Advice on basic prebuilt gaming PC c.£600

Belisarius

Belisarius

Belisarius

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Joined
27 Aug 2007
Posts
207
Location
Whitley Bay
Hi,
Not posted here for a while as still using the 6 year old system I bought the bits from from here! So... Totally out of touch with current specs and builds...

It's my lad's birthday next week abs we owe him a gaming PC. He's coming from Xbox so has decent keyboard and mouse and will be using the TV as monitor. He most plays Fortnite but I want to broaden his gaming on the PC with more strategy stuff and distract him from wanting all the 18 Xbox games. He's 11...

I don't have the time to build him one from scratch and have always had good service and advice from OCUK so would like some recommendations on a prebuilt OC setup in the 600 region. Maybe a little more. And something that if need be in future we can upgrade the graphics card on to cope with newer games.

Or do OC do basic builds (motherboard, case, PSU, CPU all set up) that I can add my own SSD and Windows to?

Any suggestions much appreciated

Cheers

Andy
 
Hi,

To answer your question - you can choose for Windows to be excluded if the option is available from a prebuilt (some of them have that option not all), or you can ring up, or write in the Customer Service forum to request a few changes including that, or you can create your own custom spec and ask for a build quote.

As far as I know, OcUK will require installing at least one drive. You can then add your own SSD, and Windows if you have a separate copy (can't be used on two machines, or at least best not to) or know where to obtain a cheap key.

And on a system where the CPU has no integrated graphics, it will also require installing a GPU. Basically, they can't sell you a system that won't work/display as is, even if you wouldn't mind it. That's what I understand anyway.

I'd go with a custom spec as you will be able to choose a better PSU, motherboard, and will have more component options than available through the configurator. If planning on £600 total + a possibly a bit, then aim for £550 in parts to account for the build fee.

Something like:


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £532.20 (includes shipping: £12.30)​
​

And choose an SSD or HDD as well + build fee. You'll get four free games (double copies of two games) that you can sell to recover some cash if you like.

With a decent 550W PSU like that you'll always have very good GPU options with some exclusions as they use too much power like Vega 56/64 and RTX 2080Ti. You'd want 650W minimum (same quality, not a cheapo one) to cover for those.

Case is ATX and board is micro-ATX but case is cheap and the board would fit.
 
It's the best board OcUK stock for that price. And tried and tested by now. Going up, it'd be the Tomahawk ATX or Pro Carbon ATX which are both out of stock.

No implications for one GPU gaming setup. So I'd take it over an ATX with worse VRMs/VRM cooling.
 
Cheers for the advice.

Given it's a mini-ATX board would a matching case take everything suggested? As it's going to live in the front room a smaller case might be less obvious ..?
 
Belisarius said:
Cheers for the advice.

Given it's a mini-ATX board would a matching case take everything suggested? As it's going to live in the front room a smaller case might be less obvious ..?
Click to expand...

You're welcome.

Yes a micro-ATX case will take everything (unless it's one of the rare exceptions out there). Just check GPU length and CPU cooler height clearance, and storage bays, for future upgrades.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £128.05 (includes shipping: £18.12)​
​


Will it be less obvious? Well, a bit. Most micro-ATX tower cases don't really differ at all in width from most ATX midi towers. They can differ a few centimetres in depth/length and in height depending on the models.
 
Final question as I may be missing the obvious ..

How do I order this on the website? I can add all the hits to the basket but how do I add the build it bit? The configuration part of the site seems to start with certain options and then only certain options to choose from for each part? Am I missing something? :)
 
Belisarius said:
Final question as I may be missing the obvious ..

How do I order this on the website? I can add all the hits to the basket but how do I add the build it bit? The configuration part of the site seems to start with certain options and then only certain options to choose from for each part? Am I missing something? :)
Click to expand...



Danny75 said:
or write in the Customer Service forum to request a few changes including that, or you can create your own custom spec and ask for a build quote.
Click to expand...

:)

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forums/pre-sales-queries.117/
 
Been looking at options again before requesting a build price for the above. First off (and allowing for the extra cost) how does the above compare with this offer:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk...-590-8gb-graphics-fs-1aq-og.html#configurable

More in terms of general component quality and future expansion? e.g. PSU, Motherboard...

Either option would need an SSD so some pointers on that would be appreciated?

Cheers

Andy
 
So that spec has the following (leaving Windows out):

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £621.13 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​

So you could get the same cheaper by installing Windows yourself.

How do they compare? The motherboard isn't as good and the difference will become more pronounced with an 8-core CPU upgrade for example. The PSU is low quality. It has half the RAM, and slower.

It does have RX 590 instead of RX 570 which is a plus. And it comes with a 2TB mech drive.

However, you could simply add an RX 590 to the other spec, like so:


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £615.60 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​


If you need an SSD after all, the Gigabyte 512GB or WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB for example. Included some 1TB SSD options as well:


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £460.41 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
​
 
It's now got me wanting to upgrade my ageing Q6600 system. Though for what I use it for I suspect extra RAM and the SSD I have will help until I can afford a full rebuild...
 
Arrived yesterday. Neat and tidy. Very quiet. Lad pleased. Need an external DVD drive to load some games we have. Only issue so far is getting Fortnite to run. Keep getting:

Windows Cannot Access the Specified Device Path or File...

I hate Windows at times...
 
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