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Newbie Builds First Value Gaming PC

Hully_Monster
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Hey Guys,

 

The Linus Tech team and his community have inspired me to build! (Some will be pleased to hear am finally moving away from my iMac..)

 

Budget: £500-£600 for the PC

Location: UK

Aim: Casual gaming, wanting to play current and recent releases at 1080p with good enough quality to be able to enjoy, ultra settings not required as I've never yet been spoled in the graphics department!

Monitors: Initially one possibly up to two 1080p monitors, max. would be 27" (though I would LOVE the 21:9 34" LG Linus uses...)

Peripherals: Will use my current for now and upgrade as birthday / xmas presents

 

Why: Cos my iMac is now so slow I waste far too much time waiting it for load with time being very precious as it takes a lot of negotiating with the better half!!

 

My build I've come up with is:

 

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

 

  CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£47.98 @ Amazon UK) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£24.85 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus H81M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£38.55 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£65.05 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£172.61 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB FTW ACX Video Card  (£120.90 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Case: Fractal Design FD-CA-CORE-3300-BL ATX Mid Tower Case  (£49.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£53.34 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Total: £573.23
 
 
I obviously intent to overclock the G3258. Your thoughts would be much appreciated as well as:
  • What OS would you guys go for? (I'm on windows 7, will 8 run games better? - and worth the extra annoyances that come with Windows 8?)
  • Will the BIOS on the motherboard be correct to be able to at least post or even overclock?
 
Any comments as well as tips for building if you've used these before just shoot.
 
Thanks and have a good one,
Matt
 
 
 
 
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Hey Guys,

 

The Linus Tech team and his community have inspired me to build! (Some will be pleased to hear am finally moving away from my iMac..)

 

Budget: £500-£600 for the PC

Location: UK

Aim: Casual gaming, wanting to play current and recent releases at 1080p with good enough quality to be able to enjoy, ultra settings not required as I've never yet been spoled in the graphics department!

Monitors: Initially one possibly up to two 1080p monitors, max. would be 27" (though I would LOVE the 21:9 34" LG Linus uses...)

Peripherals: Will use my current for now and upgrade as birthday / xmas presents

 

Why: Cos my iMac is now so slow I waste far too much time waiting it for load with time being very precious as it takes a lot of negotiating with the better half!!

 

My build I've come up with is:

 

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

 

  CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£47.98 @ Amazon UK) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£24.85 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus H81M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£38.55 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£65.05 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£172.61 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB FTW ACX Video Card  (£120.90 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Case: Fractal Design FD-CA-CORE-3300-BL ATX Mid Tower Case  (£49.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£53.34 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Total: £573.23
 
 
I obviously intent to overclock the G3258. Your thoughts would be much appreciated as well as:
  • What OS would you guys go for? (I'm on windows 7, will 8 run games better? - and worth the extra annoyances that come with Windows 8?)
  • Will the BIOS on the motherboard be correct to be able to at least post or even overclock?
 
Any comments as well as tips for building if you've used these before just shoot.
 
Thanks and have a good one,
Matt

 

I envy the price of the 500GB SSD. 

"Instinct or Rationality; Which will you choose? Enchanted by a superiority complex"

"what you do in spite of internet speed is inspiring. :3" From Cae - 2015

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Looks pretty good! Liking the value of the G3258.

Only worry with the H81, is if the one you buy will have a recent bios to be able to post with the haswell refresh CPU. Might be best to check with the retailer?

Asus has an EZflash bios flash method, anyone know if this can be done without a CPU? I've heard of some boards being able to do this.

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Long post; await a pcpartpicker list to make it simpler.

I'm almost 99.999% sure you cannot overclock a 3258 on an H81 board and on that note, only specific boards. I don't know 100% for sure so I recommend waiting until someone else informs you regarding that CPU/mobo. The Hyper 212 EVO, despite its 'hype', is not only a bad cooler unless $20 or less, it's not necessary - especially if yuo can't overclock - to get value out of a Pentium processor. If you can't OC, the 3258 is a waste of money and you should get an FX-6300 or even an i3-4150 instead.

Don't get a Samsung EVO if you're budgeting. The entry level PNY SSD is decent but I recommend a Crucal MX100 because it definitely will be fast enough for gaming. The read speeds (important for most of your use) are hardly lower than a perfectly functioning Samsung EVO but way cheaper. The M500/550 for better write speeds and IOPS are options, they're just a little closer to EVO pricing (still cheaper if I recall) but imo not necessary. You can have a very equally enjoyable, speedy experience with an MX100 that is $20-$40+ cheaper than an EVO.

The above comments can give you more money towards a much faster graphics card if things go your way. There are other ways to cut cost but I'd rather keep you happy than reduce you to a $20 cheapo Antec/whatever computer case (random example).

If you do not need a monitor or OS included, I can slightly modify your build and you's be pretty much guaranteed better off. Some things from what I said before might not be relevant but that's just an example. I'm not trying to give you *the best* pc, but wasting money is terrible. With that being said, everything I haven't mentioneed looks pretty good. There are some improvements you could make but most of that parts list is worth purchasing.

Edit: The 750Ti is ass, don't believe all reviews. I am positive you can spend the same or less for something better. Btw, it sounds like you are either an Intel/NVidia fanboy (opinions are opinions) or were given biased advice/mimicked a build (quite the no-no). About the 3258: It's just a higher clock speed version of a much cheaper Pentium G from Intel unless you overclock it with a very good, usually rather expensive motherboard.

NVidia in a nutshell


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Last I checked, Asus and MSI have released bios updates for H81, B85, H87 boards so that a simple overclock with multiplier can be achieved only for the intel g3258. Linus has a video on this.

i.e. this build would get the value out of the hyper 212 evo and be overclockable, maybe not a 4.6 GHz overclock, but at the very least an easy 4.0/4.2 overclock.

Only problem is if this board will come with the updated bios which has been released.

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