New PC For Christmas Present - £500-600 Budget

MutenJoshi

MutenJoshi

MutenJoshi

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I'm looking at putting together a new PC (mainly aimed at gaming) for my Dad (family chipping in) for Christmas. It looks as though I will have a budget of around £500-600 to work with (I could probably stretch to slightly more but I'll go with £600 for the absolute upper limit unless it's a massive difference for just around £50 extra). I'm trying to stay away from AMD components since I know less about them than Intel and Nvidia graphics. Unfortunately, I tried coming up with a build myself but it came to around £800 which is far too much.

My Dad at the moment plays the odd low demanding game but he his getting close to retirement and has said he wants to make up for missing out on games up to now and get into it once he retires. I wouldn't expect a PC that could run all games on Max settings for the budget I've mentioned, but I'm trying to find a build as good as possible (obviously). I would really appreciate if you could help me out here as I really want to build a good one for him.

He has a monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse but will need the operating system.

He won't be overclocking anything...
 
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Have redone the build a single components not a bundle works out less.

Come on Overclockers you can do better, usally works out cheaper as a bundle.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £631.00
(includes shipping: £11.70)
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I would go for something like this, dropped the ssd and dvd put more to the gfx, you can upgrade to ssd later also z97 mb for possible cpu upgrade to a k chip down the line and some OC'ing to get more perf. Also hybrid drive so you will get some ssd benefits for often used data.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £647.18
(includes shipping: £12.30)
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tbh i didnt see that bundle
the mobo i picked not super cheap too
but it does have wifi/bt usb-c

if you dont care about them things can save a bit! :)
 
I know there is no SSD in this build which is pretty criminal in this day and age but figured better to add a bigger one when funds allow...
OR add another ~£47 for a 120GB SSD for OS drive.
My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £605.07
(includes shipping: £13.20)
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Thank you all for you input up to now. I really appreciate your help.

It seems the Radeon R9 380 is a popular choice for the GPU. Where does this rank in terms of what games it could handle? My knowledge of components is fairly limited but I know even less about Radeon graphics so I'm trying to find components a number of people agree on.

mickyflinn, you suggested the i5-4590 processor. Would it be worth spending an extra £30 or so on the 4690 or is there not much difference?

Sandycheeks, an SSD for only another £50 (roughly) may be achievable.

In terms of motherboards, should I be looking for an ATX motherboard?
 
i have a 2gb r9 380 (crossfired with an r9 285) as a single 380 goes, i can run pretty much everything on ultra/a few very high settings at 1080p. recently finished metro last light on maximum settings getting around 50ish fps, i get about 80 now crossfired. gta 5 you can run everything maxed with msaa on 2x getting around 50-55fps average.
i would deffo go with a 4gb card though as 2gb is the only thing limiting me from using things like better msaa.
 
dazza13 said:
I would go for something like this, dropped the ssd and dvd put more to the gfx, you can upgrade to ssd later also z97 mb for possible cpu upgrade to a k chip down the line and some OC'ing to get more perf. Also hybrid drive so you will get some ssd benefits for often used data.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £647.18
(includes shipping: £12.30)
​


​
Click to expand...

I get the impression this is a good build. It includes the CPU and GPU mentioned by a few in here and looking online they seem good choices. I would like to get an SSD to run windows but it is something I can look at.

Thinking about it, there's no reason I couldn't just strip out the DVD drive from his old PC (I've got a feeling it may even be a blu ray drive).

I'm obviously not trying to undermine you here but can anyone see where this could be improved upon?

The other builds seem to lean more towards micro atx or mini itx motherboards. Is it worth investing the extra in an ATX, as listed here, to allow for possible future upgrades?
 
The motherboard form factor wont really make an upgrade difference in the future - as long as the motherboard itself is good enough for the job.

The above build is a tad over your initial budget, you could go for this R9 380 - its got a fractionally lower core clock speed and half the memory - but if he's not multi-monitor/4K gaming, the memory isn't an issue and the clock speed wont make any discernible difference (we're talking a few FPS here).

You will save £20, though.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/his-...xpress-graphics-card-h380qm2gd-gx-103-hs.html

What's his old PC? What OS was it running that you need a new one?
 
lordzargon said:
The motherboard form factor wont really make an upgrade difference in the future - as long as the motherboard itself is good enough for the job.

The above build is a tad over your initial budget, you could go for this R9 380 - its got a fractionally lower core clock speed and half the memory - but if he's not multi-monitor/4K gaming, the memory isn't an issue and the clock speed wont make any discernible difference (we're talking a few FPS here).

You will save £20, though.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/his-...xpress-graphics-card-h380qm2gd-gx-103-hs.html

What's his old PC? What OS was it running that you need a new one?
Click to expand...

Cheers for the help. He runs windows 10 but it's slow as hell. He's had it for a good amount of time.

Thinking about it, I don't think a dedicated SSD will matter with having the SSHD.

He won't be multi monitoring.

The only issue is can see with the build is that he will need the DVD/blu ray drive as he tells me his current one hasn't been very reliable.

The price is a little over but it might be achievable (I'd have to speak to everyone contributing and see). 650 isn't too bad. I'd prefer to spend a little extra now (like 50 pound) for better performance as, in the long it won't be that much.
 
MutenJoshi said:
Cheers for the help. He runs windows 10 but it's slow as hell. He's had it for a good amount of time.
Click to expand...

If the PC has a Windows sticker on it with a serial number, you can probably transfer the license to the new PC without a problem, as you'll be de-activating the old one.

I would at least give it a try before ordering Windows - it'll keep the budget down.


Single monitor will mean graphics memory >1GB is fairly redundant. You'll get better graphics performance with the clock speeds and memory bus size (bus >256, if you can stretch to it)


Dropping Windows, plus the £20 off the graphics card will bring the overall cost down by ~£100.
 
lordzargon said:
If the PC has a Windows sticker on it with a serial number, you can probably transfer the license to the new PC without a problem, as you'll be de-activating the old one.

I would at least give it a try before ordering Windows - it'll keep the budget down.


Single monitor will mean graphics memory >1GB is fairly redundant. You'll get better graphics performance with the clock speeds and memory bus size (bus >256, if you can stretch to it)


Dropping Windows, plus the £20 off the graphics card will bring the overall cost down by ~£100.
Click to expand...

What you're saying about >1gb isn't true at all.
Speaking as someone who actually owns a 2gb 380 at 1080p, I find myself needing more video ram in games.
 
lordzargon said:
The motherboard form factor wont really make an upgrade difference in the future - as long as the motherboard itself is good enough for the job.

The above build is a tad over your initial budget, you could go for this R9 380 - its got a fractionally lower core clock speed and half the memory - but if he's not multi-monitor/4K gaming, the memory isn't an issue and the clock speed wont make any discernible difference (we're talking a few FPS here).

You will save £20, though.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/his-...xpress-graphics-card-h380qm2gd-gx-103-hs.html

What's his old PC? What OS was it running that you need a new one?
Click to expand...

For the sake of the extra £20 it seems worth getting the 4GB one?

When I come to order the parts, I'll leave out Windows and try transferring it over. If possible, the £80 saving would be great.

Apart from that, do you think the above build (by Dazza13 that I quoted) plus a dvd/possibly blu ray drive look about right? I know they're pretty basic parts but is there anything I should look out for in choosing a disc drive?
 
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