Super Budget Gaming Rig

Raikiri

Raikiri

Raikiri

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Joined
5 Jul 2005
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Location
Brighton
Building a little gaming rig for my nephew, budget is super limited (£260) however I do have some decent DDR3 and a keyboard/mouse/W7 license he can use.

So far I've come up with this from OcUK:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7790 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE GAMES £99.95
1 x Intel Celeron G550 2.60GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £35.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 (MB-364-GI) £35.00
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £32.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £30.00
1 x Xigmatek Asgard II Midi Tower Case - Black/Silver £29.99
Total : £263.92 (includes shipping : FREE).




The second is a SFF system with a slightly faster CPU, however it's from a few different places (no names mentioned ;)) and has a smaller HDD:

250GB Seagate ST3250310CS SATA II 3.5" Hard Drive - HDD
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Black Mini-ITX
MSI H61I-E35 V2/W8 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) Mini-ITX Motherboard
Intel Celeron G1620 2.70GHz (Ivy Bridge)
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7790 1GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
Antec v350p PSU

Comes to ~£270.

Can anyone think of anything better? He'll be playing at 1080p, mostly FPS, FIFA, Football Manager and a few RTS games. I've considered going AMD and then upgrading the GPU later but he doesn't like that idea for some reason.
 
Last edited:
That should be fine as long as he doesnt mind playing on the lowest setting on most games but id seriously get him to consider putting it off and saving abit more.
 
I think you're underestimating the 7790 a bit, at 1920x1080 it seems to handle most games well at medium-high settings.

Although saying that the CPU will obviously be a little limiting.
 
If you go this route

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-6800K Black Edition 4.10GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor (AD680KWOHLBOX) £124.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A55-DS3 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £32.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £30
1 x Xigmatek Asgard II Midi Tower Case - Black/Silver £29.99
Total : £294.06 (includes shipping : £11.75).





your friend would be able to later hybrid crossfire a HD 7750

and wont have the cpu issue
 
He could always upgrade his CPU with the OP's spec though, could probably pick up a second hand 2500K for about 80 quid, given the A10 rig is 30 quid more expensive, you'd have to buy a 7750.
And the Haswell Pentiums are out in a few weeks.

Although I'd vastly consider just saving for a second hand 2500K first and getting that in.

Phenom II X4's go for almost nothing too.
 
Very true, I have to say one of the hardest things ive ever faced is people asking to spec a pc for a ultra low budget.

Today with all the choice it's still so hard to get that perfect balance of components to perform in tandem with each other

Now that you mention it, i would have to say a second hand 2500k is a grand choise
 
I will suggest going used to him, unfortunately I doubt I can convince him to spend much more. Maybe push it to £300 and get an older i5, although even the i5-2300s seem to be getting £80+ still.
 
The cheapest second hand ive seen was a 2500k go for 74 quid.

It is definitely achievable it will just take a lot of hunting

and really if you can get a 2500k on a nice cheap board then he is pretty much settled for a great gaming time!

Will have to let us know how he feels about going second hand
 
imo you could get a better system with second hand parts at that budget than new. and if you didnt tell anyone, they wont be none the wiser =x
 
tamzzy said:
imo you could get a better system with second hand parts at that budget than new. and if you didnt tell anyone, they wont be none the wiser =x
Click to expand...

Absolutely true


and the joy of second hand is you can always find a absolute steal

id bet that on £300 second hand you could build something worth £450+ if you was to buy new
 
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