Gaming PC with monitor for £500, impossible?

3t3P

3t3P

3t3P

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Chap at work is fed up with console gaming and wants to try PC.

I told him £500 is gonna be very difficult as he needs a monitor and case (has mouse and KB).

I dropped this much on two GPUs so am lost to the budget build world I'm afraid.
I told him an extra hundred-two hundred quid can make a build that much better.

Still, I said I'd see what I could do as its cheaper than the shops and you know what's in it.
,
So yeh, CPU, mobo, GPU, RAM, PSU, HSF, case, monitor, HDD, windows, fans/cables, optical + misc

I was wondering if an mitx build might appeal
Cheers
 
Possible down the second hand route, but would be very tight considering you need everything.

But, you never know.
 
I've done a £600(ish) one as £500 is too tight with Windows and a Monitor needed.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 750Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £107.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2278HD 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £55.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £52.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 450W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £39.95
1 x BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower - Black £29.99
Total : £615.86 (includes shipping : FREE).




If you could up it another £20-30 an AMD 270 like this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-245-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1982 would be a decent upgrade. You could also drop the CPU to a 6 core FX6300, or go for a Kaveri APU and add a graphics card later on. You don't really need an optical drive either, Windows can be installed from USB.
 
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Could he not connect it to his TV for now and get a monitor when he can afford one? That would certainly give a lot more room in the budget. I've used a TV before and while it isn't anywhere near as good as a monitor it'll still be better than a console.
 
 
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Why is he fed up with console gaming? What console he got?

Gaming on an APU is going to be pretty choppy unless he wants to run everything on low and then graphics will be same or worse than console anyway :/ Tis a very tight budget for a gaming PC! If he is interested in playing BF4 then a Kaveri APU along with the new Mantle API is playable at 720p medium quality
 
Take Snips' suggestion as a starting point, and bearing in mind this is a very-budget gaming machine (so GPU performance is king);

Swap the A10-5800k for a Athlon 750k (saves £34)
Swap 8GB Ram for single 4Gb ram - geil black dragon 1600mhz for £32 (saves £23)
Swap motherboard for the cheapest fm2+ board - Asus A55BM-E £40 (saves £13)
Swap PSU for a 430w corsair builder series for £36 (saves £12)

Total saved = £82
For that you can get a Geforce GTX 750 for £86 or, for a little over budget, a GTX 750Ti for £108.

Would be a pretty decent gaming machine (For a guy switching from, presumably last-gen, consoles).
 
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WalderX said:
Why is he fed up with console gaming? What console he got?

Gaming on an APU is going to be pretty choppy unless he wants to run everything on low and then graphics will be same or worse than console anyway :/ Tis a very tight budget for a gaming PC! If he is interested in playing BF4 then a Kaveri APU along with the new Mantle API is playable at 720p medium quality
Click to expand...

Gen 1 & Gen 2 APUs will be just as good at running the likes of BF4. There are plenty of videos on YT which will justify this.

As for choppy, unless you don't balance the build, this would be a direct results. With all the right parts, you can get a very good APU setup which will give some of the low end cards a run for their money.

By overclocking the CPU and using fast RAM (2133mhz+) you'll be fine!

An alternative is to go hybrid crossfire - ok, cannot find card to hybrid to I've amended my previous build:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7700K 10 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 6 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £125.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2278HD 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-HD3 AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 450W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £39.95
1 x BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower - Black £29.99
Total : £524.98 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
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Slung this together, no monitor but as previously mentioned - perhaps he can plug in to his TV? Crucially my build has faster APU, SSD, keyboard + mouse and a DVD drive which is useful although not really needed these days!

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £139.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £45.95
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 450W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £39.95
1 x BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower - Black £29.99
1 x Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE SATA 18x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM £12.95
1 x Gigabyte KM6150 Keyboard and Mouse Set £9.95
Total : £483.84 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
This and connect to TV, 270 is a great card for the money!
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 270 Gaming Edition OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £134.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £47.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 450W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £39.95
1 x MSI H81M-E33 Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £34.99
1 x BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower - Black £29.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x Gigabyte KM6150 Keyboard and Mouse Set £9.95
Total : £503.92 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Just to be clear, for a gaming machine you should never consider going with an APU on its own if your budget allows you to get an entry-level gaming GPU.

Anandtech compared the A10-7850k's APU to an old AMD HD6750 (which performs approximately in line with a GTX640, and behind a R7 250);
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-review-a8-7600-a10-7850k/12
The HD6750 absolutely destroyed the APU's graphics
 
 
cheesyboy said:
Just to be clear, for a gaming machine you should never consider going with an APU on its own if your budget allows you to get an entry-level gaming GPU.

Anandtech compared the A10-7850k's APU to an old AMD HD6750 (which performs approximately in line with a GTX640, and behind a R7 250);
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-review-a8-7600-a10-7850k/12
The HD6750 absolutely destroyed the APU's graphics
Click to expand...

That's a ridiculous statement!! The APU was built for that purpose and serves it very well. They just need to be balanced. Hybrid crossfire is a bonus also!
 
So if your budget allows you to get an entry-level gaming GPU, you still think an APU is a better option?

I don't see how (other than some SFF builds)

ps. I think APUs are great, and would love to have one in a living room steambox-type system. But I get a kick out of the tech involved - someone who's just interested in a good gaming experience would be better served by discreet GPU
 
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I think you have to weight up the options. All budgets will have different requirements (SSDs/Monitor) which are non-negotiable.

On a budget like this, the monitor is being removed for the price of a low end GPU. However, the low-end GPU is not a requirement as the APU will do the same job. Here, you have scope to go hybrid-crossfire or even get a better GPU later on.

You can then weight up the pros and cons of the said spec. Mantle has proven to have a performance boost on APUs & mid-high end cards.

Balance the build!!!
 
Well yes, but "where budget allows an entry level gaming GPU" you should include one in a gaming system in preference to an APU

see post #8 to see how this budget allows you to keep the monitor and game with a GTX750. The only questionable loss is going from 2x4GB ram Dimms to 1x4GB - but that shouldn't effect the performance in gaming generally (and remember that a £500 gaming system which includes OS and monitor is always going to be compromised in some way)

Mantle has minimal effect where GPU is the bottleneck (such as in an APU system)
 
 
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3t3P said:
So yeh, CPU, mobo, GPU, RAM, PSU, HSF, case, monitor, HDD, windows, fans/cables, optical + misc

I was wondering if an mitx build might appeal
Cheers
Click to expand...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2278HD 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 750 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750-1GD5/OC) £85.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02733) £73.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G1600HC9DC01) £55.99
1 x Intel Pentium G3420 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £49.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) HDD £35.99
1 x MSI H81M-E33 Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £34.99
1 x OcUK Value Quartz Micro Black Interior 500W 12cm Black Psu £31.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
1 x Zalman ZM-HPS200 Gaming Headset £9.95
Total : £499.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).



HSF included with Pentium CPU.

Pentium can be replaced with i3/i5/i7 in future. It's just there to get him going, and stay within budget.

The crappy PSU in the case will probably die within a year or so (at £32 for case + PSU it should be expected) and need replacing with a decent one. Still, once that's done, it will also enhance GPU upgrade options in future.

So yeah, he should spend more really. Or he could start off with that and upgrade it yearly or whatever.
 
I personally think this is the way to go. 6 core AMD chip and a 750ti, this will actually play games at medium/high settings at 1080p without issue so would give a nice experience. It's a little over budget but not much in the grand scheme of things.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 750Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £107.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2278HD 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x MSI 760GM-P23 FX AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard £31.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 300W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £29.99
1 x Zalman T4 Micro-ATX Case USB 3.0 - schwarz £22.99
Total : £557.51 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
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