Budget Build Recommendations Please

kPATm

kPATm

kPATm

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My Nephew has decided he wants a "Gaming" PC for Christmas. Iv told my Sister In Law it would be cheaper buying the components and I will build it up for him. I havnt been looking at components for a while now so Im looking for some recommendations on what would go together. Now I say "Gaming" PC as I doubt he will play anything that will really tax the system. Budget will be around the £500 mark preferably cheaper if possible. I would need EVERYTHING including Monitor, Keyboard & Mouse. Thanks
 

lltfdaniel

lltfdaniel

lltfdaniel

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If your still around in about 3 to 4 months time from now i can give you a 7600k processor, 2 sticks of ddr4 (2x16gb) 2400mhz ram at 15-15-15-35, some takstar pro 80 headphones and a gtx 1070 (if nvidia releases gtx 1180 that is), the reason being is that i am upgrading from this current pc of mine to a ryzen system.

Free of charge, saving you hundreds of pounds, £500 for everything else is well yea better you have more headroom to be able to afford everything else otherwise 500 pounds for everything really is a tight squeeze of a budget.

For instance realistically you can buy a 1080p monitor for £100 so you have £400 left,

Keyboard and mouse realistically would come to £20-30.

Operating system if you buy it from overclockers is £100.

Graphics card 1050 or 1050ti is £120 to £ 150.

8 gb of ram is like £100 .

As for the processor... as to what you can afford don't get me started on that but a

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £107.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​
You don't need to buy a graphics card if you buy this processor.


You get the idea, is a tight squeeze of a budget but yea but i can see if you buy new, it will have to be bottom end pc hardware to afford that.

Buying used pc hardware is more realistic varying on the price etc,
 
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lltfdaniel

lltfdaniel

lltfdaniel

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My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £591.51 (includes shipping: £11.70)


Apparently ryzen does not like hynix (the stuff that is not cl 14 which is what samsung b die is) ram but from a post on here overclockers uk forum, hynix runs fine on a amd ryzen system so take my post's with a pinch of salt so if it is not cl 14 then it is likely to be hynix ram.

Also it is likely you will need to flash the bios for it to support the processor, but you can get overclockers to flash the bios for you and i think that is with gigabyte motherboards?

Also there are some motherboards you should avoid due to the VRM on the motherboard and there is a list somewhere to tell you what motherboards to avoid because the VRM will get hot which is not good.​
 
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strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

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This is very hard, perhaps impossible to do for £500!

Best base system I could come up with for the price:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £376.84 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

Then you could go with the Ryzen 2200G and Gigabyte board that @lltfdaniel specced above, for a total of £521.

Or you could grab an Intel G5400 and board for around £100 for a total of around £480.

However, the integrated graphics on the G5400 are much worse than on the 2200G, and he will struggle to play even reasonably demanding games at decent frame rates on low settings. If his current needs are light as you say (though it would help to know what games he's going to play) it might just about do, and then you can drop in a graphics card or he can save up for one as his needs grow. With a discrete graphics card it will be fine for 1080p gaming in a fair amount of titles - just not high settings in the more demanding ones.

I'd favour the 2200G system. I built my own lad one with the same monitor and it plays Fortnite fine at low-medium settings at 1080p. It also allows you to drop in a graphics card of course, and it should have some reasonable upgrade potential on the CPU side going forward too (though you'll be a bit limited by what the VRMs on it can handle I'd imagine).

If you have to stay under £500, though, I think the G5400 option with the above might just be the best you can do without going second-hand. It will work and if his current needs are very light gaming then it just might suffice for now, but for £40 more you can more reliably do some decent light gaming on the 2200G.
 
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