£500 Home/light gaming pc

Genesius

New member
Hello,

Firstly id like to say thanks for taking the time to help here. Im going to go off and come up with some options for a £500 build but it would be great if I could get some of your ideas too.

I actually have 3 PC's to build all around the same budget and all for the same general use however one will need a graphics card. Don't worry this isn't for 'clients'. Its for a neighbour, my Dad and a work friend.

the main one im struggling with is the light gaming build. not only have I got to get a graphics card into the budget, but I also need to make it damn near silent as the pc is in the front room and my neighbour has it right next to the monitor.

any help would be great.
 
how light is light gaming? Also does it need an OS? intel or amd? etc etc.

I did do done did one:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£127.19 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Shuriken Rev. B 3 11.8 CFM CPU Cooler (£24.98 @ Novatech) Its very quiet.
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 V2 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£36.46 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£58.68 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.00 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£110.82 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£34.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£36.52 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.96 @ CCL Computers)
 
well its a family pc where mum plays runescape, boys play WoW and Sims. All I mean by light gaming is were not worried about Titanfall or Crysis on full settings.

I was thinking R7-260X or gtx 750ti but was going to make a decision based on the cash left.

OS is windows 7 and its £35.

Hdd im going to pick up used as they have a back up NAS and I want to try and get the OS onto an SSD.

'Remember300' that really is cheap but like you I shy away from AMD as I have always used Intel.
 
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keeping it cheap and under 500 i dont think intel would be a viable option.
Also what os is it im guessing 64 bit, that nas drive may end up dying on them if its an oldie but if thats not the case then change that hdd to this
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3hVJ9
with you os it comes to about 500 again
and notice no cheap brands just not top of the line.
 
remember has got a good build going on imo, the only thing I'd change is you've got a stock amd cooler on that, which is not the first word in quiet so I'd add a Hyper TX3 to that build. You can't OC with that motherboard but I guess you don't want to do that :P

-edit- An optical drive isn't really seen as needed around here but as its a family pc I guess thats a good idea
 
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i just went with having a good enough cpu that hopefully wont be stressed to much so wont need AM parts but i did think about SP fans lol esp in a case that small.

id probs also invest in some bitumen sound proofing and as long as the exhaust is away from the user and not to close to a wall then it should not be too noisey just a little warm
 
i just went with having a good enough cpu that hopefully wont be stressed to much so wont need AM parts but i did think about SP fans lol esp in a case that small.
The issue is with the 6300 is it uses the very budget AMD stock cooler which is so crap it can't even quietly cool lesser cpus without being quite noisy. the fans are a good idea as coolermaster case fans are usually quite poor.
 
The issue is with the 6300 is it uses the very budget AMD stock cooler which is so crap it can't even quietly cool lesser cpus without being quite noisy. the fans are a good idea as coolermaster case fans are usually quite poor.

Agreed the 6300 is dreadful on stock cooling, given the info and usage needs maybe a 4130 or 4350 will be sufficient I mean even I game with enthusiast settings on Crysis with a lowly FX4100 and she plays just fine.

How about looking at APUs instead of the FX series possibly cutting out the need for a dedicated GPU seeing as your only looking at the R7 series Radeons.
 
the graphics card is just me being 'belt and braces'. I think if I can pick up a used gtx 660 or a 750ti then that would be fine, also a used corsair Hxx should be fine. Im not shy of hunting ebay for bargains (see my personal builds).
The budget is really tight, no overclocking will be needed as the cheapest overclockable board and cpu (intel) would blow half the budget
 
Hey Genesius.

I was looking around briefly, i dont use pcpartpicker much so was a bit odd! If this link works, i came up with this :

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3iefE



Ok, my explanation. It comes to £485, without Win7 that is £40 so it is £25 over, but i have included a Gigabyte r9 270 in the build. I have also picked a rather nice case (imho) but it is £51... so that could be changed! But as i don't know all the M-ATX cases it would be best to check on size for GPU probably. I included a Samsung EVO SSD (120gb) which can also be changed (tbh on partpicker there were 2 and i couldnt tell the difference/late) That could be changed to a Crucial, or even a non EVO. The PSU i went with 450w XFX as for £35 is very good and an OEM of Seasonic (I will say though there customer service isn't great) The motherboard is M-ATX and is the Gigabyte, ok with this you want to try to get the REV 5.0 version (its black/brown with heatsinks) and is pretty much the same price.

The mobo, not blue :p

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-ga-78lmt-usb3-amd-760g-am3plus-ddr3-sata-ii-3gb-s-raid-pcie-20-%28x16%29-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-matx

For Ram i went with 2x4gb of 1333 ram as the motherboard can take no higher. And lastly a Coolermaster Evo for £25. Now this can be changed aswell depending if you want a particular one, or see one at a better price or performance, its pretty much staple so put one in just to have one and change as you need it.

Cool, i hope this was of some help! You could also look into a APU build as Wraithguard mentioned and is well worth considering and also because they have an abundance of M-ATX boards aswell. The r9 270 has obviously more oomph though when compared to APU's.

Another consideration could also be an FM2 or(+) motherboard (about £40-50 say) and a 750/750k (about £65)

Something like this:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3if2i

I would say however, to check out some reviews etc... of any of these motherboards, as i have just picked an fm2+ mobo that i *think* is ok (i haven't googled/read too much) But i do think it should be ok.

Anyways i'll leave the Apu build for now leave you with my ramblings!
 
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