Help me build a budget gaming PC (complete n00b)

[c_dug]

I've never built a PC from scratch before, I was looking down the PS4 route, but I've been convinced that a PC would be a better bet by friends.

The budget is around the same as a PS4 would cost (around £300), though the cost can be spread over a couple of months and a few bits for Christmas, so could probably stretch to £350-400 top end.

I've spent a bit of time looking through what I can afford, but to be fair I really don't know a whole lot about what I'm looking at. I think I've over spec'd the motherboard a bit but I figured that was a good thing as I can improve other bits and pieces to suit. I'd really like the opinions of some people who are more in the know with this sort of thing, my shopping list is below. No idea if I've missed anything important.

I've not chosen a CPU yet, there seem to be so many options I'm a little lost as to what is suitable for the build, my budget allows for about £100 to spend on the CPU, it could potentially be stretched a little if it was necessary. Not a clue on whether AMD or Intel would be more suitable.

It'll be plugged into my TV so no need for a monitor. I was hoping to connect up a console game pad, and I already have a wireless keyboard and mouse so don't need to cost that in.

My list is below:

Pretty standard case
Gigabyte motherboard
Corsair Vengeance 8GB RAM
1TB 6Gb/s Hard drive
500W power supply
My friend has offered me a graphics card, I think it's an Nvidea 2GB jobby - not certain on the spec but I could find it out if it's relevant.

Whatcha think?
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[andys675]

I know what you mean, I've been looking at it for weeks

I'm pretty much settled on a G3258 processor with a Z79 mobo, these can be overclocked to hell and later you can upgrade to skylake

throw in 8gb of ram, a 2gb graphics card, 750ti or the like

a 128gb SSD plus a 500Gb hard drive, 500W PSu and case and wallop £400 gone

so far I've got a spare case, and optical drive...........
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[Jayy]

For a budget system, you're looking at AMD processors. If you go Intel, i5/i7, you're in to the hundreds.

£100 odd will see a decent multi core AMD CPU. Second hand card is your best bang for buck too, if your mate has a cheap card, get it.

Everything else, buy it brand new... unless you can get a cheap case.

One massive upside to PC gaming, you can download cracked games and try the single player / campaign side of things out. Good way of not wasting your money on a game that you might not like and you need to buy it to go online, which I normally do if the game is good.

The PS4 for example, has a Radeon card in it which is almost identical to the R9 270x - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Dual-X-Radeon-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B00FL8H49Q

2GB Vram, so that card your mate has would just about match the PS4 in GPU power.

Take a look at the AMD A10 Quad Core processors @ £100 - https://www.ebuyer.com/712906-amd-a10-7870k-black-edition-3-9ghz-socket-fm2-retail-boxed-processor-ad787kxdjcbox

Another plus is being able to upgrade easily. Get a better card, faster CPU, etc.

I haven't been keeping up to date but what about the new Steamboxes coming out about now?

[CaNsA]

[c_dug]

[CaNsA]

I have a Gigabyte board, and all the super guff it comes with is not needed nor used.

Easy tune is a ballache and shouldn't be trusted.
The Gigabyte "apps" are a bloated mess

[chris-red]

Lob an SSD is aswell, Performance wise they are the best bang for your buck ATM.
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[CaNsA]

[c_dug]

Given I want something to be roughly equivalent to a top end console, am I unlikely to need/want more RAM slots and the ability to SLI/Crossfire?

I've no idea what sort of performance I can reasonably expect from a £300-400 set up and what will be the limiting factors.
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[Jayy]

16GB of DDR3 / 4 Ram will smash any game. You only start munching RAM when you're rendering high resolution videos or 3D, etc.

As long as you have 2GB minimum VRAM on the GPU, you will just about manage to run most games on a medium - high setting depending on the resolution.

AAA titles now have so many fancy filtering options, with everything maxed out, you end up with choppy as fuck frame rate. The higher the resolution you go, the worse it gets.

Running GTA V @ 4K resolution and trying to get 60fps would require a monsterous rig.

You would be talking 2 x GTX 980 Ti cards (£500 each) or a Titan X (£900 ish) + Intel i7 CPU, 16GB Ram

Running it at 1080p 60fps, a 2GB card would probably do it, which consoles only go up to 60fps anyway.

[c_dug]

TV only goes to 1080 anyway so 4K isn't what I'm aiming for.
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[c_dug]

Do I need a disk drive or are most PC games purely digital these days?

Not bothered from a DVD point of view, use KODI.
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[Ste]

Errrr, what is this 'disk drive' that you speak of?

[CaNsA]

[c_dug]

Graphics card my friend is offering is an Asus/Nvidea gtX650 2gb like so: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nvidia-GeForce-Graphics-GDDR5-Express/dp/B00AJ9XF3Q

For a small chunk under half of the brand new price.

Reckon that's suitable for this sort of spec build?
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[Rob W]

I've got an Asus GTX670 2GB that you can have for £60.

Its a considerably better card than a 650.
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[c_dug]

I may take you up on that, I'll drop you a PM later today.
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[Jayy]

No brainer, get the 670

[notbike]

I've got ddr3 4x4 1666mhz RAM if you want, and an 875w PSU. will sell them cheap I posted a thread about breaking my old pc so details are there if you wanna check it (on my phone atm so posting links takes 50 years)

[CaNsA]

<saving the day>
https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=308485
</saving the day>

[c_dug]

Can't really go second hand for most of it, I'd already told my other half that I'll sort the graphics card separately but the majority are Christmas bits from people, can hardly tell them to contact Meef from BCF
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[Jayy]

Personally, it's very rare I buy electrical goods second hand. I like warranties

My mobo is still under warranty and it's 3 years old (5 year warranty).

[c_dug]

Typically by going SLI I now need a bigger motherboard, bigger case, and bigger power supply.

Pretty much changed the entire list I've given out

And upped the price
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I am a bellend, I am a man of constant sorrow, I am a gummy bear, I am a rock.

[Jayy]

Upped the price? You've added on £100's by doing that

Did I miss something? Why did you decide to go SLi?

I'd want a better CPU so there's no bottle neck with 2 x GPU's

[Razzy]

why not just troll through gumtree and find something within your budget and haggle shitloads?
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