TR Forums

I have decided to build a computer for gaming with about £400, I already got a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I asked my friend about it and he sent me this list of items; http://www.ebuyer.com/lists/list/98253

Will this make a good PC?
I've checked reviews and all of the specs but I feel I'm missing something, oh and I'm a bit of a newbie with this too >.>

Have you taken a look at the Econobox system in the latest TR systems guide? That seems to be right at your price range. If you have not seen it yet take a look at this link.

http://techreport.com/review/24979/tr-summer-2013-system-guide/2

That system price converts to just over 400 pounds so it seems to be just what your looking for. Take a look and see what you think.

£67 ASRock H77 Pro4-M micro-ATX LGA1155 motherboard
and £93 Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge dual-core 3.3 GHz LGA1155 processor with HSF
or
£77 Asus H87M-E micro-ATX LGA1150 motherboard
and £161 Intel Core i5-4570 Haswell quad-core 3.2 GHz LGA1150 processor with HSF

£49 2x4 GiB PC3-12800 Crucial BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU (DDR3-1600, CAS 9, 1.5 V) memory

£92½ MSI N650TI-1GD5/V1 GeForce GTX650Ti 1GB graphics card
or £165 XFX FX-787A-CDFC Radeon HD7870 2GB
or £150 EVGA 02G-P4-2660-KR GeForce GTX660 2GB
or £137 Sapphire 11200-14-20G Radeon HD7850 2GB
or £125 EVGA 02G-P4-3653-KR GeForce GTX650Ti 2GB
or £101 Sapphire 11210-00-20G Radeon HD7790 1GB

£50 1.0 TB Seagate ST1000DM003 hard-drive
optional £87 0.128 TB Crucial M4 SSD
£13 DVD-RW

£53 CoolerMaster Elite 342 micro-ATX case with 500W power supply

£65 Microsoft Windows 8 OEM 64-bit

Including the 20% VAT, I'm over your budget by 20.6%. PC components here in the U.S. have no VAT.


Another way to go about building a budget gaming PC would be to pick up a scratched-and-dented or refurbished Inspiron 660 with a Core i3 or i5 from the Dell outlet store for a very reasonable £264 + £22 delivery and then add your own gaming graphics card from the list above. The Radeon HD7850 2GB would provide an excellent gaming experience at 1920x1080.

Thankyou so much! I'll look into all these options!

For a very basic system, even cheaper than the Econobox, I've found Ars Technica's Bargain Box to be useful.

That Ars bargain box isn't going to cut it for gaming.

Even the best APU integrated graphics are going to require running at lower settings for modern games at 1920x1080. However, doing without the graphics card would get us close to the OP's original £400 budget.

£61 Gigabyte GA-F2A85XM-D3H micro-ATX socket FM2 motherboard
£114½ AMD A10-6800K Richland quad-core 4.1 GHz socket FM2 processor with HSF (reviewed here)
£61 2x4 GiB Crucial BLT2CP4G3D1869DT1TX0CEU (DDR3-1866, CAS 9, 1.5 V) memory
or £68 2x4 GiB Corsair CML8GX3M2A2133C11B (DDR3-2133, CAS 11, 1.5 V)