Cheapest gaming rig.

shootermacg · 01-06-2014 5:51pm #1

Hi,
I'm looking to get a desktop for my son. I'm looking for the cheapest option available.
I've built up quite a steam library over the years and would like PC to be able to play the games, doesn't have to be maxed out everything as such, just good enough to get 60fps for most games. I already have a monitor for him.

So as cheap as humanly possible and good enough to have a go at playing the latest games is what I'm looking for.

Thanks!

yawhat! · 01-06-2014 7:19pm

What resolution is the monitor? What budget were you looking at?

Item|Price
8GB G.Skill PC3-12800U CL11-11-11-28|€65.17
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.80
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€89.43
MSI 760GA-P43 (FX), Sockel AM3+, ATX, PCIe|€50.63
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€34.52
Super Flower Amazon 80Plus Bronze Netzteil - 550 Watt|€53.85
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€362.39

I would add the R9 270 or the GTX 760 depending on your budget. I wouldn't go below the 270.

shootermacg · 01-06-2014 8:55pm

yawhat! wrote: »

What resolution is the monitor? What budget were you looking at?

Item|Price
8GB G.Skill PC3-12800U CL11-11-11-28|€65.17
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.80
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€89.43
MSI 760GA-P43 (FX), Sockel AM3+, ATX, PCIe|€50.63
BitFenix Merc Alpha|€34.52
Super Flower Amazon 80Plus Bronze Netzteil - 550 Watt|€53.85
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€362.39

I would add the R9 270 or the GTX 760 depending on your budget. I wouldn't go below the 270.

My budget is as low as humanly possible ^ ^.
The monitor isn't 1080, only a 20 inch widescreen.

Thanks a lot, that looks like a good start!

yawhat! · 01-06-2014 11:09pm

Ah so its probably 720P monitor I reckon. A 260x then would do the job nicely!

Fx 6300 is an excellent gaming processor but below this there really isn't too many options! Could drop the power supply to 450w as well to save a tenner.

TerrorFirmer · 02-06-2014 12:01pm

You could easily get it much cheaper, G3220, 4GB Ram, and a GTX750. Would cost about 350 for everything including the video card, and would be good for 90% of games at max settings at 720p. Can add more ram or replace G3220 down the line easily.

shootermacg · 02-06-2014 12:09pm

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

You could easily get it much cheaper, G3220, 4GB Ram, and a GTX750. Would cost about 350 for everything including the video card, and would be good for 90% of games at max settings at 720p. Can add more ram or replace G3220 down the line easily.

The resolution on the monitor, I think, 1600x900 and I already have a good PC for myself, so yeah, I'm looking for the cheapest option available for sure, less than 400 for the lot would be great.

SterlingArcher · 02-06-2014 1:06pm

Maybe keep an eye on adverts for graphics cards. Have seen a few good bargains lately. 660ti for 100.

A lot of people upgrade over the summer steam sales other factors.

yawhat! · 02-06-2014 3:35pm

I wouldn't go below the fx 6300. Games like Battlefield 4 will be crucified and will not run well! Games are starting to use extra cores and you are most new games will not run well on a dual core! If you want longetivity then get the Fx 6300. It is worth the extra money especially if you want a smooth gaming experience! With game consoles now using 8 cores that transistion is creeping over to the PC!

TerrorFirmer · 02-06-2014 6:47pm

A budget is a budget though. The G3220 is fine for the vast majority of games. It can always be upgraded down the line to an i5. 95%+ of new games run fine on the G3220 with a good card. Check any of the reviews.

The gaming performance of the Intel Pentium G3220 was definitely better than I though it would be across most of the games. What really surprised me though, was that the G3220 wasn’t the bottleneck at the higher gaming resolution! When we ran most of the gaming benchmarks at 1920×1080 we were limited by the ASUS Direct CUII NVIDIA GeForce GTX670 that we had in our test bench.

http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-pentium-g3220-processor-review_137016/13

I7 4770K less than 10% faster than the 50 euro G3220 in Bioshock Infinite at 1080p max settings. In fact, the 'worst' performance was still 84% of the 4770K performance in Metro Last Light...not bad for a 50 euro cpu!

In fact the G3220 is faster than the Fx6300 in a lot of games. Down the line more cores will be needed but right now, G3220 is a solid budget choice and can be easily swapped for an i5 in a year or two if required.

The G3220 and GTX750 are the champions of the budget build, can run most new games at 1080P very high settings - and it would be the GTX750 that would be the bottleneck far sooner than the G3220 would in 9 out of 10 games.

Gets my thumbs up anyway, insane performance for the price.

beauf · 03-06-2014 6:00pm

Isn't BF4 multi-player where you need the extra cores?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2357470

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/systems/battlefield_4_budget_build_performance/6

TerrorFirmer · 03-06-2014 6:14pm

It does help but the OP didn't mention Battlefield, and again there will always be the odd game that is particularly punishing on CPUs. Battlefield 4 online is still perfectly playable on a G3220 though.

The graphics intensive tests clearly show that this is a more than capable gaming machine. The Pentium processor doesn't drag down performance too heavily in games since pretty much every game we ran was able to achieve frame rates close to, or above 60. If you're in the market for a gaming PC on a budget, then this system might just be perfect for you. Battlefield 4 was our main target for trying to get a budget PC to run, and even at Ultra settings, our system managed to average around 55FPS. The minimum frame rates are also something to be wary of since sudden spikes of lag certainly don't make the game enjoyable. Even on ultra settings, the FPS didn't drop below 40 which is still great, and in most cases that wouldn't even be noticeable. It is worth noting that frames only dropped to this level when faced with explosions from grenades or other particle effect actions such as buildings collapsing. If you wanted to turn the settings down to high or medium, the frame rates wouldn't drop much below 60 FPS at all which would make gaming on this a very fluid experience.

beauf · 03-06-2014 8:28pm

I'm considering building the same PC. I think its great bang for buck.

crazydom · 31-07-2014 10:35am

Try the preassembled bundles on komplett or dabs!

beauf · 31-07-2014 10:40am

This is interesting too.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pentium-g3258-b81-cheap-overclocking,review-33007.html

shootermacg · 22-08-2014 11:19pm

Sorry about the delay. We've had to re-jig rooms etc and I'm onlu getting back to this now.

So some this is what I currently have:

http://www.hardwareversand.de/pcconfigurator/meinpc/1164996

Anyone got any suggestions?

BloodBath · 23-08-2014 12:42am

I'd go for an i3 over the FX, that socket is dead and a haswell i3 is easily just as good as the fx-6300 for the majority of tasks, while having lower power consumption and a far superior upgrade path. It has around 50% more performance per core than the FX and only lags slightly behind in heavy multi threaded apps. For gaming though the i3 is simply better.

Swap out the board and processor for the i3 4150 + an Asrock H81M-HDS. Grab an matx case to go with it. For the gpu go with an R7 265 2GB or an R9 270. The 265 has almost as much performance as the 270 but beats the 750ti which is around the same price.

Get one with a decent cooler.

I'd also get at least a hybrid drive. Single HDD PC's will slow down rapidly once you have some programs installed. Something like this.

nesf · 23-08-2014 7:33am

The main question to ask yourself is whether you're happy to upgrade one or two components in the next 12-24 months or whether you're planning on doing a new build entirely in 2-3 years.

If you're happy to upgrade bits and pieces in the near future you could save fifty quid with a Celeron processor for that 1150 socket looking to upgrade to a long term quad core CPU in a year and a bit or so. The i3 is a better processor right now but if you're planning on upgradiing bits and pieces soonish then it's a waste of 50 quid. If on the other hand you're not planning on upgrading this machine incrementally then the i3 is a better option. Realistically, the performance difference between a Celeron and an i3 isn't worth 50 quid at the budget level you're talking about if upgrading to an i5 or better is even remotely a possibility in the next 2 years. I'd say the same about the 270 vs the 265 unless you're planning on buying him a new 1080p monitor soon. Even a 265 is overkill if you "just want something that runs the games" as you said in your first post. The argument is over how cheap to go and the answer depends on how long your want this set of components to last the boy and crucially what kind of games he play. My kid plays stuff on my laptop which has pretty decent specs but he could easily be doing it on an old Core 2 duo + 4870 machine that I have upstairs, the kinds of games that he plays wouldn't tax it.

I'm assuming you want to keep the budget as low as possible of course (I'd actually consider Intel Graphics if he's not playing very graphically intensive games and buying him a GPU for Christmas or similar). Better to put an i5 or equivalent in there first day and not have to care about CPU upgrades for 4+ years if you have the extra hundred quid lying around though. :P

TerrorFirmer · 23-08-2014 9:06am

Good build and some valid points from nesf.

One thing though is that I wouldn't go with a Celeron, not because they're not sufficient but because the G3220 Pentium isn't much more and it's much faster.

That build above could easily be changed to a G3220, a regular GTX750 non-ti and you'd be saving close to €80 whilst still having strong gaming performance. I've used the GTX750 and it's a really good performer for sub €100, I was able to play most new games maxed at 720p, and at high settings at 1080p - so that's a world ahead of just wanting games to run!

One very important point that bloodbath pointed out is that going for an Fx series processor isn't great, as - it's a dead end socket, performance isn't spectacular, and they're power hungry and hot running parts. Never really got the love for the FX line myself, even when they first hit the scene. Had an Fx6300 and Fx8350 and didn't like them.

nesf · 23-08-2014 9:28am

Yeah, socket choice is key here if you're ever planning on upgrading relatively soon. End-of-life sockets are only really an option when you're planning on sticking with a chip for 4 or more years where you'd expect to be upgrading motherboard regardless.

After that it's just a matter of figuring out what the most demanding game run on it will likely be and working from there with regard to GPU. If your son's obsession is RTS games it's going to be a different call than if they love the latest FPS games or whatever.

BloodBath · 23-08-2014 1:16pm

His monitor is 900p so it will be a bit more demanding than 720p. I think a 750ti would offer great performance at that resolution for a couple of years at least. The 260x is also an option though that should be good at that resolution.

The pentium G3258 anniversary edition is also a great budget option and can be overclocked even with that cheap Asrock board I mentioned and the stock cooler. I'd expect to hit around 4ghz with them which would give a nice performance boost. (They can easily hit 4.5ghz+ with a better cooler) The 750ti is also very overclockable. You could be looking at 20-30% extra performance over stock speeds on both.

Even overclocked the system would only use around 150w of power under full load so it's not going to affect your electricity bills much either.

shootermacg · 23-08-2014 1:35pm

Thanks a lot lads! under 500 with a video card is brilliant. I'm delighted with that!
I have a HR macho 02 for cooling in my PC (thanks for the advice for that build too!!! ) and I love it, my PC is miles quieter than I ever thought it could be.
I was thinking of adding that or something similar to this PC. My one worry would be case width, it is a pretty hefty piece of metal.

Can anyone suggest something along those lines, if you'd think the HR macho is too big?

BloodBath · 23-08-2014 1:39pm

The pentiums or i3's are very quiet even with the intel stock cooler. They use so little power that they don't get that hot so the fans don't have to go that fast especially if you customise the fan profile in the BIOS.

Adding a €30 cpu cooler to a budget build kinda defeats the purpose anyway.

Better off putting the money into a gpu with a very good cooler as that is the main culprit for noise in most PC's.

shootermacg · 23-08-2014 1:59pm

I've been thinking on the advice and you've made a fair point, it would definitely be cheaper in the long run to go for i5 and forget the graphics card for now. I could easily pick one up the following month.

My problem basically is, I share a bank account with my wife and she'd go ape-**** if she saw 500+ going out in one go, whereas she wouldn't notice 150 or so the following month, as long as I can keep the initial amount sub 500.

I do want to get my son something that he can use for as long as possible, I have 150+ games on steam for him to play.

BloodBath · 23-08-2014 2:38pm

To be honest an i5 is not even needed. The vast majority of games run into gpu bottlenecks long before the cpu becomes a problem.

That's why the i3's and even pentiums do just as well in most games.

If I was going pentium though it would definitely be for the anniversary edition so you can overclock it. 3.2ghz to 4.5ghz is nearly a 50% overclock which is insane for a €55 cpu.

seraphimvc · 24-08-2014 11:25am

the above comments are all spot on haha exactly what i thought when i hear about someone is considering an i3 at the moment, grab a much better priced celeron instead, my g3220 is very smooth with gtx750 on everything and g3220 costed me £40.

one thing to keep in mind is that for some reason many gtx750/ti/sc out there seems to require a 6pin power supply when it doesn't quite need it in the first place, so choose carefully if you dont want to be bothered by that (i got mine from evga and i dont need a 6pin).

TerrorFirmer · 24-08-2014 11:44am

seraphimvc wrote: »

the above comments are all spot on haha exactly what i thought when i hear about someone is considering an i3 at the moment, grab a much better priced celeron instead, my g3220 is very smooth with gtx750 on everything and g3220 costed me £40.

one thing to keep in mind is that for some reason many gtx750/ti/sc out there seems to require a 6pin power supply when it doesn't quite need it in the first place, so choose carefully if you dont want to be bothered by that (i got mine from evga and i dont need a 6pin).

Funny enough I've bought a few GTX750Ti's and none so far have required a six-pin, although some apparently do.

nesf · 24-08-2014 12:04pm

If you're ever even considering a good GPU upgrade in the future though you'll want to get a PSU that has at least one or preferably two 8 pin power outputs for a GPU.

Just to save you having to replace the PSU when you went for a new GPU. Going for ultra cheap PSUs tend to be false economies anyway.

shootermacg · 24-08-2014 2:02pm

saw this 2nd hand, going for 400, what do you think?

Intel i5 760
8GB Memory
ATI Radeon HB 7850 2GB
500GB Hard Drive.
DVD Reader / Writer

TerrorFirmer · 24-08-2014 2:39pm

Not bad other than it being a dead end platform...but it would be a decent performer. I'd probably still prefer to build new though, you could build a G3220/GTX750Ti combo for that, and although it would be a bit slower, it'd all be brand new hardware with warranties.

Cheapest gaming rig.

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