Spec me - £800 Gaming PC

Antham

Antham

Antham

Associate
Joined
30 Nov 2017
Posts
11
Hi! Sorry, you guys must get pretty tired of the same spec/budget everytime.

Just a gaming tower - the price includes just the tower box and everything in it, I will be buying stuff like screens, keyboard, os separately.

I want one to play the games my friends play. These include common titles like Overwatch, Dota 2, For Honour, Final fantasy 14, minecraft, GW2 etc. I'm looking forward to the new Monster Hunter World, which is probably going to be the most graphic-intensive game I'll play, but the specs for that haven't been released yet so we can only predict.

I don't need a system that has super graphics, I just want to run things at a playable rate and have fun.
I'll probably be getting a windows 10 os (not certain tho) to run the games on.

I'm probably going to get a professional friend to help me build it. I'm not too tech-savvy on my own, though I do know the basic components and what they all do.

The budget can be stretched up to £1000 if you think it's really necessary that I have a certain build to make it last. If you think I don't need to spend this much to get what I want, that's great too!

Thanks in advance!
 
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,033.52 (includes shipping: £12.60)
​

Assuming your friend knows how to get a copy of Windows and find a CD key for £20

Overwatch and a few others have high frame rates and are very fast paced games, 144hz will help for smooth gameplay

Intel based system will allow for highest frame rate out of the two systems but would wait till computex is over at the start of June if your looking down that route. AMD board will have a good life span
 
My basket at Overclockers UK:
  • 1 x OcUK Kinetic H1M - Micro ATX Intel H310 Configurable Coffee Lake Gaming PC = £1,029.98
    • CPU:Intel Core i5-8400 2.8GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
    • Memory:Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G24
    • Graphics Card:MSI GeForce GTX 1070Ti Armor 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
    • Primary Storage Drive:TeamGroup 480GB L5 Lite SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive
    • Secondary Storage Drive:Unwanted
    • Optical Drive:Unwanted
    • WIFI:Unwanted
    • Lighting:Unwanted
    • Operating System:Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
    • Security Software:Unwanted
    • Case:Aerocool QS-240 Micro-ATX Case - Black
Total: £1,044.08 (includes shipping: £14.10)
​



Whilst the above build is the best I could find for ~£1k, if I was making a build that would offer the best longevity I would look at Ryzen 2600x/2700 + X470 motherboard, and then wait for Nvidia's next-gen to release (expected, but not confirmed in June/July). Ryzen's AM4 motherboard socket allows for CPU upgrades until 2020. Unfortunately both of these options have problems - either slightly over budget (Ryzen option) or require you to wait (Nvidia).
 
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orbitalwalsh said:
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,033.52 (includes shipping: £12.60)
​

Assuming your friend knows how to get a copy of Windows and find a CD key for £20

Overwatch and a few others have high frame rates and are very fast paced games, 144hz will help for smooth gameplay

Intel based system will allow for highest frame rate out of the two systems but would wait till computex is over at the start of June if your looking down that route. AMD board will have a good life span
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for your help.
Can I ask, why did you choose the AMD core 1600 Processor over the 2600? Was is purely the extra cost, or was it because you don't think the 2600 runs as well with the build you've suggested?
AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail = £158.99

I have no idea about marketprices, deals etc, but how will waiting for computex to end affect my choice? Are there new intel components being released? will they be cheaper?
 
Antham said:
Hi, thanks for your help.
Can I ask, why did you choose the AMD core 1600 Processor over the 2600? Was is purely the extra cost, or was it because you don't think the 2600 runs as well with the build you've suggested?
AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 2600 3.90GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail = £158.99

I have no idea about marketprices, deals etc, but how will waiting for computex to end affect my choice? Are there new intel components being released? will they be cheaper?
Click to expand...

Cost (all adds up in the end and I still went over budget ) as well as either needing x470 board for it to work 100% first time, if you go for cheaper .First Gen board then it might not have latest bios. There's 3 cures to this ;
1; get AMD loan Boot kit which is a CPU to bios flash the board
2; ask/pay shop to flash the board for you
3; if it's a gigabyte board then can be sent to Milton Keynes to be flashed at cost of delivery

£86 for B350 Gaming 3 Vs £129 X470 Aorus (gigabyte ) Ultra ... The. You add in £20 extra for CPU
Then £20-30 for Windows CD key .

Ryzen 2000 is a damn good chip due to its auto overclock get feature , though the B350 board will be able to accept Ryzen 3*** and 4*** chips in the coming years :)

Cutting down costs to almost £800

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £827.46 (includes shipping: £19.62)


GPU isn't as strong, gtx 1060 6GB version is an equal match for rx580 .
Also loose ability of card and monitor refresh rate being synced together but not the end of the world
8GB of ram Vs 16GB , 8GB still fine for a lot of the games , specially older ones​
 
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orbitalwalsh said:
Cost (all adds up in the end and I still went over budget ) as well as either needing x470 board for it to work 100% first time, if you go for cheaper .First Gen board then it might not have latest bios. There's 3 cures to this ;
1; get AMD loan Boot kit which is a CPU to bios flash the board
2; ask/pay shop to flash the board for you
3; if it's a gigabyte board then can be sent to Milton Keynes to be flashed at cost of delivery
​
Click to expand...

Sorry, you lost me at the bios talk. I have a basic understanding of what bios is: software in the motherboard that calibrates the inputs and outputs, but I didn't realise I would ever have a possible problem with the bios when making a build from up-to-date, newly purchased parts. what do you mean "cheaper .first gen board"? do you mean an older model purchasable from overclockers' store, or do you mean if I found a cheap one elsewhere, where the quality might not be so reliable?

Why is it a requirement to have the x470 board to make it work first time? Is it due to the relation of how new the model of the board is in comparison to how new the other hardware is (i.e the motherboard is older so it will have a bios that won't work as well with newer hardware)?

The budget is loose really, the priority is having a build that is likely going to be easy to set-up and run games on with mid-tier (as in medium settings on the game options) graphics performance, but the ability to run the newest games (so I can at least run the games my friends play). I'm not going for high performance, I probably won't even get a decent monitor; 60Hz should be fine for me.

Sorry for bombarding you with questions. If I'm asking questions that you think I could easily answer myself, or know a good place I could go to educate myself: please don't hesitate to point me towards it.

Thanks again

I'm a noob
 
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southernorth said:
My basket at Overclockers UK:
  • 1 x OcUK Kinetic H1M - Micro ATX Intel H310 Configurable Coffee Lake Gaming PC = £1,029.98
    • CPU:Intel Core i5-8400 2.8GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
    • Memory:Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G24
    • Graphics Card:MSI GeForce GTX 1070Ti Armor 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
    • Primary Storage Drive:TeamGroup 480GB L5 Lite SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive
    • Secondary Storage Drive:Unwanted
    • Optical Drive:Unwanted
    • WIFI:Unwanted
    • Lighting:Unwanted
    • Operating System:Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
    • Security Software:Unwanted
    • Case:Aerocool QS-240 Micro-ATX Case - Black
Total: £1,044.08 (includes shipping: £14.10)
​

Whilst the above build is the best I could find for ~£1k, if I was making a build that would offer the best longevity I would look at Ryzen 2600x/2700 + X470 motherboard, and then wait for Nvidia's next-gen to release (expected, but not confirmed in June/July). Ryzen's AM4 motherboard socket allows for CPU upgrades until 2020. Unfortunately both of these options have problems - either slightly over budget (Ryzen option) or require you to wait (Nvidia).
Click to expand...

While I'm interested in the ease-of-use of this pre-build, I have a sort of small yearning to get a bit of experience to build my own; but then I could always get just experiment with other stuff.
I also thought that pre-builds were a bit more expensive.
Will I be losing much money/performance if I chose this build over ordering the parts of an equivalent build and then assembling it myself? Or do you think that it's well worth it buying this over building my own?
 
Also guys, I know this might seem impatient but I'd rather not have to wait for promotions/sales/new-products unless it's happening literally in the next week.

I'm doing this because I just passed a life-milestone and I want to reward myself, so I'm allowing myself to splash a bit. I'm also really looking forward to being able to play with my friends again, so waiting much longer is a real test.
 
Antham said:
Also guys, I know this might seem impatient but I'd rather not have to wait for promotions/sales/new-products unless it's happening literally in the next week.

I'm doing this because I just passed a life-milestone and I want to reward myself, so I'm allowing myself to splash a bit. I'm also really looking forward to being able to play with my friends again, so waiting much longer is a real test.
Click to expand...
That's fair enough, I totally understand. When building a basket full of individual parts (with some needed changes) here's the nearest I can get to that pre-build:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,104.54 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​


So it is slightly cheaper to buy the pre-build, but you'd likely need to wait at least 7 working days for the PC to be built and shipped.

Would you say ~£50 extra is worth it if you receive all the parts next day and can build yourself? If you could re-use a windows key from somewhere you would save a lot.
 
Last edited:
southernorth said:
That's fair enough, I totally understand. When building a basket full of individual parts (with some needed changes) here's the nearest I can get to that pre-build:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,104.54 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​


So it is slightly cheaper to buy the pre-build, but you'd likely need to wait at least 7 working days for the PC to be built and shipped.

Would you say ~£50 extra is worth it if you receive all the parts next day and can build yourself? If you could re-use a windows key from somewhere you would save a lot.
Click to expand...

I didn't really think about the pre-build taking longer: I wouldn't mind waiting for that as long as I know I've placed an order rather than waiting to make a decision based off a possible upcoming offer/promotion.

I'm surprised that the pre-build is cheaper :o

Thanks for going through the trouble of comparing those prices for me, I really appreciate it.
 
JediFragger said:
Agreed, bloody good case that.
Click to expand...

Looks good, shall get the case. I'll also throw in an optical drive, dual-band wifi adaptor, and 2TB HDD.

I've had mixed opinions from a few of my friends about the frequency speed of the processor. Some say it's pretty low, while others are saying not to worry about it because of the turbo feature. Any thoughts?

Thanks for all the input, guys. It's really a huge help.
 
southernorth said:
My basket at Overclockers UK:
  • 1 x OcUK Kinetic H1M - Micro ATX Intel H310 Configurable Coffee Lake Gaming PC = £1,029.98
    • CPU:Intel Core i5-8400 2.8GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
    • Memory:Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G24
    • Graphics Card:MSI GeForce GTX 1070Ti Armor 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
    • Primary Storage Drive:TeamGroup 480GB L5 Lite SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive
    • Secondary Storage Drive:Unwanted
    • Optical Drive:Unwanted
    • WIFI:Unwanted
    • Lighting:Unwanted
    • Operating System:Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
    • Security Software:Unwanted
    • Case:Aerocool QS-240 Micro-ATX Case - Black
Total: £1,044.08 (includes shipping: £14.10)
​
Click to expand...

Hey, this may seem like a stupid question, but does this come fully ready to use provided I install the OS, have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse?

I noticed all the builds listed have a power supply in their specs, but this one doesn't mention one, so I was wondering if there was anything else I would need to get in addition to this product.
 
Antham said:
Hey, this may seem like a stupid question, but does this come fully ready to use provided I install the OS, have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse?

I noticed all the builds listed have a power supply in their specs, but this one doesn't mention one, so I was wondering if there was anything else I would need to get in addition to this product.
Click to expand...

OS should come installed already and the webpage mentions a 500W Bronze PSU (near the top, not in the Specifications section). If you have monitor, k & m and headset, you're sorted. Although if you want to be thorough, check that the monitor has at least one input that matches an output on the graphics card. And note that not all monitors come with every cable they can use, so ask or check the specs on manufacturer's website, so that you can order a cable if needed.
 
Also @Antham save yourself a load of cash and knock the Windows 10 off and pick up a key from Amazon/eBay instead, got mine for £8.70 and it's fine (even with latest updates, seems genuine).

If you just want it ready to go when it arrives then keep it on.
 
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