Budget Game build advice needed

chudley

New member
Budget Game PC build advice needed

Hi all,

First off please accept my apologies for having to post this but I am well out of the game - literally! and have not kept up to date with all the latest despite dropping in here often.

I have scratched a budget build from a magazine but am not sure whether it is any good and am open to suggestions / alternatives of any kind - not bothered who makes what. I have a case already but would be happy to swap it for a new model.

This will be primarily for gaming.

I have a budget of up to £700 for mine and my son will have approx. £1000 (sad when he has more money than me at the age of 16) although he hasn't got a wife to spend it.

Parts listed for mine - if I had the money I would go for a SFF build.

Intel i5 4460 - £145
Cooler master hyper T4 - £20
Asus H97 – plus - £80
RAM – crucial ballistix sport 8gb £45
Sapphire radeon r9 290 4gb £200
SSD – already have one 256mb (I think) Win 7 on it.
HD - £80 - £100
PSU tbc £80ish.

My son is building from scratch incl OS.
Thanks in advance
 
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First question: what resolution do you game at, and do you play all the newest AAA titles?

Sort of easy to answer, I want to be able to play all the latest games (but cant afford £400. I only have a 24 inch monitor so 1920 x 1080 is good enough (I think).

My son likes playing H1Z1 and also wants to play latest games.

Cheers
 
One for you (you allready have a ssd and a os)

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/sFYLRB

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£178.39 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.95 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£81.08 @ More Computers)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£33.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.98 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 390 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card (£253.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£32.78 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£61.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £706.14

And one for your son (he needs a os + ssd + windows is a placeholder you may not whant windows 10 or as i call it NSA-10)

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/JP973C

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£178.39 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.95 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£101.94 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£58.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£73.00 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.98 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 390 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card (£253.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£77.10 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£61.98 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) (£76.00 @ Aria PC)
Total: £945.31
 
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Not bad, but put this together for you - better CPU using latest architecture, superfast M2 storage for OS and games, 1TB storage for everything else, same GPU but quieter cooling solution, and double the RAM (plus DDR4 performance) for an extra £30.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/jgqhcf

Note that I haven't included an OS, because it is extremely possible to obtain a genuine copy of Windows 7 and then activate it (there's a guy called Daz who's useful for this...) and then upgrade free to Windows 10. Just sayin'...
 
thanks for your help guys, I have looked at the builds and can see where you are both coming from.

I will discuss them with my son tomorrow. He is a console follower and has only just realised how good PC's are - interestingly he wants to have multiple screens now (not sure where he is getting the money from) but expect him to save and purchase those at a later date. I explained to him that a console cost the price of a decent graphics card and you get what you pay for.

How much advantage does 8gb on graphics give over 4gb? compared to price difference (i.e. is it worth it?) I will look out for reviews to try and find the answer myself tomorrow.

Happy to stay windows 7 until all issues are sorted with win 10 :)
 
Very little advantage unless you're gaming at 4K resolution, and then you need a faster graphics card anyway. For 1080p or 1440p gaming, 4gb GPU memory is perfect.
 
thanks for your help guys, I have looked at the builds and can see where you are both coming from.

I will discuss them with my son tomorrow. He is a console follower and has only just realised how good PC's are - interestingly he wants to have multiple screens now (not sure where he is getting the money from) but expect him to save and purchase those at a later date. I explained to him that a console cost the price of a decent graphics card and you get what you pay for.

How much advantage does 8gb on graphics give over 4gb? compared to price difference (i.e. is it worth it?) I will look out for reviews to try and find the answer myself tomorrow.

Happy to stay windows 7 until all issues are sorted with win 10 :)

multiple screens takes up vram and AMD eyefinity (3 to 6 screens) provided by AMD cards has allways been great compared to nvidia's solutions and easy to use.
When you consider that 1080p/i will use up to 2-3 gbs of vram adding 1 or 2 extra 1080 monitor's to game on widens this usage dramatically as you are useing twice/thrice the resources in viewing realestate,
 
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thanks for your help guys, I have looked at the builds and can see where you are both coming from.

I will discuss them with my son tomorrow. He is a console follower and has only just realised how good PC's are - interestingly he wants to have multiple screens now (not sure where he is getting the money from) but expect him to save and purchase those at a later date. I explained to him that a console cost the price of a decent graphics card and you get what you pay for.

How much advantage does 8gb on graphics give over 4gb? compared to price difference (i.e. is it worth it?) I will look out for reviews to try and find the answer myself tomorrow.

Happy to stay windows 7 until all issues are sorted with win 10 :)

Haven't had a single W10 issue tbh. It's pretty solid in my experience.

4GB vs 8GB isn't a big difference. However running 3 screens 8GB would be more ideal however not necessary. You'd be fine without it. Then again the 390 people have recommended so far only come with 8GB of VRAM which is always good for headroom. At the price it sells it's the best value for money card you can get. Even though 4GB is enough, 8GB won't hurt:)
 
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