Budget PC

[alexakasloth]

I'm looking to get a desktop for media and light gaming use, I currently just have a chromebook and have some games in my steam account I would like to play the most demanding would be Batman Arkham City, GTA:V or CS:GO.

Budget is as close to £300 as possible, this is what I have come up with so far:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte H110M-S2H Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £46.99
• 1 x Team Group Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD48GM2400HC16DC0= £26.99
• 1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/= £32.99
• 1 x Aerocool X-Predator 550W 80 Plus Bronze Modular Power Supply= £47.99
• 1 x MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750Ti-2GD5/OCV1)= £79.99
• 1 x Kolink Satellite Micro-ATX Cube Case - Black= £26.99
• 1 x Intel Pentium Dual Core G4400 3.30GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £53.99

Total: £328.23
(includes shipping: £12.30)
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I have a SATA HDD around somewhere for media/photo content but would like an SSD to put Windows and games on.

Would the RAM and CPU be a compatible speed?

[edit] sourced an SSD from MM so no storage needs to be spec'd. I'm also wondering how much improvement would be seen between the Pentium and an i3? I would like to stay with the LGA 1151 socket some there could be some future proofing.

 

[ExoMale]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Athlon X4 860K Black Edition 3.70GHz (Socket FM2+) Kaveri Quad Core Processor (AD860KXBJABOX)= £59.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-HD2 AMD A68 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £39.95
• 1 x Team Group Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01)= £29.99
• 1 x MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750Ti-2GD5/OCV1)= £89.99
• 1 x XFX TS 430W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply - Black ** 5 YEAR WARRANTY OCUK EXCLUSIVE **= £30.95
• 1 x Kolink Satellite Micro-ATX Cube Case - Black= £26.99

Total: £289.56
(includes shipping: £11.70)
​

 

[Borealis]

The Pentium is a dual core, the i3 is a dual core with hyperthreading. The extra threads may come in handy and the LGA1151 socket will give you access to the Kabylake refresh in the future. GTA etc may benefit from the i3 if you can stump up the extra cash.

The H110 boards are at the budget end, but if that's all you can afford then fair enough. If you're not OCing, then an even i5 on H110 is fine. The 750Ti will let you run a lot of stuff. you might need to dial the settings down a bit, but it'll perform better than the chromebook.

The RAM you've chosen will be fine. Even if it will only run at the JEDEC standard DDR4 2133MHz, it'll be fine.

At this point in time, I wouldn't go for an AMD build because longterm, you'll end up with stuff you just can't re-use.

 

[ExoMale]

amd has better value for money which is why i chose that, you are really limited at £300 for new, but you could get a much better system than what i and OP specced if you go used as ive seen plenty quads for around that price which has a pretty good gaming spec.

 

[Danny75]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Fractal Design Core 1000 & XFX 430W 80+ Bronze PSU Bundle= £44.99
• 1 x Intel Core i3-6100 3.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £99.95
• 1 x Gigabyte H110M-S2H Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £46.99
• 1 x Kingston Fury Black 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 PC4-17000C14 2133MHz Single Channel Module - Black (HX421C14FB2= £29.99
• 1 x MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750Ti-2GD5/OCV1)= £89.99

Total: £323.61
(includes shipping: £11.70)
​

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Check out benchmarks for Pentium v i3 on GTA. Bit over budget but definitely worth it, imo.

1 stick of RAM so you can add another. Can usually be clocked to 2400MHz with a few tweaks.