Looking for a cheap gaming build, details found in body :)

OPtalk

OPtalk

OPtalk

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Hello there! By looking at my profile you can tell that I'm pretty much new here. I joined because I need some advice from some of the amazing intelligent folks hanging around these forums :).
Basically, my dad and I have come to terms with building a custom PC for myself, however, I'll be using my own money and my birthday money to purchase all the components of the PC, therefore I'll be quite budget about it.
My laptop is an Asus-Notebook X555YA (A6 - 7310 2.00GHZ, Radeon R4 Graphics). It's very quick for school work and stuff like that and it can run stuff like LoL, ROBLOX and Paladins pretty good at my standards (like 30 - 40 fps on medium settings 720p). Of course, when there is a **** ton of particles flying about and explosions, it drops to 20 fps (either temporarily or permanently). With the PC build I want, I want it to run LoL, ROBLOX and Paladins (example games of the type of demand games I would play) on high settings, 40/60fps 720p. It also must be around £200, highest £250. I'm not looking for a damn PC beast that can run Crysis 3 on ultra 4k, I'm just looking for something that can run Photoshop and some games at a decent fps.


Thank you, wonderful people of the internet :)



PS. I don't know a lot about PC building. I looked at a quad-core CPU and I was like DAMN is this overkill or what? Could I be saving money? So I came here.
thxx
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

There's quite a bit to comment on to assist you in getting the best for your money for that budget. But first please let us know some details:

Do you already have the 720p monitor/TV?

Do you have mouse/keyboard/headset or speakers (whether separate or your monitor/TV has them)?

Do you already have/can you source Windows 10 somewhere cheap (don't mention competitor names, not allowed as OcUK funds the forum). Or would you like advice on options regarding this?

Second - the integrated graphics on modern Intel CPUs are capable of giving you what you want @ 720p. Unfortunately the latest AMD CPUs don't have integrated graphics yet, and would require also buying a discrete video card. This doesn't mean AMD is out of the question (yet) but to begin with, you should see what kind of Intel system could be put together first. And then compare.

Third - patience is advised as Intel are officially announcing new CPUs on Monday, and for the first time in years (thanks to competition from AMD), the structure of the chips is going to change. Instead of the usual i7s with four cores and eight threads, i5s with four cores and four threads, i3s with two cores and four threads... the i7 will now be six cores and twelve threads, i5 six cores and six threads, i3s (not sure just yet, imagine four cores and four threads but need to check). Their Pentium line-up may or may not also be interesting, and affordable.

So please do wait till Monday to hopefully get an idea of when these chips will be available. In the meantime other things can be discussed. Also, to answer your question, don't get too hung up on terms like "quad core". Many a first time buyer has made a mistake thinking the more cores the better. It depends on the technology in the chip, the clockspeed, Instructions Per Cycle (IPC), Cache amount etc. For example, the A6-7310 APU in your notebook is a quad core, and you know it doesn't perform great already (although it's fine for schoolwork and the like as you know).

Now, just to give you an idea of what you could get currently:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £247.06
(includes shipping: £11.10)



​

No money for a case just yet, even with B-Grade (this means opened and returned, maybe some non-essential accessories missing, but working) motherboard. Being Gigabyte this means a couple of good things: if you ask OcUK to update the motherboard BIOS for you and they cannot for whatever reason, Gigabyte will collect it from you and update it for you (you may have to check with Gigabyte if this applies to B-Grade Gigabyte motherboards purchased from OcUK). If they don't, OcUK will do it if you return it to them. And also, Gigabyte honour the remaining warranty on the motherboard starting from the date of manufacture (three years from that date), meaning you'll probably get some extra warranty on top of the three months OcUK offers for the item. If you wanted new and full three years warranty, then save up more to around £300 and you'd also have enough for a cheap case. But more often than not, if something is wrong with the motherboard you will know within the first couple weeks, and you can return it for a full refund within the first 30 days. Between 30-90 days you'll have to give OcUK a chance to repair (if they want to try), and if they can't repair then you are entitled to a full refund (or they can offer a replacement/other solution if you're happy with that).

The reason the motherboard may need a BIOS update is because depending on date of manufacture, it may or may not be compatible with the Pentium G4560 that appeared post-H110 motherboards launch.

Next, the Pentium G4560 has been out of stock at OcUK for a long time now (as far as I know). If Monday comes and you find out the new Intel chips are going to take too long for your liking, you can ask them if they know they have incoming stock of G4560s. If the answer is no and you have to look elsewhere, think Indian food.

The hard drive. Sure, you can get a 500GB drive a tiny amount cheaper but it just isn't worth it these days, as you lose out on 500GB for the sake of a few pennies.

So, you can look around for offers on Pentium G4560, an Intel H110 motherboard (doesn't have to be that precise one above), 8GB DDR4 2133/2400MHz desktop memory, a 1TB HDD, and a power supply that isn't total rubbish (that XFX XT 400W Bronze is "ok" for a really budget build, many others you will find out there really cheap are best avoided and note that more wattage does NOT mean "must be better"). Maybe you'll find you have just about enough for a cheap case.

With a system like that you could also add a video card in future. Plus an SSD at some point. And a faster i5/i7 processor. But right off the bat it would be fine for 720p gaming, especially in not very demanding games like those, which is good because there really isn't much choice for that budget (till we find out the news on Monday hopefully). Check out its performance in a really demanding game like GTA V:

 
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OPtalk said:
Hello there! By looking at my profile you can tell that I'm pretty much new here. I joined because I need some advice from some of the amazing intelligent folks hanging around these forums :).
Basically, my dad and I have come to terms with building a custom PC for myself, however, I'll be using my own money and my birthday money to purchase all the components of the PC, therefore I'll be quite budget about it.
My laptop is an Asus-Notebook X555YA (A6 - 7310 2.00GHZ, Radeon R4 Graphics). It's very quick for school work and stuff like that and it can run stuff like LoL, ROBLOX and Paladins pretty good at my standards (like 30 - 40 fps on medium settings 720p). Of course, when there is a **** ton of particles flying about and explosions, it drops to 20 fps (either temporarily or permanently). With the PC build I want, I want it to run LoL, ROBLOX and Paladins (example games of the type of demand games I would play) on high settings, 40/60fps 720p. It also must be around £200, highest £250. I'm not looking for a damn PC beast that can run Crysis 3 on ultra 4k, I'm just looking for something that can run Photoshop and some games at a decent fps.


Thank you, wonderful people of the internet :)



PS. I don't know a lot about PC building. I looked at a quad-core CPU and I was like DAMN is this overkill or what? Could I be saving money? So I came here.
thxx
Click to expand...

Quad core CPU is not overkill, it is a must, and a hyperthreaded 4 core at that.

"Saving money" with gaming setups right now is not a good course of action. Games are becoming heavily multithreaded and where you could "sort of" get away with a 2 core G3258 in 2014 (just barely), you really need a high IPC 4 core with 8 threads to be future proof today, unless you want to heavily bottleneck your graphics card.

You didn't list a budget so I'm just going to give you a build I would build for myself, price be damned, and when you give us your budget we can go from there.

This is an 8 core 16 thread CPU and will future proof you for quite some time.

AMD Ryzen 7 1700
Noctua NHU12S
ASUS B350-F Strix
2X8GB DDR4 @ 3000 or 3200
GTX 1070 8GB
EVGA G3 650W
500GB Samsung 850 Evo SATA
2TB Seagate ST2000
Corsair 600C or 400C case
Windows 10 64 bit

That'll be an expensive build but it'll let you play anything you want maxed out at 1440P.
 
By the way guys, I have an ASUS Geforce 610 2GB Silent Edition card lying around, brand new still in the box. I haven't paid for it. I still have around £250 to spend as well.

I don't have enough money for the expensive build xD

The build that is £240 something pounds looks interesting. Is there any way I can slide in the video card I have into it to improve performance? I don't want to do heavy gaming. Just League of Legends and lesser demanding games like that.
 
OPtalk said:
By the way guys, I have an ASUS Geforce 610 2GB Silent Edition card lying around, brand new still in the box. I haven't paid for it. I still have around £250 to spend as well.

I don't have enough money for the expensive build xD

The build that is £240 something pounds looks interesting. Is there any way I can slide in the video card I have into it to improve performance? I don't want to do heavy gaming. Just League of Legends and lesser demanding games like that.
Click to expand...

Not worth it. The onboard HD 610 graphics have surpassed the GT 610. How long since you bought it?
 
OPtalk said:
By the way guys, I have an ASUS Geforce 610 2GB Silent Edition card lying around, brand new still in the box. I haven't paid for it. I still have around £250 to spend as well.

I don't have enough money for the expensive build xD

The build that is £240 something pounds looks interesting. Is there any way I can slide in the video card I have into it to improve performance? I don't want to do heavy gaming. Just League of Legends and lesser demanding games like that.
Click to expand...

Then get the cheap build and pick up an RX460 GPU. It's an E-sports targeted card. Onboard graphics on the CPU or your 610 (which is a dinosaur and was crap even when it came out) will not be up to snuff for great framerates.
 
This is the Pentium G4560 churning out the frames @ 720p in League of Legends.


As you can see, it exceeds your wish for 40-60 fps @720p on Medium settings (4:28 into the vid). Averaging 90-100 for the most part, 70 during more action, and just a few dips into 50s and 40s during the most action. Make sure the memory you get is 2133MHz minimum. You can get higher but it won't run higher on H110 boards so not worth it unless 2400MHz happens to be cheaper.

Mistersprinkles' suggestion of an RX 460 (sometimes available for £80) would be a nice step up at some point though, and allow for more graphics quality @ 720p or low graphics quality @ 1080p.

Meantime, I wonder if Intel will announce an even better Pentium with slightly better graphics even.
 
Well, seems like October for the first new i7/i5 desktop chips, and that's not even fully confirmed yet. No clue as to whether i3s/Pentiums will also appear then. In the past, these have sometimes appeared a bit later.
 
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