Cheapest possible gaming PC?

DDA Donn

I'm going to be moving to Belgium for 7 months soon and won't be able to bring my PC with me since it's the family computer. No one else uses it for gaming, so I'll be able to take the graphics card with me at least (XFX Radeon HD 6770). It'll likely be thrown out or given away at end of this 7 months, so I'm looking for the cheapest components that will allow me to play games at reasonable frame rate (which I'd call at least 30fps, I don't play shooters or anything that requires extreme response times) and draw distance. Everything else I'm perfectly happy to set to lowest.

To put most of that in teh recommended format:
1. What is your budget? Lowest possible. I'll be optimistic and say €300 (can be broken if that's stupid).

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming. Eg. Skyrim, Mass Effect, Dishonoured, Minecraft, Fallout New Vegas.
(Minimum graphics settings with playable frame rate and reasonable draw distance acceptable)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Graphics Card: XFX Radeon HD 6770

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need. 19'

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Keyboard/mouse

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

8. How can you pay? Bank Transfer, Credit Card,Laser, paypal.

9. When are you purchasing? Between one and two months from now.

marco_polo

This is as absolutely rock, rock bottom as low as I dare go, €340 delivered including 20" 1600X900 monitor, you really promise you won't be keeping any of it longer term? Its not pretty but it will do the job

Cheap case is a farily meh but usable, it not too bad a PSU, not that efficent but delivers its rated wattage at least and has a PCIe connector for the 6770. CPU has seen better days but will be play the listed games reasonably well.

As the GPU is the more important factor in most of those game you'll be playing closer to the highest that the lowest settings anyway as the 6770 is pretty decent.

if you think there's any chance at you'll be bringing any of it home again I'd really really strongly consider spending a good bit more though. :pac:

Item|Price
Sharkoon Vaya schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€25.89
Antec BasiQ VP350|€34.55
MSI 760GM-P21 (FX), Sockel AM3+, mATX, PCIe|€35.80
AMD Athlon II X3 450 "Boxed" 95W, Sockel AM3|€52.32
2 x 2GB G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€18.62
Seagate Barracuda 7200 250GB SATA 6GB's|€46.74
Samsung SH-224BB bare schwarz|€17.14
ASUS MS202D|€89.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€339.05

Serephucus

Nicely done!

I'd go Intel though.
mATX H61 - €40
2.7GHz SB dual core - €47

About a 20-40% increase in gaming performance (Anandtech) for €1 less.

I'd also maybe spend an extra €4 on this case as it comes with a 120mm intake, and 120mm exhaust, vs. just a 120mm intake of the other case.

marco_polo

Serephucus wrote: »

Nicely done!

I'd go Intel though.
mATX H61 - €40
2.7GHz SB dual core - €47

About a 20-40% increase in gaming performance (Anandtech) for €1 less.

I'd also maybe spend an extra €4 on this case as it comes with a 120mm intake, and 120mm exhaust, vs. just a 120mm intake of the other case.

I am vanquished, well played sir, well played

I kind of assumed even the cheapest Intel boards would start from €50 upward so didn't even think to look.

Serephucus

Heh, for some reason I love doing crazy-high-end, and very low-end builds only. Everything in between I find a little boring, but I quite enjoy trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of a lower budget.

DDA Donn

Thanks guys, that's really awesome, nice to know there's something I can do in a reasonable price range!

No I don't plan on taking it home, since I'm not going to spend the money required to get a better PC than the one I have now, I don't see the point!

Serephucus wrote: »

Nicely done!

I'd go Intel though.
mATX H61 - €40
2.7GHz SB dual core - €47

About a 20-40% increase in gaming performance (Anandtech) for €1 less.

I'd also maybe spend an extra €4 on this case as it comes with a 120mm intake, and 120mm exhaust, vs. just a 120mm intake of the other case.

Can I ask for the sake of me making more informed choices on computer parts in the future, why is that an upgrade? I'd have thought being a 3-core 3.2GHz processor would mean the AMD was better than the 2-core 2.7GHz intel processor. Or is it the motherboard that somehow makes it better?

Serephucus

It's not all down to number of cores, and their speed. That assumes all cores are equal, which isn't the case. The processor I chose is from the Sandy Bridge line, which is last generation, the Athlon X3 on the other hand is a very old architecture by comparison and so isn't as efficient.

See here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/189?vs=406

Blue is AMD, black is Intel. They don't have the G555 listed, but the 620 is the same, just 2.6GHz vs. 2.7. Gaming benchmarks are towards the bottom.

DDA Donn

Serephucus wrote: »

Nicely done!

I'd go Intel though.
mATX H61 - €40
2.7GHz SB dual core - €47

About a 20-40% increase in gaming performance (Anandtech) for €1 less.

I'd also maybe spend an extra €4 on this case as it comes with a 120mm intake, and 120mm exhaust, vs. just a 120mm intake of the other case.

Serephucus wrote: »

It's not all down to number of cores, and their speed. That assumes all cores are equal, which isn't the case. The processor I chose is from the Sandy Bridge line, which is last generation, the Athlon X3 on the other hand is a very old architecture by comparison and so isn't as efficient.

See here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/189?vs=406

Blue is AMD, black is Intel. They don't have the G555 listed, but the 620 is the same, just 2.6GHz vs. 2.7. Gaming benchmarks are towards the bottom.

Cheers, I'll just have to consider it above my head and be sure to ask around boards next time I'm looking for a CPU!

By the way, can I assume there's no harm in paying €2 extra to get the following HDD, are am I again missing something?

Toshiba DT01ACA Series 500GB, SATA 6Gb/s

Serephucus

Toshiba aren't the best HDD manufacturer. On paper the drive looks ok. I'd be a little concerned about reliability, but double the size for an extra €2 is quite good.

I'd sooner spend another €3 and get this from Western Digital.

marco_polo

I actually had the WD in originally, I threw it away (along with the Bitfenix Merc, SF 450W and 8GB gskill ) when I went into uber stingy mode.

It a slippery slope though always something thats only an extra €5 (although doubling HDD capacity is hard to argue with and probably a no brainer alright)

Serephucus

Indeed, that had crossed my mind. I suppose the hard drive is the one thing you could easily bring back and integrate into your existing machine.

BNJT

Hey I'm new to this forum, but I was just wondering why everyone uses harwareversand.de here? I lived in Germany for many years and used notebooksbilliger.de (cheaper laptops.de) and alternate.de which were often cheaper. Does hardwareversand have better shipping rates to Ireland?

U_Fig

If I were you I'd bring the lot home nice little htpc with a slight upgrade to silence it maybe..

marco_polo

BNJT wrote: »

Hey I'm new to this forum, but I was just wondering why everyone uses harwareversand.de here? I lived in Germany for many years and used notebooksbilliger.de (cheaper laptops.de) and alternate.de which were often cheaper. Does hardwareversand have better shipping rates to Ireland?

I suppose they are much cheaper that UK Ireland retailers and have a English version of their website (I don't see anything like that on the two you mentioned so a non German speaker like me wouldn't even know where to begin finding the shipping rates. :pac:)

DDA Donn

marco_polo wrote: »

I actually had the WD in originally, I threw it away (along with the Bitfenix Merc, SF 450W and 8GB gskill ) when I went into uber stingy mode.

It a slippery slope though always something thats only an extra €5 (although doubling HDD capacity is hard to argue with and probably a no brainer alright)

And I appreciate uberstingy mode! I was looking for cheapest possible afterall, I figured from there it was no harm having a gander at what I could get for slightly more.

TerrorFirmer

Don't let the G555 fool you, I had the G620 for a awhile before I got my i5 it actually ran BF3 at ultra settings at 1080p on 32 man maps. It's well able for a much faster card than your 6770! Even with the G555 and a 6770 you'll be playing games at decent visual levels anyway.

U_Fig

marco_polo wrote: »

I suppose they are much cheaper that UK Ireland retailers and have a English version of their website (I don't see anything like that on the two you mentioned so a non German speaker like me wouldn't even know where to begin finding the shipping rates. :pac:)

I find hwvs site to be one of the easiest to navigate and the post to basket script is so handy..

DDA Donn

Think I'll be trying to take the mobo/cpu home afterall, since it looks like the G555 is better than what I have in my current PC. In this light, how does the Celeron G555 compare to the Pentium G645 and Pentium G860?

Would I see much/any difference upgrading to one of those?

Serephucus

Both are better than the G555, but only by a bit. With those two it does actually only come down to frequency.

TerrorFirmer

For the sake of 4 quid, it's worth the G645 with the 3MB cache.

DDA Donn

Reckon there's much chance of noticing any difference for gaming with my 6770?

pedatron

Hi! How did this build work out? Flat broke and would love to build something super cheap and cost effective if possible!