Building a ~£300 gaming pc

Conan257

Conan257

Conan257

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My youngest wants a gaming PC, doesn't have to be too powerful as he's on a Series-S at the moment so anything above 720p is an improvement. Unfortunately, the budget is limited so looking at whether i can do better 2nd hand.

Ryzen 5 5500
B450 motherboard
Crucial 16gb DDR4-2400
512gb ssd (no NVME on this motherboard)
ARC A750
MSI 550W PSU

I've got that at £350 at the moment, I need a case and to save a few bucks.... I'm thinking of sticking with the A750 that overclockers have on sale but going to the market for the other parts...
 
Pop a request into the members market. You're not doing better than a console for that sort of money new. You'll probably struggle second hand tbh
 
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Yeah, if you have access to Members Market, you could post a wanted thread to ask for a case. I suspect someone would have a spare and willing to let it go for cheap or just postage.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with what you've listed. Always going to be a ton of options depending on available budget.
 
What you listed is fine for 1080p gaming, but would really try and get a 5600 instead of the 5500, especially since Arc has a hefty driver overhead.

Slow RAM is also not a good idea with Ryzen.
 
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hornetstinger said:
A office PC is doable for £350, but not a chance with a gaming system.

Literally a budget GPU is £300 as it is.
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That is as may be, but the budget is the budget... There's nothing wrong with not gaming at 4k/100+fps and this will do him fine for a decent amount of time for the games he plays.... My eldest was gaming on a 5600G while saving for a gpu....


Quartz said:
Go for the B570 instead.
Click to expand...
New, that's well outside the budget..... Second hand we're in 3060 territory so I doubt I'd go for an ARC.
 
I am going to get slated for this here but, for 2 years I was gaming with just a AMD Ryzen 5600G and no graphics card. I recently built my niece a PC to do GCSE coursework on and used just a Ryzen 8500G again with no GPU, she had a Xbox One S for gaming but has now switched to the PC as it looks better. Yes its going to struggle with Doom the Dark Ages but for Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox is does an admirable job so if the games he wants on PC aren't too taxing then it is worth considering (even the stock coolers do a good job!)
 
Conan257 said:
My youngest wants a gaming PC, doesn't have to be too powerful as he's on a Series-S at the moment so anything above 720p is an improvement. Unfortunately, the budget is limited so looking at whether i can do better 2nd hand.

Ryzen 5 5500
B450 motherboard
Crucial 16gb DDR4-2400
512gb ssd (no NVME on this motherboard)
ARC A750
MSI 550W PSU

I've got that at £350 at the moment, I need a case and to save a few bucks.... I'm thinking of sticking with the A750 that overclockers have on sale but going to the market for the other parts...
Click to expand...
That memory is no good for Ryzen as Ryzen needs fast memory to get the most out of it. You should be aiming for a minimum of 3200mhz, ideally 3600mhz. Likewise the lower the cas the better so as close as you can get to C14.
 
Conan257 said:
That is as may be, but the budget is the budget... There's nothing wrong with not gaming at 4k/100+fps and this will do him fine for a decent amount of time for the games he plays.... My eldest was gaming on a 5600G while saving for a gpu....



New, that's well outside the budget..... Second hand we're in 3060 territory so I doubt I'd go for an ARC.
Click to expand...

I'd be aiming for that as a minimum.

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Even if he's gaming at 1080p, no point in getting a 8GB GPU as he'd be over the memory usage already and it'll be a slideshow.
 
I think you're confusing "gaming on a budget" with "gaming on a budget of £300".....

Achieving performance for £300 is the aim, not achieving a level of performance you've dictated is the minimum requirement on a greater budget.
 
I managed
5500
1070
B450m
32gb b die
650w PSU
And some cheapo case for about 270 a while back and chucked a cooler I already had lying about in it.

Was perfect for rocket league and the likes my 10 year old plays although I've now stuck a 5700x3d in there for fun :D
 
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if you are comfortable getting used you can lowball people on fb marketplace, but id always get a new mobo as they are most likley to go wrong ... might just be able to squeeze a used 3060 / 3060ti into budget
 
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