first budget build £400

alex crossland

alex crossland

alex crossland

Associate
Joined
4 Jul 2017
Posts
69
Hi everyone, first post ever so here goes.

Right, first off, I know that everyone who is reading this is thinking the same thing. "you cant build a gaming PC for £400. im gonna tell him how much he needs to spend". if this is you, please don't!

This is going to be my first build and i am not 100% sure of myself so i want to build something for a budget that i am comfortable with first, so i can test the water. I am aware this will not be a gaming monster, and will likely be relegated to a work machine if it goes well and i decide to move on. having said that some capacity for upgrade would be good in case i decide to keep going with it!

SO my current spec that i have been looking at is:
Chip: Intel Pentium G4560
Motherboard: Gigabyte B250M-DS3H (Socket-1151, 4x DDR4, Micro-ATX)
Case: AvP Viper Mini Tower Black USB 3.0 case
GPU: Asus Radeon R5 230 2GB DDR3 VGA DVI HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card
RAM: Crucial 8GB DDR4-2133 UDIMM
SSD: APACER 120GB SSD AST280 M.2
Hard disk: Toshiba P300 1TB 3.5'' SATA High-Performance Hard Drive (OEM)
PSU: Ace Black 120mm Fan 500W Fully Wired Efficient Power Supply
Wireless adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND 300mbps Wireless N Pci Express Adapter
DVD drive: Asus DRW-24D5MT 24X Internal DVD Writer

If anyone has any advice on this, or any clues as to what is good or bad on this list and any alternatives it would be gratefully received. also if there is anywhere where it would be a good idea to look at a better second hand unit, and likewise anywhere that I should definitely avoid second hand, this would be helpful too.

Ta very much!
 
Now the psu is somewhere that I would really like some guidance. The calculators that I have used seem to suggest I'll only need 300-400 watt but what else should I look for?
P.s. I could have spent weeks changing my mind on the gpu so I've made a decision and bought it already! No going back now!
 
alex crossland said:
Now the psu is somewhere that I would really like some guidance. The calculators that I have used seem to suggest I'll only need 300-400 watt but what else should I look for?
P.s. I could have spent weeks changing my mind on the gpu so I've made a decision and bought it already! No going back now!
Click to expand...

You want to check the amperage on the +12v rail/s to see what power it can actually provide to the CPU and GPU, and pretty much ignore the total wattage on the label. It's especially important when it comes to cheap PSUs that seem too good to be true. When you go for a decent brand and series you're pretty much assured the +12v amperage will be the same as or very close to, the total wattage stated on the label, but it doesn't hurt to check anyway.

For example, the Ace Black 120mm Fan 500W Fully Wired Efficient Power Supply only provides 18 amps on its +12v single rail, which is only 216 watts for CPU and GPU.

How much can you spend on a PSU? Around £35-40 can land you semi-decent, £40-50 decent depending on offers at the time, £50+ you're in good territory.

Also consider any future upgrades. A GPU that requires a lot more power for example, and a CPU that requires a bit more than the Pentium.

Aim for a "true" 450-550W if possible, even though at present your system will require less.

And you'll want a model that doesn't exceed 150mm depth if you ever want to stick a long device like a DVD drive in that case's optical bay. The Asus DVD drive you picked out is 170mm deep (there's an LG that's 165mm) + PSU of 150mm depth = 320mm. The case is 380mm deep, meaning only 60mm for the cables coming out of the PSU and the cables connecting to the back of the DVD drive.
 
Last edited:
The budget is as ltitle as possible, but having said that I really don't want to end up with a psu that won't power the system and ends up damaging my components. Part of the reason that I've gone for a home build os that I can do it in stages so I don't have to pay out the whole lot in one go. If I have to spend £50 then so be it. It will just add a little time to the build.
Thanks for the advice. I would never have thought to do the maths. You see 500w and take it as red. I'll look a bit further now.
 
alex crossland said:
How's about an antec vp450p? A few places are knocking them out for £40 odd
Click to expand...

Not too bad but the 2 year warranty isn't great. I think the Corsair CX 450 Bronze (new grey label version not old green label version) is slightly better, carries a 5 year warranty and is available for the same price. Nicer cables too.

In fact, you can find the even better CX 550 for under £50, and it has 2 x PCI-E cables to stand you in better stead for the future.

OcUK sometimes price matches, by the way.
 
Last edited:
alex crossland said:
Now the psu is somewhere that I would really like some guidance.
Click to expand...

With a PSU you need to look at much more than just the wattage. You need to look at the wattage per rail (look for a single-rail PSU), the brand - generic Chinese rubbish needs to be avoided - and the reviews. Johnnyguru and HardOCP are my go-to places for PSU reviews. The PSU is the one component that can destroy the other components in your computer, so it's worth spending more on it.

Secondly, how soon will it be before you can spend more on your PC? Your current (ahem) spec can be satisfied with a 300W PSU, but it makes no sense to buy one if in 6 months or so you're going to be upgrading that GPU. A good 450W PSU will last you through most upgrades. But if you're not going to be upgrading for a while, then you can save some money by going for a less powerful PSU. Just remember that when you upgrade, you may have to change the PSU.
 
Don't know how much what you listed comes to, but this is best I could find that's decent, what are you wanting to play game wise?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £441.55
(includes shipping: £11.70)



​

While you can get i5k/i7 builds used for £400 along with FX 6 cores, if you wanting to learn about building/upgrading then you can get other quads from AMD like the A4 range or get an intel i3 setup with pretty decent graphic cards that would still play some modern games.
 
The price has crept up to £450 ish but the current list is:

Gigabyte b250m-ds3h motherboard)
£68.99
Intel pentium g4560 chip
£64.99
Evga nvidia geforce gtx 1050ti ssc gaming GPU
£149.99
Toshiba p300 1tb hard drive
38.99
Evga 430w PSU
33.99
kingston hyperx fury 8gb ddr4 RAM
£61.99
tp-link tl-wnd881nd wireless adapter
£12.49
Asus dvrw drive
£13.99
AvP viper mini tower case
£17.49

I think I'm pretty happy with it and have ordered the chip and the gpu already but anything else is able to be swapped out if you have any ideas or horror stories! I'm definitely not married to the case, if there's something else available at a reasonable price!
 
You've made good choices with the CPU and GPU. You almost certainly don't need the DVD-RW. And get yourself a network cable instead of the wireless NIC.

You can save yourself £5 by going for 8 GB Geil RAM.
 
Yeah I think the dvd is just because I'm an old Fart and I'm living in the past. Probably something that can wait til later anyway. Ram wise, I'm going to ask the same thing as everyone else on their first build.
Is there any advantage to dual channel or am I better off taking a single stick of 8 and looking for a matching stick to upgrade to 16 in the future?
 
alex crossland said:
Yeah I think the dvd is just because I'm an old Fart and I'm living in the past. Probably something that can wait til later anyway. Ram wise, I'm going to ask the same thing as everyone else on their first build.
Is there any advantage to dual channel or am I better off taking a single stick of 8 and looking for a matching stick to upgrade to 16 in the future?
Click to expand...

huge advantage to dual channel. it basically doubles the speed.

RAM prices are dear. buy a cheap dual channel kit and then upgrade when they have settled.
 
alex crossland said:
Yeah I think the dvd is just because I'm an old Fart and I'm living in the past. Probably something that can wait til later anyway. Ram wise, I'm going to ask the same thing as everyone else on their first build.
Is there any advantage to dual channel or am I better off taking a single stick of 8 and looking for a matching stick to upgrade to 16 in the future?
Click to expand...

Decent test and write-up which answers that: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1349-ram-how-dual-channel-works-vs-single-channel/Page-3
 
alex crossland said:
Ram wise, I'm going to ask the same thing as everyone else on their first build.
Is there any advantage to dual channel or am I better off taking a single stick of 8 and looking for a matching stick to upgrade to 16 in the future?
Click to expand...

A single stick of 8 GB DDR4 is cheaper than two 4 GB DIMMs and you won't notice the performance difference.
 
Yeah, I've seen that same test on a video. It seems that you do get a bit of a boost using dual channel but definitely not enough to make a huge difference. Given that I have 4 ram slots on the board though I can theoretically take 2 sticks of 4 and then add 2 more later. Either that or go for a single stick then match it later. Either way i end up on 16gb...
 
So I have a dilemma... I ordered all my parts and they have arrived but the psu that I ordered was an evga 430w. What I was sent was an evga 450bv. So the question is, should I be upset or pleased? Am I gonna send it back or stick it in the case asap?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom