New Gaming PC

[mysteronz]

I was hoping somebody would be able to point me in the direction of a good* gaming PC.

I'm not looking to build one myself so would need it pre-built (OCUK look like its configurable) Budget is circa £800 but I dont need a monitor (but if a good deal comes up i could dual screen).

I would be looking to play games such a total war (rome 2/warhammer and would hope it would last a couple of iterations past the latest release (warhammer). I'm not going to be playing first person shooters but mainly strategy games (civilisation etc).

I would like an SSD drive for quicker boot speeds.

I appreciate you all must get these all the time so for anyone who helps - thanks in advance. If you need more information/clarification please ask.

I do need windows too!

 

[Danny75]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Intel B250 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £69.95
• 1 x Ballistix Sport LT 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black/Grey (BLS4C4G4D24= £68.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017)= £89.95
• 1 x Super Flower Platinum King 450W 80 Plus Platinum Power Supply - Black= £44.99
• 1 x Cougar Spike Micro-ATX Gaming Case - Black= £20.99
• 1 x Kingston 480GB SSDNow UV400 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SUV400S37/4= £128.99
• 1 x Intel Core i5-7600 3.50GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £212.99
• 1 x Palit GeForce GTX 1050Ti StormX 4096MB PCI-Express GDDR5 Graphics Card= £139.99

Total: £789.14
(includes shipping: £12.30)
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You'd want a good CPU for those types of games and to last you a while, which is one of your wishes. GPU is something that game-makers pretty much "force" you to upgrade more often (if you want the latest bells and whistles in games). So for that budget, I'd go with i5 and a modest 1050Ti which should run most games @ 1080p on Medium settings, if not High. If at some point you want better graphics, it's easy to upgrade and replace the GPU.

This isn't a pre-built but you can post the/a spec in the Customer Services forum, and ask for a build fee quote. Then compare with existing pre-builts prior to pulling the trigger (who knows if an existing pre-built will be on offer in the coming days and make it more value for money).

If you're okay with spending more, the Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD is a better choice, for £20 more, currently. Or if you need 1TB of storage rightaway, then a 250GB SSD and 1TB HDD (but I would go with a larger SSD if you could make do with it a few months/a year, adding a HDD later is easy). Vice versa, if you could make do with a single 250GB SSD drive for now, then an RX 470 GPU is within reach of the budget (depending on the build fee you're quoted):


My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Intel B250 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £69.95
• 1 x Ballistix Sport LT 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black/Grey (BLS4C4G4D24= £68.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017)= £89.95
• 1 x Super Flower Platinum King 450W 80 Plus Platinum Power Supply - Black= £44.99
• 1 x Cougar Spike Micro-ATX Gaming Case - Black= £20.99
• 1 x Intel Core i5-7600 3.50GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £212.99
• 1 x PowerColor Radeon RX 470 Red Devil 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £179.99
• 1 x Crucial MX300 275GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 3D Nand 7mm Solid State Drive (CT275MX300SSD1)= £89.99

Total: £790.14
(includes shipping: £12.30)
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[mysteronz]

Danny, thank you for taking the time to reply, much appreciated. I think the prospect of a better GFX card will sway my choice towards the second option you have provided. I think i would want/need a normal HDD in it too (and if the 500gb upgrade is only £20 more than the SSD then that seems a sensible idea. What HDD would you go for thats 1TB or 2TB if the cost isnt too much different?

Any ideas on typical build costs?

 

[Danny75]

Danny, thank you for taking the time to reply, much appreciated. I think the prospect of a better GFX card will sway my choice towards the second option you have provided. I think i would want/need a normal HDD in it too (and if the 500gb upgrade is only £20 more than the SSD then that seems a sensible idea. What HDD would you go for thats 1TB or 2TB if the cost isnt too much different?

2TB is better value for money of course but your choice may depend on the build fee and your max budget. So wait to see (can ask if adding a HDD will add anything to the cost - if it does, then you can simply purchase the HDD separately, easy job to fit and plug in, or pay the extra).

Any of these:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM010)= £44.99
• 1 x Toshiba P300 1TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache High Performance Hard Drive (HDWD110UZSVA)= £45.95
• 1 x WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (WD10EZEX)= £48.95
• 1 x Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM006)= £67.99
• 1 x Toshiba P300 2TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache High Performance Hard Drive (HDWD120UZSVA)= £68.99

Total: £287.37
(includes shipping: £10.50)
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You can't really tell how good your particular HDD will turn out. Any of them can and do fail. But there are no huge issues reported with any of these, to the best of my knowledge. So I'd just go with the cheapest at present.

Any ideas on typical build costs?

They can vary from zero (I remember a post sometime ago by an OcUK staff member saying that for that week only build fees were zero) all the way to £100 (or over for custom liquid-cooling etc). That's just my rough understanding. It's always worth asking for a quote, imo, as you may be pleasantly surprised, or at minimum the fee will/should be competitive with other places.