Noob advice on cheapest entry rig

[Waptic]

OK, so I'm NOT a big gamer at all, but a sucker for playing them AAA's.

 

I DON'T CARE PLAYING AT ULTRA SETTINGS. As long as I can get my rig to do medium settings on 1080p - I'm happy(Especially with games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider/Hitman 2/Far Cry 5/GTA 5) If I get high settings then Bonus, but that is not the end goal here.

 

This is my current rig:

HP Compaq Elite 8300:

3rd gen i5

2 x 4gb ram

500 gb mechanical WD blue (Still looking for good deal on ssd)

1 x PCIe slot.

PSU -  don't know - will upgrade if necessary which is very likely

 

Monitor: Dell SE2416H

 

I'm looking for the cheapest option for gpu v psu combo. Case is big enough for any card.

 

Not looking into future-proofing my rig.

 

Any advice? 

 

I'm getting very confused over the options since I see good benches on R9 280's straight through to the top end. 

[Fasauceome]

Looking at this video raised one question:

Where can the graphics card go? I see what appears to be an MXM slot, but "affordable" and "MXM" don't exactly mesh so well.

Correct me if I'm looking at the wrong model PC.

[zlolslavez]

When I look up the PC I find slim and full tower models, so I am assuming since you say it will fit any card that it is a standard "ATX" size. Here's my recommendation

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: XFX - Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card  ($189.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.00 @ Newegg) 
Total: $225.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-16 01:32 EST-0500

 

I would check out your used market to see if there are any 1070s/RX 580s/70s. Maybe 1060 but a 570/80 is likely to be a better deal.

add: With any of these cards, you will likely run into CPU bottleneck depending on the game.

[Waptic]

16 minutes ago, zlolslavez said:

When I look up the PC I find slim and full tower models, so I am assuming since you say it will fit any card that it is a standard "ATX" size. Here's my recommendation

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: XFX - Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card  ($189.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.00 @ Newegg) 
Total: $225.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-16 01:32 EST-0500

 

I would check out your used market to see if there are any 1070s/RX 580s/70s. Maybe 1060 but a 570/80 is likely to be a better deal.

add: With any of these cards, you will likely run into CPU bottleneck depending on the game.

Thanx for the reply man, but as I said, great graphics is not the end goal here. Medium settings with high being the absolute BONUS is. I am specifically looking into the used market so I dont mind going to older cards and PSUs. 

 

The reason why it will fit any card is that I can always take everything out and put it on a cardboard box inside a beer crate... 

[FullTank1337]

I'd say get something like a GTX 770 or newer. I personally have an old 650 from over 5 years ago, and it's fine at 720p, but struggles a bit at 1080. LTT recently did a video on 1080p gaming for under $150, and actually put my card up against the 770 and it was like night and day performance-wise.

 

Also, get an SSD. Seriously, even if you have to get a crappy 32GB one or something, just to run alongside your HDD, you will be so much better off. Your system is already fairly powerful, all you really need IMHO is a new graphics card, and an SSD (maybe another RAM stick if your motherboard/wallet can handle it? If not, 8GB is fine.)