New PC - £500

[dt97583]

Hello,

A friend has asked me to spec a PC for £500. No need for a monitor, speakers, keyboard or mouse - although if the mobo or graphics card came with a free k/b then all the better.

The only thing he's said in terms of gaming is 'strategy games' but this would only be light gaming.

It'd need to include a copy of Windows 10 as well.

In terms of spec I was thinking 8GB RAM and an SSD if possible. They won't need masses of HDD space.

Thank you

David

 

[ExRayTed]

CPU is out of stock at the moment, but it's a good one for the price. Dual core with hyperthreading

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Intel B250 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £69.95
• 1 x WD Green 240GB 2.5" SATA 6Gbps Solid State Drive (WDS240G1G0A)= £89.99
• 1 x XFX XT Series 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £42.95
• 1 x Kolink Satellite Micro-ATX Cube Case - Black= £26.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017)= £89.95
• 1 x Asus Radeon RX 460 DirectCU III Strix Gaming Aura RGB 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £113.99
• 1 x Intel Pentium G4560 3.50GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £64.99

Total: £510.51
(includes shipping: £11.70)



​

 

[dt97583]

Thanks ExRayTed, that looks promising. I think it's missing some RAM though.

 

[ExRayTed]

Thanks ExRayTed, that looks promising. I think it's missing some RAM though.

Yes, it seems to be. Schoolboy error.

Well in that case...

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Intel B250 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £69.95
• 1 x XFX XT Series 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £42.95
• 1 x Kolink Satellite Micro-ATX Cube Case - Black= £26.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017)= £89.95
• 1 x Intel Pentium G4560 3.50GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £64.99
• 1 x Asus Radeon RX 460 Dual OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £83.99
• 1 x Kingston Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX424C15FBK2/8)= £68.99
• 1 x Intel 600P 128GB M.2-2280 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe 3D NAND Solid State Drive (SSDPEKKW128G7X1)= £49.99

Total: £509.50
(includes shipping: £11.70)



​

Only 2gb VRAM and a smaller SSD.

 

[dt97583]

Perfect! Exactly what I was looking for

Appreciate your time.

 

[ExoMale]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Asus Radeon RX 460 Dual OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £83.99
• 1 x Antec VSK3000E Micro ATX Case= £21.95
• 1 x XFX XT Series 400W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £34.99
• 1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/= £55.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017)= £89.95
• 1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £109.99
• 1 x Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £44.99
• 1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1333C9)= £53.99

Total: £507.54
(includes shipping: £11.70)



​

 

[dt97583]

ExoMale - interesting, I considered DDR3 as a route to minimise prices.

I suppose either build comes down to which is the better suited CPU? I presume 400W will cut it? Would adding later a HDD cause issues with 400W?

A well known takeaway website is selling something around this mark, how does the following compare (other than terrible and built my monkeys!)?

AMD A10-8750, Quad-Core, 3.6 GHz / 4.0 GHz with Turbo Boost, 4 MB cache
8 GB RAM
AMD Radeon R5-330 2 GB DDR3
2 TB HDD, 5400 rpm
128 GB SSD
AMD A78 FCH mobo
£529.99

 

[dt97583]

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-RX-460-vs-Radeon-R5-330

Hmm says it all really. GPU is killing it on a properly spec'd machine.

Now to pick out of the CPU builds...

I'm tempted to pick ExRayTed's build: slightly bigger SSD, higher speed RAM, but slightly lower CPU machine, according to:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2925&cmp[]=2522&cmp[]=2603

 

[Danny75]

If your mate can afford £90 next month, he could use Win 10 without activating for 30 days no problem (download from Microsoft site, then buy a copy later for the key), and possibly get an even better base system. Not everybody wants to spend more than what they've budgeted though, I realize. Thing is what you'd get for £500 a year ago now costs £600-ish because of the poor dollar/pound exchange rate.

In any case I'd go with the newer socket 1151 platform as there's not much between the Haswell i3 and Kabylake Pentium, and would be better for any upgrades.

 

[dt97583]

Cheers Danny75

 

[dt97583]

P.s. the OcUK Shopping Cart Chrome extension doesn't seem to work anymore - is there a workaround? Don't think I'm doing anything wrong - uninstalled, reinstalled, running Chrome v56.0

Cheers

 

[Danny75]

P.s. the OcUK Shopping Cart Chrome extension doesn't seem to work anymore - is there a workaround? Don't think I'm doing anything wrong - uninstalled, reinstalled, running Chrome v56.0

Cheers

Yeah there's an integrated one now. Go to basket, and at the bottom, below Delivery Cost Calculation section, click BBCode, then just copy/paste here.

 

[dt97583]

Thanks Danny75.

Any preference over these two?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x XFX XT Series 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £42.95
• 1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0500-KR)= £44.99

Total: £99.04
(includes shipping: £11.10)



​

 

[DragonQ]

Strategy games tend to have heavy CPU requirements as opposed to GPU. It may be better to go for a modern Core i5 with a decent IGP instead of a Celeron/i3 with a GPU in that case.

Also Windows 10 can be had for vastly cheaper than £90, especially if he'd be happy with an OEM version. I bought a couple of copies for £5 each recently - that £80+ could be very useful elsewhere in the build.

 

[ExRayTed]

Thanks Danny75.

Any preference over these two?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x XFX XT Series 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £42.95
• 1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0500-KR)= £44.99

Total: £99.04
(includes shipping: £11.10)



​

The difference is the OEM manufacturer. The EVGA uses HEC to make that model, XFX use Seasonic who are a top tier OEM.

 

[DONOHUE07]

Hang on for the 4 or 6 core RYZEN CPU's and a Win10 key can be bought from key site for about £10.

Those pentiums are great for the price and have a good upgrade path, but I wouldn't be happy with a dual core cpu for gaming now, some games don't even load up with dual core cpu, such as FarCry4 and FarCry Primal (all I can think of to be honest at the top of my head)

 

[dt97583]

Cheers ExRayTed.

 

[dt97583]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Intel B250 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £69.95
• 1 x XFX XT Series 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £42.95
• 1 x Kolink Satellite Micro-ATX Cube Case - Black= £26.99
• 1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017)= £89.95
• 1 x Intel Pentium G4560 3.50GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £64.99
• 1 x Asus Radeon RX 460 Dual OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £83.99
• 1 x Kingston Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX424C15FBK2/8)= £68.99
• 1 x Intel 600P 128GB M.2-2280 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe 3D NAND Solid State Drive (SSDPEKKW128G7X1)= £49.99

Total: £509.50
(includes shipping: £11.70)



​

Only 2gb VRAM and a smaller SSD.

Would a CD/DVD drive fit into this case/build?

 

[ExRayTed]

No. You'd need an external one or a different case that'll take an internal drive. Windows is installed from the USB stick, so no need for a drive for that.

 

[dt97583]

No. You'd need an external one or a different case that'll take an internal drive. Windows is installed from the USB stick, so no need for a drive for that.

Cheers - I think my mate will want a CD/DVD drive. I quite like your choice of case though.