intel setup since it would be cutting it close to the upper-end of the budget, but it would obviously be the better buy.
@OP, if you can afford it, get the i5 3450 and this motherboard instead of the ones I recommended.

Good luck, and do post pictures of the build once you're finished!

I didn't delete your post? I don't know how to O.o

I've been doing quite a bit of digging around, and referring to Passmark and have settled with a pretty decent build, as far as I can tell. We don't need to get a new monitor as the one we have at the moment is 22" with only a 0.02 milisecond delay (or 0.2 can't remember). I think we were gonna keep the PSU that we have now.

The build is here. Do you know if this would be compatible with the case? If all goes well, I could have this well before Xmas! I currently have £70, and results day is nearing! To save you the trouble of calculating, the build is £350 without the case, with a case about £400, either way, still £200 cheaper than the specs you've all ptiched, BUT DON'T YOU DARE THINK THAT THEY'VE GONE TO WASTE! Using your pitches, and references to my friend's current specs (which I benchmarked) I've managed to get a good medium of price, better than most of theirs as far as I'm aware, whilst not costing me too much!

I'm currently gaming on my laptop, which seemingly does the job while fairly well, and scores only a 312. so trebling that would be more than satisfactory, but in my recent post, the graphics card scores 2700, and I have a backup for £30 less that scores 2000. (is that worth it?)

That all depends on which settings you are willing to compromise for your gaming graphics.

I'm happy with my GTS 450 that returns a score of 1400 at passmark. There has been a few times, I've noticed little effects ingame that could have been corrected with a higher scoring card. I'm currently looking at benchmarks and reviews for the GTX 660 Ti (passmark score ~ 3500), I've been waiting quite a while for this card to release.

Would the GTX 660 Ti be worth it for most people? Because although it boasts a 3500 passmark, wouldn't it's potential be limited to that of the monitor?

No, its potential would only be limited if it was pulling well over 60fps in every game at max settings, which is not quite the case. But it would probably be bottlenecked by that FX-4100 though. Speaking of the FX-4100, I think you'll find that CPU will get outdated very quickly, if you're going for an AMD build then get the FX-6100 at least.

No, like I said in an earlier post you need a mini-ITX motherboard for that case. You might also want to change the RAM to a low profile version if you're thinking of getting that case. Personally I wouldn't get a mini-ITX case unless you're really want a small footprint, the cooling will be pretty bad and you stated earlier that was one of your concerns. There's lots of micro-ATX cases around for £50.

What PSU is that? If it's just a generic 250-300W one then I highly recommend you change it.

:/ why so much hate for the FX series. I myself own a 6100 overclocked to 4.1GHz and it performs admirably. for $140, forget intel. the bang for buck is much better with AMD at that price range. if you can afford $220+ on a CPU though, then intel is the way to go.
and I know I'm gonna cop some flak for this, 'AMD fanboy bla bla bla' and tbh, I've only ever used intel my whole life previously.
in fact, I'm writing this on my intel laptop right now. However, when I built my rig, I threw caution to the wind and took the plunge with AMD. why? I had my reasons, the most notable being:
- It was very cheap, and I was on a tight budget. much like the OP
- I wanted to try something different (see last point)
- It had gotten very positive reviews (despite all the intel fanboy hate)
- I was willing to try something different, despite all the talk about the low end i3's destroying the FX-6100.

Well, I built my rig and haven't looked back.
for the curious, the temps are 28-30 idle and 40-48 load (never gone above 48, even when OC'ed and doing a CPU burn test)
this is sitting under a $25 Coolermaster CPU cooler too, and the ambient room temp is something like 24 degrees.
To be absolutely clear, I am neither an AMD fanboy, nor an Intel fanboy.
I have used both extensively, and yes I agree they both have their pros and cons, but at the end of the day,
my 'shitty' FX CPU and 550Ti can max out Skyrim, MW3, and play BF3 and Crysis on High, never dipping below 40 FPS.
and for a total of $840 AUD, I'm very content with my build.

So, to be perfectly clear, this is my opinion. You may consider my thoughts incorrect, and I'm not going to argue.
I however have learnt firsthand that AMD aren't just some low-end knockoff that 'deluded fanboys' buy, they are a decent contender, especially in budget builds. plus their higher end CPU's aren't bad either.
OP, as for your build, I'm not gonna force this upon you, but it may be worth it to at least consider the FX series.

TL;DR
FX isn't as bad as everyone says. tight budget builds = AMD, higher end = intel.

Hope I brought some clarity. feel free to disregard this completely though if you wish, since not everyone will appreciate my opinion.
good luck OP you're in safe hands with the rest of the TS crew.

Seeing how most people are probably using a single monitor/TV at HD resolutions or less, the GTX 660 Ti would allow for gaming at max settings with 30+ FPS. Even though your not likely to see 60 frames per second on max settings, I would say yes this card is worth it. However anyone playing at higher resolutions than 1920x1080 or uses multiple monitors for gaming, would more than likely want a more powerful graphics card.

I don't think that we're going to go with that case anyway, I don't want to be limited when it comes to future upgrading.
Honestly, when I was looking around, I didn't see the FX6100 around, but now that I have, and seen that it's only £15 to go up to a Hex-core then I think it's a bargain.
I don't know what PSU we have at the moment, I'm not allowed to take my PC apart at the moment and my Dad's in Scotland for 2 nights. Why wouldn't a generic 250-300W suffice?

From your Amazon list I gather that you're going for the HD 6870. The power draw of the entire system with the 6870 at full load will be anywhere between 300-315W with the GPU itself drawing around 130. It is recommended that you buy a decent unit of around 500W to power your rig.

Dad just replied, he thinks it's between 600W and 650W, that's plenty.

Whether it's plenty would also depend on the amperage rating of the 12V rail. Just open up the system when you get time and check on the PSU for the current rating on the 12V line. The system would require around 35 Amps on that rail (safe estimate). Also make sure there are 2 PCI-E molex connectors to power the card.

The wattage of the power supply isn't nearly as important as its brand; a generic/no-name brand can and will cause problems in a gaming rig. Make sure your current one is of a decent brand (Corsair, Enermax, OCZ, Antec, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic are some examples) and that it's not too old (power supplies tend to slowly lose their power-delivery capability over the years).

The FX series under-perform in gaming compared to the Phenom II series.

I also tend not to like micro-ATX motherboards for quad-core CPUs; I've seen too many heating issues to recommend them.

The HD 6870 is getting kinda old in the tooth; a newer generation card would be a better buy. The GTX 660Ti is the best price-vs-performance buy right now; for a reference, consider that it matches the performance of the GTX 580.

How could a Micro-ATX motherboard be directly responsible for heating issues? I've not noticed any difference in Micro-ATX vs ATX where heat is concerned when using the same hardware configuration and only swapping motherboards.

The northbridge, RAM, GPU and CPU usually tend to be lumped too close together, which I've seen to result in hot-spots where heat tends to build up. Of course, case airflow plays a big part in this, but I haven't had good experiences with them in general.

Also, micro-ATX mobos tend to be limited in terms of expansion slots.

Lastly, I'd not recommend Passmark's benchmarks as being a very accurate way to measure the worth of a components, seeing as their CPU benchmarks indicate the FX-6200 to be superior (!!!) to the i5-2300, which is utter nonsense.

I see a lot of you all giving criticisms to what I and others have suggested, and while I'm open to criticism and am not taking it personally, it seems that your criticisms are worthless unless you provide a viable alternative. I've told you all that I have a limited budget. I can't afford a lot of the high range things that many of you are suggesting.

Like PC Nerd and Rage_3K_ Moiz have done, can you post a rig that not only works well, but are compatible with each other as well, and isn't that expensive.
Sorry for my rant, but it's kind of important.

So yeah, do any of you have rigs taht are compatible?

Sorry it might be because we're busy. Please don't take them harshly it is because would not want you to make a poor choice and have to spend extra money with returns or new purchases to rectify it. That's something we've (I've anyway) seen pretty often where people think that they have things all chosen nicely and order something inferior.
Just to set things straight most of the things people here have "criticized" are things that you yourself suggested
(ex. mini-itx case, reusing the power supply, fx processor...)

It's well worth it to be patient and get things right the first time.

The first step for you is to figure out what this "generic power supply" is if you can. Take a look at the brand and the amperage figures that are on the power supply somewhere.
Then we can talk if you'll be able to reuse it and we'll have a better budget estimate (something other than "not that expensive".

After that we can just adjust the graphics card to fit your budget. I think the other parts are pretty solid choices.

Also, we are giving you good recommendations given our best knowledge of your situation. There's not much point in asking us if it is worth it for you. You decide if you want to pay that much, but I'll tell you that the 660Ti has excellent performance, and a great value at that price.

It has been a while since I have seen any postings from you Rage_3K_Moiz.

As much as I really do want the 660 Ti, the cheapest I've seen it is £225, which is £100 more than I'm willing to spend on a Graphics Card :/ Thank you though!