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Other £500(ish) Gaming System

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by GiGo, 19 Sep 2015.

  1. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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    So with Xmas around the corner and the 9 year old saying his old Slate PC is very slow and 'wishing it would play Ark' better I have decided to buy/make a gaming system.

    This is where I need advice from the lovely bit-techers.

    What can I build for £500, I don't need a keyboard, mouse, monitor or a HDD or Windows, so purely down to Motherboard, CPU, RAM, Case and PSU.

    It's not going to be supa-dupa system, but something that is good enough to run Ark with it looking good and not jumping frames. Not interested in over clocking and watercooling, so as for a case, anything will work that looks good and is green or with green lights (he loves green!)

    I am rather out the loop when it comes to GFX and CPU's so any advice is great fully appreciated.
     
  2. Thaifood

    Thaifood Minimodder

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    What resolution does he play on?
     
  3. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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    Well, that currently depends on the game, the TV I will plug it in to is 1080i but for the budget I know that isn't going to be an option. I tend to reduce settings depending on the game, IE Minecraft works well on a moderate settings where as ARK is totally slow at 1024x768.
     
  4. TheMadDutchDude

    TheMadDutchDude The Flying Dutchman

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    At that resolution, you're more CPU bound than anything. A new monitor would be far, far better to throw into the budget.

    You need a seriously fast CPU at such a low resolution, as the GPU doesn't even get to stretch its legs.
     
  5. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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    How's that work then? Surely all graphics are processed by the card/chip and the processor picks up the slack if required.

    Like I said I'm out of touch with things.

    I don't really want add another screen to the desk that everything is on/under, the 42" TV is used for the XBOX etc.... the All in One PC next to it is used for watching 'game related videos' (as he puts it). So another screen would just get in the way and I would much prefer one focused screen, otherwise he will most likely be trying to play 2 games at once :rolleyes:
     
  6. deathtaker27

    deathtaker27 Modder

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    If you look at the today only on scan bundles you can normally get an i5, mobo case ram and psu for 400
     
  7. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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  8. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    I respectfully disagree . As long as you're hitting 60FPS, who cares about CPU speed. And it today's world, you won't find a CPU that won't do that. That eBay PC would be painfully slow with its 240.


    Since your budget is £500, how about:

    Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro-ATX Motherboard £40

    AMD FX 6300 £82

    Corsair Desktop Memory 8GB (2x4GB) £36

    600W EVGA 80PLUS Power Supply £35

    Palit GeForce GTX 970 £253

    Antec P50 Cube Case £50

    Comes in at about £496 - and I think your friend will be rather pleasantly surprised at how fast his games are running all of a sudden!
     
  9. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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    Nice one, cheers for that, will have a look and see what's about :)
     
  10. modd1uk

    modd1uk Multimodder

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    Petes recommendations are significantly better than the crap on ebay you linked. They all say " plays the latest games" yeah, at 800x600 on low ;). Avoid the ebay systems.
     
  11. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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    Yes, I realise that, after looking at the benchmark of the ones on ebay :jawdrop: Pete's recommendation is by far far far far far better!
     
  12. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    You need to remember that any ready built rig anywhere is going to be the cost of the parts it takes to make them and the labour for making the rig on top.

    That Ebay rig is a ton of crap thrown together and then sold with all sorts of BS patter.

    I think Pete has nailed it with that set of parts, though I would change the GPU to this as it's better and only costs another £5.

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-...6000mhz-gddr5-1010mhz-gpu-2560-streams-dp-hdm
     
  13. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    A good alternative card, but has pros and cons:

    PROS:

    • Faster
    • Cooler running

    CONS:

    • No PhysX support
    • Consumes ~130W more (PSU can still handle it fine though)
    • Not as overclockable
     
  14. MightyBenihana

    MightyBenihana Do or do not, there is no try

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    Agreed with what was said above, do not buy that ebay system. the system Pete posted will not only be actually really fast but should also last a good few years with no really problems.

    Only problem I can see is the upgrade path but at that price something has to give and also by the time you want to upgrade it things should have moved along quite a bit anyway.
     
  15. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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    Cheers for the info guys. I have found the case I will be using:

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/aero...atx-itx-with-2xusb-30-and-side-window-w-o-psu

    The little man loves green and he will love this case :)

    So looking at the options, what do you guys think of this spec?

    Sapphire Radeon NITRO R9 380 Dual X OC AMD Graphics Card 4GB £170

    MSI A88XM GAMING Micro-ATX £80

    Aerocool X-Predator Cube Case - Green £65

    A10 7870K Black APU, Socket FM2+, Quad Core Processor £105

    Silverstone Strider 500W Full Modular 80+ Gold Power Supply £70

    Corsair Memory Vengeance Jet Black 16GB DDR3 £70

    Total being £560, savings could be made on the PSU (a friend recommended it) Also the case is a little pricey compared to that Pete J linked too, but it's very green!

    Any comments on the above and if it will be good for the next 2/3 years?
     
  16. ripmax

    ripmax Minimodder

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  17. MightyBenihana

    MightyBenihana Do or do not, there is no try

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    Make sure that 390 will fit in that case and if it does use the CPU Pete Recommended and put the money saved on the GPU (390 over the 380)
     
  18. Landy_Ed

    Landy_Ed Combat Novice

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    I second this. Built a very cheap rig for my son using an A8 processor intending to use the APU, and while the APU gives respectable performance for what it is, I still ended up chucking in a 750ti card, and in that use case the APU makes little sense, the main benefit is lost. an i3 is a better investment if you're going discrete graphics IMO.

    But for what it's worth, the A8 with the 750ti gives good (stutter free) performance at 1080p in all the lego games, eurotruck sim 2 and project cars.
     
    Last edited: 19 Sep 2015
  19. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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