Budget gaming PC £400

[Comment Guy]

Hi. I'm looking at putting together a gaming pc in the 400 price range. £500 is the absolute upper limit. Price is for tower only, no peripherals I have kb/m and TV with hdmi.

So far I I have AMD a4 6300 CPU as it's cheap and won't need cooling. Thinking about nvidia gtx 960 or will that throttle the CPU? Ram: 8gb ddr3 1600mhz, 1tb hdd Seagate or western digital I don't know, any optical drive and the mobo F2A78M-D3H. I think 500w psu is enough for this but not sure what to buy. I think this will come under my price range so what should I swap out and where should I put the extra money? I don't think I will need a fancy case as this will be mid range but I need help with choosing for within my budget.

Thanks any comments are helpful.

 

[PhoenixUK]

£150 GPU in a £500 budget is really pushing it hard for new parts build...

What sort of games are you going to be playing? What res? What Monitor you have? What's your current setup? Do you need windows license?

 

[mickyflinn]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £39.95
• 1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC)= £34.99
• 1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA100)= £32.99
• 1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £85.99
• 1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 960 Reference 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Retail= £155.99
• 1 x Kolink Octagon Gaming Case + Kolink 600W 80 Plus Bronze PSU Bundle= £54.95

Total: £416.56
(includes shipping: £11.70)
​

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[Comment Guy]

Thanks for replies.

I have a copy of win 7. I'm currently using an ancient laptop. Most likely I will be playing stuff like skyrim witcher 3 fallout 4 arkham and most likely much older games like bioshock and half life 2. My TV is 1080x720 I think.

::edit:: this is my first time on on a desktop building and I know almost nothing about pc and pc gaming apart from what I've tried to research myself

 

[mickyflinn]

The build i have speced is far more balnced with a much more powerful cpu that will drive that gpu.

 

[PhoenixUK]

4gb 960 at 1280x720 is a waste of money imho... I know witcher is terribly optimized and unfortunately I don't have a copy of it to test out but I'd be surprised if at that res with tweaked settings it didn't run on a 3870k alone, the other/older games certainly should.

If anything I wouldn't put more than a 950/270 into that PC for that res gaming and maybe get an SSD in there or a better motherboard to allow for future expansions/upgrades.

 

[WYNIR0]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Silverstone SST-PS08W Precision Midi-Tower - White= £19.99
• 1 x Kingston 60GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/6= £32.99
• 1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) HDD= £31.99
• 2 x Team Group Elite 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single Channel Module (TED34GM1333C901)= £16.99
• 1 x Kolink KL-600 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply= £36.95
• 1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £85.99
• 1 x Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £39.95
• 1 x Raijintek Rhea Heatpipe CPU Cooler - PWM - 92mm= £12.95
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N960OC-4GD)= £161.99

Total: £468.48
(includes shipping: £11.70)
​

Or an R9 380 for a touch more.

 

[Comment Guy]

Thank you all. I will consider this advice.

 

[chippy08]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £39.95
• 1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC)= £34.99
• 1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA100)= £32.99
• 1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £85.99
• 1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 960 Reference 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Retail= £155.99
• 1 x Kolink Octagon Gaming Case + Kolink 600W 80 Plus Bronze PSU Bundle= £54.95

Total: £416.56
(includes shipping: £11.70)
​

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​

Just out of interest why do you recommend Haswell over skylake ?

 

[mickyflinn]

Just out of interest why do you recommend Haswell over skylake ?

Your Budget, Haswell gives you the best price performance but if you want i could spec a skylake build.