Budget Gaming PC Build Recommendations.
Gormond
Posts: 15,838 Forum Member
✭✭
Hey,
Looking at building myself a gaming PC including a monitor on a budget of £500 preferably from Amazon (with prime if possible). I have a retail copy of Windows 7 so I wont be needing an OS.
So far I have came up with:
Monitor (With Speakers) - BenQ GL2450HM 24-inch - £113.99
Case - Zalman T3 Mini M-ATX/M-ITX - £18.92
PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 430 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS - £31.63
Motherboard - MSI H81M-P33 LGA1150 M-ATX - £29.77
Processor - Intel Pentium G3220 Dual Core - £38.84
Graphics - Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti - £99.99
Memory - HyperX Black Series 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 CL9 - £30.10 x 2
HDD - WD 1TB Caviar Blue - £39.99
DVD - Samsung (SH-224DB) DVD Re-Writer SATA 24x - £14.95
Total - £449.28
I have a little bit of money to spare if anyone can see an obvious flaw in the build such as spending a bit more on the case or so forth. I haven't built a PC in years so no doubt there will be something I have missed.
Cheers,
Gormond
Looking at building myself a gaming PC including a monitor on a budget of £500 preferably from Amazon (with prime if possible). I have a retail copy of Windows 7 so I wont be needing an OS.
So far I have came up with:
Monitor (With Speakers) - BenQ GL2450HM 24-inch - £113.99
Case - Zalman T3 Mini M-ATX/M-ITX - £18.92
PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 430 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS - £31.63
Motherboard - MSI H81M-P33 LGA1150 M-ATX - £29.77
Processor - Intel Pentium G3220 Dual Core - £38.84
Graphics - Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti - £99.99
Memory - HyperX Black Series 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 CL9 - £30.10 x 2
HDD - WD 1TB Caviar Blue - £39.99
DVD - Samsung (SH-224DB) DVD Re-Writer SATA 24x - £14.95
Total - £449.28
I have a little bit of money to spare if anyone can see an obvious flaw in the build such as spending a bit more on the case or so forth. I haven't built a PC in years so no doubt there will be something I have missed.
Cheers,
Gormond
0
Comments
Gives you slightly more headroom when you inevitably change the GPU at some point.
Maybe take the CX600 Corsair for an extra £20.
Agree with this at minimum.
I looked into faster CPUs and found minor to no benefit with a 750 Ti, wouldn't it be better to upgrade the CPU and GPU at the same time when I upgrade in the future?
I suppose I'd recommend the i5 but it would break the budget, and we are budget gaming
What would be the point though? It would give no advantage with a 750 Ti on most games.
I can tell you the difference between a computer with an i5 and a Pentium DC is huge, that would be the point entirely. Replacing the 750Ti would be the key to out and out gaming performance, but replacing a Graphics card isn't the whole story. When you upgrade the card, if you also have to find a new CPU then every £ on a CPU is money that could be spent on the GPU upgrade.
The i3 is a budgetary compromise as it has 4 logical cores as opposed to 4 physical ones. The Pentium isn't punching in the same weight category, the i5 is a totally different animal.
Depends entirely on how much money you anticipate wanting to spend at a later date vs. now, it's your choice.
My gaming machine I tried a Pentium DC and it had to go. I have an i3, but I've seen the i5's and they do perform better, it is purely down to outlay. The i3 is extremely competent for a budget choice.
I think the issue (with my budget in mind) is getting the best bang for buck at the moment, chances are I wont upgrade my machine and I will pass it on to a family member when done as I do with all my old computers/laptops
If I had a bigger budget as in an extra £200 I would have went for an Intel Core i5 4440 at £122 and a Nvidia Geforce GTX 770 at £220 but sadly I don't ATM and it would probably be overkill for me anyway.
One upgrade I am looking at is replacing the 1TB HDD with a 250GB SSD, It will cost a little more but still within budget. It will restrict space but as long as I can install a few games at once I am good (this PC will only be used for games, nothing else).
The main games I will be playing are things like strategy games and MMOs that often never see the light of day on the PS4.
I did originally consider that but a Pentium G3420 which is £3 cheaper seems a little better going by this comparison http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/954/AMD_Athlon_X4_740_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_G3420.html
I can understand the reasoning re the SSD's faster access time - and from experience Windows loading in 30s is great;-) - but if wonder whether more memory might achieve a similar result? Going from 4GB to 8GB should result in less use of the HDD during gaming. (I guess part of this is whether you may want to install the 64bit version of W7?)
My budget was for 2 of those 4GB modules, maybe that wasn't very clear in my original post, sorry about that.
I will be installing Windows 7 64bit so that's not an issue, If i go for the SSD I am considering Windows 8 as I recall reading it boots faster than 7 with an SSD.
What are people thoughts on the motherboard and case? I really did just choose the cheapest as I'm unsure what to look for.
I would like a motherboard with built in Wi-Fi but I couldn't see any... Also what's with the versions, Gigabyte for example has 10 versions of their H81m board but I couldn't find a comparison of the differences.
As for the case, all I want are USB3 ports at the front and one that has good air flow and is easy to build.
The psu also seems a bit low but if you've done the maths and have it so it should pull about 60-70% of the max rating then it'll be fine
and don't forget to find out when the manufacturers are releasing new bits as that means everything drops down in price a notch
The power consumption should be about 250W so I thought 430W with 80%+ efficiency should be plenty.
The 600W is an extra £20 so I wouldn't be against getting it for future proofing.
When you say a "better" motherboard what do you recommend?
I have made some changes to my initial built:
- 600W modular PSU over 430W PSU
- Asus H81M-Plus over MSI H81M-P33 (The MSI board didn't have any front USB3 headers)
- Gigabyte 750ti over Asus 750ti (it was in stock and had a slight OC)
- 250GB Sasmung 840 Evo SSD over 1TB HDD
- Pentium G3420 over G3220 (extra £5 for 0.2GHz)
I plan to upgrade the CPU to a quad core at some point in the next 2 years which is why I got a 600W PSU.
I have ordered it (it was a little over budget) and will attempt to build over the weekend, I will let you know how it pans out.
Thanks! Last PC I built was a C2D many years ago so i'm slightly worried lol.
It's also been a while since I have been gaming on a PC so I hope I have made the correct choice over this vs an Xbox One.
I guess my question now is do I put Windows 7 or Windows 8 on it? Windows 7 I really like and my experience with Windows 8 has not been great (I couldn't even shut the damn thing down lol). I haven't yet tried Windows 8.1 though and I hear it's a big improvement.
Are you staying with stock cooling?
I will mainly be using my Turtle Beech headphones, the monitor speakers were just for the odd YouTube video and so forth. If I get new speakers which ones do you recommend?
I was going to use the stock Intel cooler that comes with it, would you not recommend that?
That is ok then, are the TB headphones usb? or do they plug into the sound card.
Logitech and Cambridge soundworks are pretty good speakers, best to see how your monitor speakers work first before spending some more money out.
Not sure with intel to be honest, a mate of mine got a Akasa Venom on his I7 and it does the trick, I have got the Nano version for my AMD Phenom II quad and again it does a good job. I suppose it depends on what space you go inside the case.
I started my build today but I hit a few problems, the PSU didn't really fit the case, I had the jam the thing in!
Then when connecting it to the MB the little click won't go down no matter how hard I push it, it appears to be all the way in but just won't click!
Now I'm just waiting on the RAM and SSD before I can test it, I now remember why I hate building computers lol.
So they are really a usb sound device anyway, not sure what sound chip they will use.
turtle beach used to make fantastic sound cards, i think they gone off the rails slightly with headsets.
this is the problem with going with smaller cases, i got a Haf from cooler master midi case, ample room for expansion and will last for years.
Sometimes it takes a bit of fiddling to get them right, certainly when they are in two parts. That is why I get it all from one place and make sure they can deliver it all at the same time.
The headset I have is the wireless MW3 ones, they work great with my PS3/PS4/360 so assumed the same with the PC.
The case I got is really shit, I will be rating it one star lol, you get what you pay for I guess.
Would it be dangerous leaving the MB connector the way it is? It's very tight and you have to pull really hard to get it out!
I actually ordered it all from Amazon via prime but the delivery was some today and some tomorrow sadly.
I presume they will, not really a headphone fan to be honest, My mate uses them all the time when he plays games, he got a old pair of Sennheiser connected to his xonar sound card. they do sound good for headphones that are over 10 years old, and using the xonar instead of the built in sound certainly improved the sound even more.
i do need to get a set, but more for communication
i used to go for the budget cases, the cheap Jeantech and the other £12 to £20 cases. I did go for a Asus one at £25 once and I have still got that on my second machine,
when i built this machine I decided to spend a bit more money on the case, my mate as I said got the full size cooler master Haf x case, over £130.at the time, I really did not want one that big and certainly not one at that price.
so I went for the haf 912 plus at around £60. it seems a lot of money for a case, but it should last for years, it looks and feels rugged.
It should be ok as long as the pins are connecting and not just touching., but hopefully someone with a bit more knowledge will cone and say yes or no.
One company I try to avoid these days is Amazon, I buy from Ebuyer if I can get the everything i want from them, I also use Scan and overclockers.
i got a couple of things from Dabs ebay shop, the last thing my 2TB internet drive. I used PCworld click and collect service for my sound card a few days back, the price was more or less the same everywhere else.
I finished building the PC and have installed Windows 7 on it, all seems to be good so far (touch wood) but I haven't tried any games yet.
What Fan/Temperature monitor would you recommend?
Thanks.
Gormond.
cpu-z is good too.