Is 700e enough?

noaddedsugar

I was hoping to surprise my husband with a new gaming pc this Christmas. He has had his for years now so it is fairly shot. He has monitors, keyboard, windows etc but would need everything else. Being a person who knows nothing about computers I thought 700e is bound to be more than enough to blow his mind, sure my chromebook only cost a couple of hundred :pac:

Having read through a few pages here I see that most people seem to spend upwards of 1000e. I really can't afford to go higher than 700 for Christmas as we have kids wanting a slice of the pie too, am I better off holding out until I can spend more or is it possible to build a decent machine for that? I can't tell you what games he plays other than he likes shooty ones and role playing ones.

Edited to add he doesn't need disk drives either.

Digital Solitude

700 is loads for a great PC, are you planning on getting him parts and letting him build it or buying a pre built one?

noaddedsugar

Ah that makes me feel better thanks. I was thinking parts and letting him build it, that is what he has done in the past so I figured I would stick to that. I've gone though previous threads and looked at the part lists there so I think I know roughly what I need I just don't know how to make it fit into a budget of 700e? From what I have seen processors and graphics cards alone seem to come to 500e on a lot of the lists here.

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (€179.92 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock H170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€83.63 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€35.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB Video Card (€276.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (€48.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (€71.74 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €697.16
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-28 20:51 CEST+0200

*EDIT*
Now that I think on it, this might be better:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (€203.79 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock H170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€84.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€35.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 470 4GB Red Devil Video Card (€226.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (€48.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (€71.74 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €672.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-28 23:03 CEST+0200

At 1080p gaming, the RX 470 is about even with the RX 480; but this way you can squeeze in a nicer i5-6500.

noaddedsugar

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (€179.92 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock H170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€83.63 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€35.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB Video Card (€276.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (€48.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (€71.74 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €697.16
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-28 20:51 CEST+0200

*EDIT*
Now that I think on it, this might be better:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (€203.79 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock H170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€84.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€35.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 470 4GB Red Devil Video Card (€226.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (€48.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (€71.74 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €672.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-28 23:03 CEST+0200

At 1080p gaming, the RX 470 is about even with the RX 480; but this way you can squeeze in a nicer i5-6500.

Thanks so much for taking the time to do that! That's a really great list to work off.

Digital Solitude

In 18 months there will be a bigger bridge between the two graphics cards than the i5s, I'd take the 6400 regardless. OP do you know if he has an SSD? If so, add one, if not, get the 480

john the one

This might seem like a tough question but what does his current pc have in it already? Some of the gear might be useful, the psu and case primarily. And his monitor, keyboard and mouse. It will help the guys spec a better build if you can get this info...

SterlingArcher

Where are you based.

SterlingArcher

Where are you based.

Billy86

noaddedsugar wrote: »

Thanks so much for taking the time to do that! That's a really great list to work off.

I'm starting off building my first one actually, and one thing a lot of people mention on here are the 'GPU Cards' (they'll be AMD or nVidia) - apparently if you're going to focus a little extra of the budget on one area, this is it. Essentially it's the difference between some of the more demanding games like shooters or Grand Theft Auto looking like an unplayable slideshow, or running seamlessly like a Pixar movie.

This might be of help to you for reference, typically when they're in the same 'bracket' the higher the number the better the quality
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html - from what I know you would want to use something in the top two tiers here, but others who know more might want to correct me.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html - I was been aiming for the 9 or so tiers, though you'll notice the price rise sharply once you hit about 970/980 or so. Again best to check with others, but 750ti to about 950 from what I saw was the most affordable that can be relied on to play most games.

Another bit of advise - try to get the name of some of his more recent games and google their requirements. So for example 'Doom minimum requirements' will let you know you need a "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (2GB) or better / AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB) or better." while Tomb Raider is much lower at "DirectX 9 Graphics card with 512 MB Video RAM (Radeon HD 2600 XT/Geforce 8600)"

This is in poor quality. It looks pretty bad but basically can't even be played (hence why I'm upgrading ) because when you press for character to do something, they typically don't. 45 seconds in is a good example.

Whereas this is what it would look like running better (4:00 or 5:10 will give you a good idea of the difference). Yes it looks a lot better, smoother and more detailed which is great, but more important are the response times which would be perfect on this.

I saved for a good GPU card first, now am nearly done getting the CPU Card and motherboard; those are the three priciest and trickiest for the newbies among us to be honest. After those three components, the others seem very straight forward and are generally lower priced (power supply, RAM, fan, case, hard drive).

john the one

In my limited opinion, amd are the cheaper option but can outperform Intel if your husband is willing to overclock, which means run his hardware harder than its intended out of the box but perfectly safe if you know what to do.

If not, pay extra for an Intel processor, Cpu, same thing. Works better and more smoothly out of the box.

But like I said earlier, if he has any hardware that can reduce your cost or make his build better, it's in your interest. And his.

Also, I noticed, windows wasn't included in the builds above, that's an extra few Bob, depending where you buy it. Expect an official version to be about 90 euro, unless he can use his existing version.

Digital Solitude

No AMD chip will match an i5 John

I think he'll be able to reuse Windows

john the one

Digital Solitude wrote: »

No AMD chip will match an i5 John

I think he'll be able to reuse Windows

That may be so, but bang for buck is something you can't deny, and that's what, unfortunately, amd offer. Or fortunately.

And how do you know he can use his windows key digital? Too many builds get speced here without thinking about the os. Unless he is a Linux user.

I'm not as clued in as you are, but I remember doing my build /upgrades and that are all things to consider.

K.O.Kiki

john the one wrote: »

That may be so, but bang for buck is something you can't deny, and that's what, unfortunately, amd offer. Or fortunately.

And how do you know he can use his windows key digital? Too many builds get speced here without thinking about the os. Unless he is a Linux user.

I'm not as clued in as you are, but I remember doing my build /upgrades and that are all things to consider.

http://www.windowscentral.com/you-do-not-need-activate-windows-10

Digital Solitude

john the one wrote: »

That may be so, but bang for buck is something you can't deny, and that's what, unfortunately, amd offer. Or fortunately

Not even close, 8350 is more expensive than an i3 and underpreforms in a lot of games, the 9590 is about the same price as a standard i5 and performs much worse than it. i5 6400 is €30 more than a 8350 and is a much better CPU, way better value for money.

Unless your budget is south of €500 and you want the best PC you can afford for that money I.e. don't want to upgrade anything soonish, then AMD are a better choice, you're comparing APUs and FX4300s to Pentiums at that stage.

On their graphics cards yeah, AMD are good value and have competitive pricing, the CPU market belongs, and rightfully so to Intel.