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Hi folks,
I'm thinking of returning to PC gaming, it's been awhile! 8 years actually.
I have a set budget of £500. I don't need a keyboard, mouse, OS or monitor as i plan on running this PC on the TV at 1080p.
I've been following the talk and Intel are the current buzz so what do you folks recommend as a new gaming build?
At that level something like a Core i3 6100 will be a good CPU choice. Regarding graphics cards,the new Nvidia range is £300+ but AMD is releasing Polaris 11 which should be in the £100 to £200 level.
Thanks for the swift response.
The Intel i3 6100 is what i'm currently looking at now, also 16GB of memory and a decent Z170 board for OCing. Any recommendations on a complete build?
Overclocking an i3 doesn't seem to help much, so I would save your money in that respect and spend it somewhere that makes a difference.
But as Cat says, it looks like Polaris is out at the end of the month so I wouldn't buy until then unless you really have to.
Okay, sound advice.
You could probably get a Core i3 6100 and an R9 380X for around £500.
Is that a complete build?
Yep,but with no SSD. Not needing to include an OS really helps!!Quote:
Originally Posted by MGP
While you are waiting for graphics cards to get released, a major part of a build is deciding which case you are getting as that is the only bit you actually see.
How big a machine are you going for, will it be on a desk or under it?
How much do you value a machine being quiet, as that can add a little cost?
If you are using a TV as a monitor, does the machine have to fit in to an AV rack?
A normal ATX case is more than enough, no preference. Looking around at parts now as we speak.
It's unlikely to be worth it unless you need a high end motherboard for other reasons. an £150 i5 & £40 motherboard will generally be faster than an £90 i3 and £100 motherboard.Quote:
Originally Posted by MGP
My 5 minute pick:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£97.26 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI H110I Pro Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard (£61.88 @ More Computers)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£31.16 @ More Computers)
Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP600 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£41.59 @ More Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 4GB Video Card (£135.56 @ More Computers)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case (£40.45 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£56.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £504.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-10 18:43 BST+0100
With the two caveats that as others have said you should wait until the new GPUs are released, if nothing else so current ones reduce in price; secondly that if you do want to pull the trigger now, that area is not my specialty so others may have better advice for performance/price point.
EDIT: mini-caveat that I have a bit of a hard-on for mini itx.
Interesting start, but the SSD just gives you slightly better loading times whereas if you spend that money on a graphics card it will help on every single frame.
by this much: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1662?vs=1591
So drop the SSD and get an R9 380: http://www.ebuyer.com/730576-sapphir...s-11242-13-20g
(You can always put an SSD upgrade in at some point in the future).
Edit: Or looking to the future, hopefully an R9 480 will be the same sort of price with mental performance in a few weeks!
You may be right, I just feel like in a modern system to have your OS running on an HDD fills me with juddery tears
lol, well SSDs are certainly a nice to have and make some things like patching games go really fast. But for patching games to go fast you want all of your storage on SSD, I never really saw the point in having a boot drive SSD but then I don't reboot that often.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazzickle
The alternative would be instead of £40 HDD + £42 SSD, for £90 you can get a 480GB SSD which is enough for quite a few games. That means finding another £8 in the budget.
Thanks for the input folks, interested in the i3 and R9 380X, will 8GB be enough is the question? 16GB only a few quid more. I can raise budget to £550.
I would probably get the build set-up first and buy the card next month when we have more information on Polaris 10 and 11. Hopefully,it might also mean price reductions on current cards too.
I'd echo the above but would rather wait until the cards are out before I bought the rest of the build, would start speccing it up now though.
Also, how have I only just discovered parametric filtering on pcpartpicker?
Polaris might not be available till October from what i've been reading from the web.
I've started looking at the spec up now, i can run integrated graphics until AMD releases new cards.
Budget still stands at £550, without dedicated graphics card for now. Prepared to wait it out till then.
AMD said middle of the year for launch.Quote:
Originally Posted by MGP
Do you want:
1.)A mini-ITX or a larger build
2.)Are you going to overclock
3.)Do you want an SSD.
I prefer a larger build, ATX as space isn't an issue. Considering overclocking in the near future, SSD is optional unless it has huge performance gains then a must have.
I would get a i5 over a i3 anyday of the week, pick up a cheap 7950/7970, till you save some more money for a new gpu.
What about picking up a used ssd which you can get a 240gb for around £45.
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