Budget gaming builds

[cptwhite_uk]

I've recently got into the hobby of building cheap gaming PCs. Are there any other Hexus members doing the same?

I started with HP Pro 3500 / Dell 3010 Mini Towers, which can be picked up with i5 2nd 3rd gen processors, 500Gb HDD and 8Gb RAM for sub £100, fitting a Corsair VS450 power supply and a graphics card of choice.

You can build a solid gaming PC for around £240 - 250 this way with a GT1060 / RX570 GPU.

However these only have 2 DIMM slots, so you're somewhat limited.

Instead I've been focusing on Dell 7010 / 9010 SFF builds. These require a low profile graphics card, which max out at 1050 Ti 4Gb in terms of performance, but they're such nice cases to work in and have 4 DIMM slots.

Recently picked up a Dell 9010 SFF with i5-3470 (3.2 > 3.6 turbo) / 8Gb (2x4Gb) / 500Gb / Blu-ray player for £80 (delivered to door!) and Win 10 / Office 2016 pre-installed and activated.

I added an extra 4Gb RAM I had spare, and a GT 1030 GPU which gives ~ 17% overclock even though it's passively cooled. GT 1030 cost £40 second hand.

So all in a £120 for the box, and it' plays PUBG, albeit on low settings and 900p, with around 55+ fps.

Any one got any tips for picking out tech bargains for budget gaming builds? I'm aiming for sub-£100 on my next project with PUBG playing at 1080p and 60fps...

[Bagnaj97]

Any one got any tips for picking out tech bargains for budget gaming builds? I'm aiming for sub-£100 on my next project with PUBG playing at 1080p and 60fps...

Abandon systems that require low profile GPUs, that'll give you so much more choice. That £40 1030 could have been a Radeon 7850 or even a 7870 with a bit of patience on ebay.
GTX 650Ti, 750+, 7850+, R7 260x+ are all various levels of faster than a GT1030 yet still support Vulkan and DX12.

Userbenchmark is useful for comparing hardware when trying to find the best bang for your buck.

Perhaps keep an eye on collection only PCs sorted by nearest first? PCs can be a bit bulky to ship so people might not bother...

[spacein_vader]

I've recently got into the hobby of building cheap gaming PCs. Are there any other Hexus members doing the same?

I started with HP Pro 3500 / Dell 3010 Mini Towers, which can be picked up with i5 2nd 3rd gen processors, 500Gb HDD and 8Gb RAM for sub £100, fitting a Corsair VS450 power supply and a graphics card of choice.

You can build a solid gaming PC for around £240 - 250 this way with a GT1060 / RX570 GPU.

However these only have 2 DIMM slots, so you're somewhat limited.

Instead I've been focusing on Dell 7010 / 9010 SFF builds. These require a low profile graphics card, which max out at 1050 Ti 4Gb in terms of performance, but they're such nice cases to work in and have 4 DIMM slots.

Recently picked up a Dell 9010 SFF with i5-3470 (3.2 > 3.6 turbo) / 8Gb (2x4Gb) / 500Gb / Blu-ray player for £80 (delivered to door!) and Win 10 / Office 2016 pre-installed and activated.

I added an extra 4Gb RAM I had spare, and a GT 1030 GPU which gives ~ 17% overclock even though it's passively cooled. GT 1030 cost £40 second hand.

So all in a £120 for the box, and it' plays PUBG, albeit on low settings and 900p, with around 55+ fps.

Any one got any tips for picking out tech bargains for budget gaming builds? I'm aiming for sub-£100 on my next project with PUBG playing at 1080p and 60fps...

More the opposite, I'm looking to do something simar for my eldest and would love to know where you're getting these PCs from!

[cptwhite_uk]

Mostly Gumtree / Facebook Market / Ebay

One guy I met for some Dell Optiplex systems still has some available, spec as follows:

Dell Optiplex 7010 SFF case (31cm x 29cm x 9cm approx - 4 DIMM slots, 2 used for 8Gb total, PCI-E, can fit 1050 Ti low profile / 1050 low profile / GT 1030 low profile
i5-3570 (3.4Ghz > 3.8 Turbo)
8Gb DDR3 1600
500Gb HDD
DVD-RW
Windows 10 activated
Office 2016 activated

He'd probably sell for £80 + delivery.

[cptwhite_uk]

Abandon systems that require low profile GPUs, that'll give you so much more choice. That £40 1030 could have been a Radeon 7850 or even a 7870 with a bit of patience on ebay.
GTX 650Ti, 750+, 7850+, R7 260x+ are all various levels of faster than a GT1030 yet still support Vulkan and DX12.

Userbenchmark is useful for comparing hardware when trying to find the best bang for your buck.

Perhaps keep an eye on collection only PCs sorted by nearest first? PCs can be a bit bulky to ship so people might not bother...

I appreciate what you're saying, I've played that game but the ease of upgrading and install in the Dell 7010 SFF is something money can't buy. I can literally install an SSD, GPU and extra RAM in 5 minutes flat without *any* tools, or the need to upgrade the PSU etc.

I've played with GT1030 / GTX1050 / GTX1050Ti, GTX1050 is the sweet spot for price, even though it is limited by 2Gb vRAM.

I've also noticed more modern architecture seems to perform better in modern titles (probably better driver support I expect, regardless of what userbenchmark says (I use it regularly). The 7850 is 45% faster than the GT1030 according to userbenchmark, but I've overclocked by approximately 17%, and I suspect the 45% improvement in real world use is probabaly closer to 25-30%, so with the overclock, maybe 10-15% faster overall. This is a card with power consumption of around 90W, compared to the GT1030's 30W...that's progress for you!

GTX1050 will sup 50W max, and match performance of the 7870 on paper, probably beat it in real world benchmarks

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compar...850/3650vs2182

For reference I manage to get 50-55fps on the GT1030 (OC) @ 1080p with 80% scaling ~ 900p / medium AA and textures / very low everything else in PUBG.

[Lost4words]

Looking for a cheap rig myself! Lol