Build Advice £300 Gaming Pc (Including OS) possible?

Hello.

I want to build a pc in a few months time and I am on a strict £300 budget. I was thinking along the lines of an athlon 860k and r7 260x but the rest I am unsure of. I am still open to the g3258 and any other ideas. And yes I will need a new windows 8 operating system.

I would like suggestions for what parts I could use and where they are from. I have used pcpartpicker.

I will be gaming at 1080p and don't mind getting used graphics card, maybe cpu if necessary. Although, I may not be able to do my build until summer, won't windows 10 be out by then? If so, what should I do?

Tbh this is my first ever build and I am not entirely sure on what games I would play. I don't think I will be into Crysis 3 as such.

 

What monitor resolution will you be playing at?
This is crucial to your buying decisions, particularly the graphics card.
Also, what kinds of games are you going to be playing? AAA FPS like Battlefield, Crysis 3 or Minecraft?

This will inform the suggestions people on here can give.

 

£300 is going to be a tight budget especially if you need to include the OS in that, what parts do you have all ready?

 

Windows 8 is going to ruin your budget, basically. £82 is approaching an entire third! However, you could look at second hand to stretch a bit further?

 

I think the starting advice is: Find yourself at least another £150

 

I'd say it's doable within reasonable expectations of performance, assuming no monitor.

2nd hand is probably your friend , as is 4GB of RAM and cheap PC cases with PSUs included.

Basically (within reason) minimise the amount you spend on hardware other than the GPU. Then spend the rest on that.

There may be a small bottle neck with the CPU combo in some games, but that is seldom a huge issue in my experience. Not worth the rather large jump in price that might compromise the GPU you can afford if your budget is very limited.

Also if you can get a (still legal) Windows licence for less than the full Microsoft Store price that would help a lot. Are you a student, or do you have an older version of Windows you can upgrade from?

 

I'd be tempted to try and pick up a second hand Windows 7 license, then use the cheap/free upgrade to Windows 10 when it comes out.

I'd also be setting aside at least a third of that budget for GPU power, and definitely go second hand.

 

You can get windows 8.1 pro for around £43 if it's still available, I've bought a few and not had any issues.

 

... or wait a bit. Looks like Windows 10 is going to be very budget minded for the masses.

 

You could always use the Windows 10 preview version for the moment and wait till Windows 10 is out and get it then.

FYI I got Windows 8 for £20 I think when it came out. Microsoft had some great promos running at the time to incentivise the upgrade and I have no doubt that it will be the same with Windows 10.

 

New components wise:

AMD Athlon X4 860K - £55
FM2+ Motherboard - £35
4GB DDR3 RAM - £25
Case with 500W PSU - £25
OS - £50?

£110 left for the GPU, so maybe a 270 on the AMD side? Not sure about Nvidia at that price point.

I'm actually running an FM2 A8 system (not FM2+) with a 270. It's fairly capable, depending on what your expectations are.

You could really push all those specs up if you're willing to buy used.

 

I wouldn't touch a £25 case with a 500w power supply with a barge pole, budget build or not. The PSU is the backbone of the system, it shouldn't be something purchased with whatever is left over at the end.

Realistically this budget requires you to either look used or compromise on certain components.

May a blend of both would be a good starting point - new MB, CPU, case,PSU but a used GPU?

You should be able to get a 280/280x/670/760 for around £100-120.

 

If you need to buy win 8 for £82 the build is not really doable. Cases with psu are just plain bad idea at least in the low budget area. You can get a £10 case as long as you buy a good quality psu.

There's ways to do it none of them very legal though. I'd use windows 10 preview your problem there is if the harder will support it or not.

It's 100% not doable new from a store. Wether you can do it second hand depends how lucky you are.

 

Agreed.

I have used the 'Bay to source a lot of my stuff second hand and although I have had issues with some parts, their policy protects you to a degree.

I've picked up 2nd hand Windows licenses that worked and were valid, plus you can get cases for next to nothing and PSUs for cheap from the same place. RAM doesn't seem to be an awful lot cheaper and I would never trust a second hand disk, but first hand ones can fail as well, so that's just personal preference.

I have a 280X sitting around doing nothing (admittedly untested, as I bought it for a mate's build that never got off the ground) - let me know if interested as I'm only after what I paid for it (will need to check what that was), but not sure if that's a good deal given the recent price cuts if I'm honest.

Why have you not considered the Devil's Pentium, out of interest?

 

Why not make a steam box and bin off the idea or windows? You can then get a lovely fake copy and upgrade it to windows 10 come august when Microsoft announce their pending doom and reliance on selling office..

 

£300 gaming machine.

 

Sorry for the late reply. Err, what do you guys mean by second hand windows? You mean one of these weird dell re-installation cds you find off ebay?

 

If you kniw anyone in Uni you can get a free windows key off them if the Uni is signed up to MSDNAA

 

Good god know !

They will only work on a Dell system, so if you don't have the required Dell motherboard you will need a license.

You could look to find someone selling a faulty Laptop with the required license on the bottom and then just getting the media from MS with their media creator. Technically doing it that way would be against the EULA but who really looks too closely at those anyway ?

There are some absolute bargains to be had in the second hand market if you look around and are prepared to play the waiting game for a particular part. I've been able to get hold of a Core i7 860 (I know quite old but still reasonably quick) and motherboard for £70.

 

I believe you can get one copy of each version of windows, so multiple!