Budget Gaming PC advice

ThunderPants73 · 28-02-2016, 10:22

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade my HTPC to a bit of a gaming PC, to play the likes of Fallout 4, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 4 etc.

Some bits I can keep from the current machine but I would like some advice on the following, budget will only be around 300 - 400 quid:

PSU
CPU
Motherboard
Graphics card

Thank you very much.

Taf · 28-02-2016, 10:56

I've been looking into this for my daughter. It appears so far that a new PC would be far cheaper and better to meet the minimum spec required for the newer games she's been interested in playing. And minimum spec would provide awful gameplay according to several of her gaming friends.

A friend spent over £800 on a new PC, marketed as a "powerful gaming machine", only to find it unable to cope with games that appeared weeks later.

Hom3r · 28-02-2016, 15:25

These are over double you budget, but give you an idea of costs

ThunderPants73 · 28-02-2016, 18:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hom3r

These are over double you budget, but give you an idea of costs

??

Taf · 28-02-2016, 18:34

These ones go all the way up to £3k!!

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/gaming...-criteria.html

Build up your own spec

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/custom-pc/

http://www.alienware.co.uk/landings/desktops.aspx

prebuilt

http://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/gaming/

adzii_nufc · 28-02-2016, 19:08

AMD FX 8350
Any cheap AM3+ Board
R9 270 (X edition or standard if you wish)
Any Corsair 500w+ PSU

That should be around your budget. Someone could do better but I just went off the top of my head. It's no monster but that'll play all the games you've listed at reasonable settings. By reasonable I mean on par with the consoles or slightly above in places.

Don't touch pre-built gaming rigs, especially Alienware, they're an absolute rip off and thus a joke as are most prebuilt systems.

Gavin78 · 28-02-2016, 22:06

I have an amd 965 black edition running at 3.4ghz with 8 gig of ram and a gtx 570 gtx this pc is around 5/6 years old now but plays most games of today med/high/ultra settings on most games.

You don't really need a killer pc like some of the specs they list to play the games

Starwars battlefront specs

Minimum PC System Requirements

OS: 64-bit Windows 7 or later
Processor (Intel): Intel i3 6300T or equivalent
Memory: 8GB RAM
Hard Drive: At least 40 GB of free space
Graphics card (NVIDIA): nVidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB
Graphics card (ATI): ATI Radeon HD 7850 2GB
DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent
Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection

Recommended PC System Requirements

OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or later
Processor (Intel): Intel i5 6600 or equivalent
Memory: 16GB RAM
Hard Drive: At least 40 GB of free space
Graphics card (NVIDIA): nVidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB
Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB

Don't make me laugh as I said above plays on the specs I said fine 90% of settings are set to max and it runs fine

I also have a intel core i7 laptop running at 2.5ghz with an 860m GFX card that also runs battlefront at around 80% of settings upto max.

I upgraded my desktop to a 960 GTX card from the 570 GTX and can run battlefront flat out all settings max

so where they get those rec specs from I don't know

---------- Post added at 22:06 ---------- Previous post was at 22:05 ----------

I might also add that changing your motherboard can cause problems validating your operating system

adzii_nufc · 28-02-2016, 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gavin78

I have an amd 965 black edition running at 3.4ghz with 8 gig of ram and a gtx 570 gtx this pc is around 5/6 years old now but plays most games of today med/high/ultra settings on most games.

You don't really need a killer pc like some of the specs they list to play the games

Starwars battlefront specs

Minimum PC System Requirements

OS: 64-bit Windows 7 or later
Processor (Intel): Intel i3 6300T or equivalent
Memory: 8GB RAM
Hard Drive: At least 40 GB of free space
Graphics card (NVIDIA): nVidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB
Graphics card (ATI): ATI Radeon HD 7850 2GB
DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent
Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection

Recommended PC System Requirements

OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or later
Processor (Intel): Intel i5 6600 or equivalent
Memory: 16GB RAM
Hard Drive: At least 40 GB of free space
Graphics card (NVIDIA): nVidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB
Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB

Don't make me laugh as I said above plays on the specs I said fine 90% of settings are set to max and it runs fine

I also have a intel core i7 laptop running at 2.5ghz with an 860m GFX card that also runs battlefront at around 80% of settings upto max.

I upgraded my desktop to a 960 GTX card from the 570 GTX and can run battlefront flat out all settings max

so where they get those rec specs from I don't know

---------- Post added at 22:06 ---------- Previous post was at 22:05 ----------

I might also add that changing your motherboard can cause problems validating your operating system

If it's OEM it will invalidate the key

OEM keys will not work with a new Mobo due to HWID locking so any thought of keeping the HDD with Windows on will require a new key. Not pricey if you buy from a CD key online retailer, although I doubt anyone would care about cracking it either given you've already paid for it.

ThunderPants73 · 28-02-2016, 22:46

Okay, my budget might be nearer 600 quid. I'd like to go with Intel over AMD for the CPU, it's the GPU that's gotten me most confused. All I see it a ton of numbers and letters.

My OS should be fine with a new MB, it's not OEM.

DocDutch · 29-02-2016, 22:02

Thunder, okay something like this then?

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...tec-h600-aio-w £394 (I have just bought this last thursday and it is nice and quiet

)

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...792-streams-dp £150

and throw in a decent psu https://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w...x-power-supply

yes @ 615 including postage but you would have a system that will keep you going for a bit.

adzii_nufc · 29-02-2016, 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by DocDutch

Thunder, okay something like this then?

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...tec-h600-aio-w £394 (I have just bought this last thursday and it is nice and quiet

)

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...792-streams-dp £150

and throw in a decent psu https://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w...x-power-supply

yes @ 615 including postage but you would have a system that will keep you going for a bit.

This, You could change a few things here and there if you wanted but I think that's pretty solid from the get go and almost bang on budget.

DocDutch · 01-03-2016, 09:05

to be honest I would buy the bundle from scan and use their free postage, then look for the other components elsewhere and get free postage there as well.

ThunderPants73 · 01-03-2016, 18:34

Wish I'd seen this before I went to Amazon! I've ended up with this:

Intel i5-6500 Skylake CPU (not OC - I know...)
MSI Nvidia GTX 970 (this is a bit shorter than other 970s, and will just fit in my case
Gigabyte B150 M - LGA1151 uATX 4x DDR4 PCIE MB
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4 2400 Mhz
Corsair Builder Series CXM 750W Modular 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX/EPS PSU

Going in a Cooler Master Silencio case with a 250gb SSD and Windows 10.

This will double as a HTPC, and will be used on a 49" 1080p TV. I only really play adventure/RPGs, and never online. Got sick of the consoles piling up, thought a PC would be easier to update.

Your thoughts please?

DocDutch · 01-03-2016, 20:05

can you still cancel the order or has it been shipped yet?

okay the 970 is nice yes, not sure about the B150 boards...also a 250gb ssd isn't going to get you far if you want to play games on it as most new pc games will eat your hd.

for example bf4 with all the expansions is now 64.6 gb.
windows 10 with office 2010 and anti virus and other security software and drivers are already taking 40gb of space as well.

adzii_nufc · 01-03-2016, 20:31

Load times aren't that much of a big deal for some, I only have 500gb of SSD space and still don't install games onto it, I just use a 2tb HDD for steam/origin etc.

Just stick a standard HDD in there for games and naturally have the OS boot from the SSD.

You've pretty much got a solid build though, looking at close to max settings across all recent AAA titles as well as having a system that would still run games (albiet not at max settings) in 4-5 years time.

As above, I'd have changed the board now you've gone mid-high end for other components. It's not a big issue though, you've got a build to build further upon in the future now.