Feronix
New member
This thread is located in New Build Advice as it is an advice thread for people looking to build a £300 Gaming PC. I will do a series of these threads, including gaming PCs for several budgets, completely silent builds, HTPCs and maybe even a few laptops.
Today we're taking a look at what you can build for a mere 300 Pounds. Conveniently, the price of an average console in the UK. Don't expect wonders on this budget, you're not going to run Far Cry 4 maxed out on 4K, what you can expect however is modern titles on medium-high settings at 1080p with smooth framerates, depending on the game.
Kicking off with the CPU we're going with a dual core Intel Pentium K G3258. This chip does not feature Hyperthreading, but will run most games more than fine with its support for great overclocks, due to the low power draw and heat output. For now, an aftermarket cooler was not in the budget, but even on the stock cooler you should be able to reach an easy 4.0-4.2 GHz.
OC3D Review
Alternatives:
Athlon 860k - The Athlon is the only real competitor for our Pentium chip, featuring twice the cores for only a marginally higher price. Performance per core however, is better on the Pentium chip and the 860k was just outside of our budget in this situation.
---------------
For the motherboard, I've chosen a Gigabyte H81m-H, being one of the cheaper motherboards that supports overclocking on the Pentium 3258. As additional bonuses it features two USB 3.0 ports on the back, as well as two Sata III ports. There is also a free PCI-E 1x slot after installing a graphics card for additional expansion cards, such as a sound card or WiFi.
Similarly priced boards from brands like MSI or Asus will likely be as good, if not better but the Gigabyte seemed to suite this build very well. You don't have to stick to this exact spec list though!
Alternatives:
Gigabyte H81M-S2H - For only a few pounds more you get a total of 4x USB 3.0 ports on the back, as well as an internal USB 3.0 connector for the front panel. It also features slightly better on-board audio.
MSI H81M-P33 - Being slightly cheaper than both of the Gigabyte boards this board would be a decent purchase, however you do sacrifice front USB 3 compared to the more expensive Gigabyte board.
Asus H81M-C - This Asus board is the most expensive of the lot, but does offer a lot more read I/O and an additional legacy PCI slot in case you have an older expansion card that you want to use in your new PC. Oddly enough it does not feature a front USB 3 connector.
---------------
The RAM was a simple choice, considering the budget only allowed for 4GB we'd preferably get a single dimm, considering all of our budget motherboards only have two RAM slots. So forget about dual channel for now if you want to be able to easily upgrade to 8GB in the future - possibly the cheapest and easiest upgrade you can do on any PC.
Any brand such as Kingston, Corsair, Adata, G.Skill, Crucial, Mushkin, Patriot or Samsung will be absolutely fine. For this build, I've chosen a single 4GB stick of Corsair Vengeance Black, running at 1600MHz with timings of 9-9-9-24 using 1.5v. Please do remember that if you want to upgrade to a bigger CPU cooler in the future, low-profile RAM might be better for you.
Alternatives:
Some single channel RAM sticks with the same specifications
Crucial Ballistix Sport BLS4G3D1609DS1S00CEU
Mushkin Stealth 991995S
Kingston HyperX Savage HX316C9SR/4
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL9S-4GBRL
If you do not plan on upgrading to 8GB later, you can get a dual channel kit, although this is not recommended and more expensive now.
Corsair XMS3 CMX4GX3M2B1600C9
---------------
For storage it was quite obvious that an SSD was not going to fit within this budget, so we'll have to go all mechanical. Make sure you'll have at least a 7200RPM hard drive. To achieve this, we had to pick a 500GB drive over a 1TB one, but if you have a few pounds spare, be sure to pick up a 1TB one. Luckily, this computer offers a lot of expansion possibilities so you can decide to go with 500GB now and add another hard drive later.
I'm quite picky when it comes to hard drives and reliability, so I've picked up a 500 GB Toshiba DT01ACA050.
Alternatives:
Hitachi HTS725050A7E630 Travelstar 500GB (This is a 2.5" drive).
---------------
At the heart of any gaming PC there is a graphics card. I had a few options to choose from here, but only one really stood out to fit the budget. Being slightly cheaper, although not as energy efficient as the GTX 750 Ti, there is the AMD R7 260X, replacing last generation's HD 7790. This model is from MSI, known as one of the better GPU manufacturers on the market and features 2GB on on-board VRAM, plenty for most titles on 1080p.
Alternatives:
Nvidia GTX 750 Ti
Radeon R7 265
---------------
The power supply was an easy decision. A quality unit with enough wattage (350 Watt+) for our build and the appropriate connectors for the GPU. The Corsair CX430 fit the budget, although a CX430M should only be a few pounds more expensive and is a semi-modular unit, keeping your case somewhat free of cable clutter.
Alternatives:
Corsair VS450 - Cheaper if you can find one, but of lesser quality and with no modular version available. In this case I'd say quality > Wattage.
BeQuiet! System Power 7 400 Watt
Seasonic S12II-Bronze 430W - A top quality unit if you have the money for it, although either of the above units will serve you fine and you might be better off spending the extra few pounds on something like more storage.
---------------
As for the case, there really are a lot of options. Although, as usual, for a tenner more you can have much better cases, there are a tonne of £30 cases around, making this a very competitive part of the market.
The one I have chosen is the Fractal Design Core 1000. This case has been around for a while but being a fully steel case, it is still one of the better quality ones that you can buy at this price. There is also a USB 3 version available for those who desire it, but because it is a few pounds more expensive, and our motherboard doesn't have a front USB header anyway, I went with the standard version.
It is a µATX case, making it suit our motherboard perfectly by having it fit, yet not be excessively big. The front panel is nearly completely made out of mesh and it comes with a pre-installed 120mm intake fan in the front. You may want to add an additional exhaust fan, although the relatively low-end hardware in this build won't produce that much heat, so you don't need to worry about your system overheating either way. The top mounted power supply will also work as some sort of exhaust system.
Alternatives:
Cooler Master N200 - This is also a µATX case, but it has a few more features. Firstly it comes with a 120mm intake AND a 120mm exhaust fan, and there is also an extra USB port on the front which is USB 3. In this case, the power supply is mounted in the bottom.
Bitfenix Comrade - This is an ATX case, so it will take up more space in your room, and space inside the case will remain unused, but it does introduce a simple cable management system and can also fit 3 x 3.5" and 3 x 2.5" drives for storage. The front has no mesh so it looks a bit cleaner. It comes with one 120mm exhaust fan with the possibility to add another 2 of those in the front.
Cooler Master K280 - If you're after a more agressive/gamer look, this case might be a little more up your alley. Like the Comrade, this is also a regular sized ATX case and it supports one USB 2 and one USB 3 port on the front. It comes with one red LED 120mm fan in the front and a has a window option available so that you can look inside at your components.
Total price £305.15
Optional components:
- Crucial MX100 120GB SSD. 120GB really isn't that big for an SSD these days, but 120GB will be plenty for your operating system, such as Windows, a few of your favourite apps like Skype or Steam, and a couple of your favourite games.
- TP-Link WDN-4800 WiFi card. While WiFi really isn't recommended for a gaming rig, if you HAVE to use it, you might as well get a really good one. The WDN4800 is that card and will fit in the PCI-E 1x slot under your graphics card on any of the selected motherboards.
- Asus Xonar DGX/DG. If you're after better sound quality without breaking the bank, the DGX is probably the card that you're looking for. Asus are known for their top quality sound cards and the DG/DGX are the cheapest in this range. The DGX will fit in any PCI-E 1x slot, so right under the GPU just like the WiFi card, although the only way you can install both is by getting the PCI version, the DG and the Asus motherboard so that you can install the sound card in the bottom legacy PCI slot. Do keep in mind you will end up with slightly higher latency though.
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. If you want really good overclocks on your Pentium, while still maintaining both a cool and quiet rig, this is probably the best cooler that you can buy. Being known as the best price to performance cooler on the market, the 212 Evo might be the most recommended CPU cooler on the internet in the past few years, and for a reason. Do make sure that you pick up some low-profile RAM if you plan to install this cooler.
- Samsung SH-224DB. Here on Overclock3D, most of us agree that optical drives are a thing of the past - me included. That is also why this wasn't included with the main components and the budget of this build. However, if you feel like you need one, whether it is for installing games via discs, watching movies on DVD or uploading your legally purchased CDs to your PC; this DVD burner is one of the cheapest that you can buy while being.... the same as any other DVD burner in the £10-20 price range!
- Bitfenix Spectre. If you want to purchase additional fans for your case, the easiest you can do is spend a few pounds on the manufacturer's fans that also come with your case. If however, you are looking for quality fans for a low price, you can pick up the 120mm Bitfenix Spectre in white or black for around £6 each. If you spend 50 pence more, you can get them with green, orange, red, blue or white LEDs too!
- Windows 8.1. For a gaming rig, there is no way around Windows, and with mainstream support for Windows 7 ending soon, there really isn't any reason not to go with the better performing Windows 8.1 OS. You'll also get a free upgrade to Windows 10, or at least that's what Microsoft promised!
Tips & Tricks
Install Windows from a USB
This is much faster than from any disc. You can find a guide here.
Start8
Start8 will add the regular old start button and -menu from Windows 7 back into Windows 8 and 8.1. You'll also be able to boot straight to the desktop, completely avoiding the entire Metro interface. Download here
Ninite.com
www.ninite.com lets you select all the software the (free) software that you like to install and download it as a single installer package. This way you'll only have to download and install one file, rather than many seperate ones.
SSD maintenance
Please have a look at our thread on SSD maintenance by member Wraithguard:
http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=67884
I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and that it's useful to anyone. If you would like to see more threads like these from me in the future, then please let me know. You're always welcome to share your own configurations, or tips & tricks!
Today we're taking a look at what you can build for a mere 300 Pounds. Conveniently, the price of an average console in the UK. Don't expect wonders on this budget, you're not going to run Far Cry 4 maxed out on 4K, what you can expect however is modern titles on medium-high settings at 1080p with smooth framerates, depending on the game.
Kicking off with the CPU we're going with a dual core Intel Pentium K G3258. This chip does not feature Hyperthreading, but will run most games more than fine with its support for great overclocks, due to the low power draw and heat output. For now, an aftermarket cooler was not in the budget, but even on the stock cooler you should be able to reach an easy 4.0-4.2 GHz.
OC3D Review
Alternatives:
Athlon 860k - The Athlon is the only real competitor for our Pentium chip, featuring twice the cores for only a marginally higher price. Performance per core however, is better on the Pentium chip and the 860k was just outside of our budget in this situation.
---------------
For the motherboard, I've chosen a Gigabyte H81m-H, being one of the cheaper motherboards that supports overclocking on the Pentium 3258. As additional bonuses it features two USB 3.0 ports on the back, as well as two Sata III ports. There is also a free PCI-E 1x slot after installing a graphics card for additional expansion cards, such as a sound card or WiFi.
Similarly priced boards from brands like MSI or Asus will likely be as good, if not better but the Gigabyte seemed to suite this build very well. You don't have to stick to this exact spec list though!
Alternatives:
Gigabyte H81M-S2H - For only a few pounds more you get a total of 4x USB 3.0 ports on the back, as well as an internal USB 3.0 connector for the front panel. It also features slightly better on-board audio.
MSI H81M-P33 - Being slightly cheaper than both of the Gigabyte boards this board would be a decent purchase, however you do sacrifice front USB 3 compared to the more expensive Gigabyte board.
Asus H81M-C - This Asus board is the most expensive of the lot, but does offer a lot more read I/O and an additional legacy PCI slot in case you have an older expansion card that you want to use in your new PC. Oddly enough it does not feature a front USB 3 connector.
---------------
The RAM was a simple choice, considering the budget only allowed for 4GB we'd preferably get a single dimm, considering all of our budget motherboards only have two RAM slots. So forget about dual channel for now if you want to be able to easily upgrade to 8GB in the future - possibly the cheapest and easiest upgrade you can do on any PC.
Any brand such as Kingston, Corsair, Adata, G.Skill, Crucial, Mushkin, Patriot or Samsung will be absolutely fine. For this build, I've chosen a single 4GB stick of Corsair Vengeance Black, running at 1600MHz with timings of 9-9-9-24 using 1.5v. Please do remember that if you want to upgrade to a bigger CPU cooler in the future, low-profile RAM might be better for you.
Alternatives:
Some single channel RAM sticks with the same specifications
Crucial Ballistix Sport BLS4G3D1609DS1S00CEU
Mushkin Stealth 991995S
Kingston HyperX Savage HX316C9SR/4
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL9S-4GBRL
If you do not plan on upgrading to 8GB later, you can get a dual channel kit, although this is not recommended and more expensive now.
Corsair XMS3 CMX4GX3M2B1600C9
---------------
For storage it was quite obvious that an SSD was not going to fit within this budget, so we'll have to go all mechanical. Make sure you'll have at least a 7200RPM hard drive. To achieve this, we had to pick a 500GB drive over a 1TB one, but if you have a few pounds spare, be sure to pick up a 1TB one. Luckily, this computer offers a lot of expansion possibilities so you can decide to go with 500GB now and add another hard drive later.
I'm quite picky when it comes to hard drives and reliability, so I've picked up a 500 GB Toshiba DT01ACA050.
Alternatives:
Hitachi HTS725050A7E630 Travelstar 500GB (This is a 2.5" drive).
---------------
At the heart of any gaming PC there is a graphics card. I had a few options to choose from here, but only one really stood out to fit the budget. Being slightly cheaper, although not as energy efficient as the GTX 750 Ti, there is the AMD R7 260X, replacing last generation's HD 7790. This model is from MSI, known as one of the better GPU manufacturers on the market and features 2GB on on-board VRAM, plenty for most titles on 1080p.
Alternatives:
Nvidia GTX 750 Ti
Radeon R7 265
---------------
The power supply was an easy decision. A quality unit with enough wattage (350 Watt+) for our build and the appropriate connectors for the GPU. The Corsair CX430 fit the budget, although a CX430M should only be a few pounds more expensive and is a semi-modular unit, keeping your case somewhat free of cable clutter.
Alternatives:
Corsair VS450 - Cheaper if you can find one, but of lesser quality and with no modular version available. In this case I'd say quality > Wattage.
BeQuiet! System Power 7 400 Watt
Seasonic S12II-Bronze 430W - A top quality unit if you have the money for it, although either of the above units will serve you fine and you might be better off spending the extra few pounds on something like more storage.
---------------
As for the case, there really are a lot of options. Although, as usual, for a tenner more you can have much better cases, there are a tonne of £30 cases around, making this a very competitive part of the market.
The one I have chosen is the Fractal Design Core 1000. This case has been around for a while but being a fully steel case, it is still one of the better quality ones that you can buy at this price. There is also a USB 3 version available for those who desire it, but because it is a few pounds more expensive, and our motherboard doesn't have a front USB header anyway, I went with the standard version.
It is a µATX case, making it suit our motherboard perfectly by having it fit, yet not be excessively big. The front panel is nearly completely made out of mesh and it comes with a pre-installed 120mm intake fan in the front. You may want to add an additional exhaust fan, although the relatively low-end hardware in this build won't produce that much heat, so you don't need to worry about your system overheating either way. The top mounted power supply will also work as some sort of exhaust system.
Alternatives:
Cooler Master N200 - This is also a µATX case, but it has a few more features. Firstly it comes with a 120mm intake AND a 120mm exhaust fan, and there is also an extra USB port on the front which is USB 3. In this case, the power supply is mounted in the bottom.
Bitfenix Comrade - This is an ATX case, so it will take up more space in your room, and space inside the case will remain unused, but it does introduce a simple cable management system and can also fit 3 x 3.5" and 3 x 2.5" drives for storage. The front has no mesh so it looks a bit cleaner. It comes with one 120mm exhaust fan with the possibility to add another 2 of those in the front.
Cooler Master K280 - If you're after a more agressive/gamer look, this case might be a little more up your alley. Like the Comrade, this is also a regular sized ATX case and it supports one USB 2 and one USB 3 port on the front. It comes with one red LED 120mm fan in the front and a has a window option available so that you can look inside at your components.
Total price £305.15
Optional components:
- Crucial MX100 120GB SSD. 120GB really isn't that big for an SSD these days, but 120GB will be plenty for your operating system, such as Windows, a few of your favourite apps like Skype or Steam, and a couple of your favourite games.
- TP-Link WDN-4800 WiFi card. While WiFi really isn't recommended for a gaming rig, if you HAVE to use it, you might as well get a really good one. The WDN4800 is that card and will fit in the PCI-E 1x slot under your graphics card on any of the selected motherboards.
- Asus Xonar DGX/DG. If you're after better sound quality without breaking the bank, the DGX is probably the card that you're looking for. Asus are known for their top quality sound cards and the DG/DGX are the cheapest in this range. The DGX will fit in any PCI-E 1x slot, so right under the GPU just like the WiFi card, although the only way you can install both is by getting the PCI version, the DG and the Asus motherboard so that you can install the sound card in the bottom legacy PCI slot. Do keep in mind you will end up with slightly higher latency though.
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. If you want really good overclocks on your Pentium, while still maintaining both a cool and quiet rig, this is probably the best cooler that you can buy. Being known as the best price to performance cooler on the market, the 212 Evo might be the most recommended CPU cooler on the internet in the past few years, and for a reason. Do make sure that you pick up some low-profile RAM if you plan to install this cooler.
- Samsung SH-224DB. Here on Overclock3D, most of us agree that optical drives are a thing of the past - me included. That is also why this wasn't included with the main components and the budget of this build. However, if you feel like you need one, whether it is for installing games via discs, watching movies on DVD or uploading your legally purchased CDs to your PC; this DVD burner is one of the cheapest that you can buy while being.... the same as any other DVD burner in the £10-20 price range!
- Bitfenix Spectre. If you want to purchase additional fans for your case, the easiest you can do is spend a few pounds on the manufacturer's fans that also come with your case. If however, you are looking for quality fans for a low price, you can pick up the 120mm Bitfenix Spectre in white or black for around £6 each. If you spend 50 pence more, you can get them with green, orange, red, blue or white LEDs too!
- Windows 8.1. For a gaming rig, there is no way around Windows, and with mainstream support for Windows 7 ending soon, there really isn't any reason not to go with the better performing Windows 8.1 OS. You'll also get a free upgrade to Windows 10, or at least that's what Microsoft promised!
Tips & Tricks
Install Windows from a USB
This is much faster than from any disc. You can find a guide here.
Start8
Start8 will add the regular old start button and -menu from Windows 7 back into Windows 8 and 8.1. You'll also be able to boot straight to the desktop, completely avoiding the entire Metro interface. Download here
Ninite.com
www.ninite.com lets you select all the software the (free) software that you like to install and download it as a single installer package. This way you'll only have to download and install one file, rather than many seperate ones.
SSD maintenance
Please have a look at our thread on SSD maintenance by member Wraithguard:
http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=67884
I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and that it's useful to anyone. If you would like to see more threads like these from me in the future, then please let me know. You're always welcome to share your own configurations, or tips & tricks!
