£350 budget gaming build?

[Buckyy]

Budget (including currency): £350 (GBP)

 

Country: United Kingdom

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

Triple A games If possible. Streaming optional for simple games like Minecraft/Terraria/Borderlands 2/The Walking Dead. Would like to be able to just play Dead By Daylight at 1080 medium to low settings, higher if possible.

 

Other details:

Existing Parts:

AMD A6-6400k CPU

12GB RAM

NVIDIA GT 740 SC

Motherboard is just a standard Gigabyte one. GA-F2A68HM-HD2

500w Evga Power Supply - https://amzn.to/3qLdgsZ

 

Storage:

1TB HDD - Games

500GB HDD - Programs and personal files

64GB SSD - Windows Drive - Kingston SSD

 

Would prefer Intel, however will accept AMD If it is good performance.

not fussed about LEDs, would be cool though if it doesn't cost another £20.

 

Haven't updated this PC in years, looking for a decent upgrade with the budget I have.

 

I can buy everything within my budget today.

refresh rate 60hz (1920x1080)

 

Thanks in advance, any help is appreciated,

- Buckyy

Edited January 24, 2021 by Buckyy
Forgot to add more specs

[DeadnightWarrior]

Well, even assuming you're going to keep your case, PSU and storage, the real problem is the GPU: there is absolutely nothing halfway decent under 200£ right now.

So you have to either:
- wait for prices to come down / stocks to come back

- buy an AMD Ryzen APU (2400G, 3400G but even those are too expensive at the moment) or an Intel i5 "non-F" and use the integrated graphics until better times

- Raise you bugdet to at least 500£

 

Just to make an example, a Ryzen 5 2600 paired with the cheapest available B450 motherboard, the cheapest 3200Mhz 16 ram kit and one of the cheapest decent M.2 500Gb SSD, right now would cost you 332£ before shipping:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	£151.98 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£58.78 @ More Computers
Memory	Patriot Viper 4 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	£69.22 @ CCL Computers
Storage	Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	£52.99 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£332.97
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-24 12:38 GMT+0000

And this is WITHOUT a graphics card!
I personally wouldn't go any lower than this level, save for the SSD (you could shave 20£ off with a regulare 2.5" SATA drive but that's it).

[Buckyy]

2 minutes ago, DeadnightWarrior said:

Well, even assuming you're going to keep your case, PSU and storage, the real problem is the GPU: there is absolutely nothing halfway decent under 200£ right now.

So you have to either:
- wait for prices to come down / stocks to come back

- buy an AMD Ryzen APU (2400G, 3400G but even those are too expensive at the moment) or an Intel i5 "non-F" and use the integrated graphics until better times

- Raise you bugdet to at least 500£

 

Just to make an example, a Ryzen 5 2600 paired with the cheapest available B450 motherboard, the cheapest 3200Mhz 16 ram kit and one of the cheapest decent M.2 500Gb SSD, right now would cost you 332£ before shipping:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	£151.98 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£58.78 @ More Computers
Memory	Patriot Viper 4 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	£69.22 @ CCL Computers
Storage	Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	£52.99 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£332.97
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-24 12:38 GMT+0000

And this is WITHOUT a graphics card!
I personally wouldn't go any lower than this level, save for the SSD (you could shave 20£ off with a regulare 2.5" SATA drive but that's it).

My apologies I have updated the specs, including my 3 storages in my PC

[Buckyy]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-10100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£107.00 @ Alza) 
Motherboard: MSI H410M-A PRO Micro ATX LGA1200 Motherboard  (£88.00 @ Alza) 
Memory: Patriot Viper Elite 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 CL16 Memory 
Total: £195.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-24 13:11 GMT+0000

 

Surely this is good, all I need is a decent GPU?

actual total is 

Base Total:									£202.72
Shipping:									£8.97
Total:									£211.69

[porina]

Normally I don't reply to these kind of threads but given OP is in UK and has an extremely challenging budget, I had to have a go, even if this is a bad time to be buying.

 

£60(ish) ebay Chinese X79 motherboard (various offerings, pick one with 4 ram slots)
£26 ebay E5-2667 6 core 2.5 GHz base 3.5 GHz boost
£25 ebay 4x 4GB DDR3 ECC registered ram (16GB total)
£30 Amazon CoolerMaster Hyper 212
£30(ish) Amazon 240GB SSD
£good luck on ebay 1060 3GB, maybe 6GB or even 1070 if you're really lucky

 

Now, above is a possible option. It is not a good option, but for the budget there are not many options! It assumes the case, PSU and HDs from the existing system are reused. I decided to throw in a 240GB SSD because 64GB is just pain.

 

Why the above? I have that mobo, CPU, ram combo in a system I'm kinda building to run as an experimental server, but it should be ok for gaming too.

 

Advantages:

6 Sandy Bridge core CPU is not too ancient, and clock isn't totally bad either. Should be good enough for 60fps gaming.

ECC registered ram is dirt cheap because very few systems can run it, and there is plenty of supply from old servers.

 

Disadvantages:

The motherboard is the highest risk item. I still don't know exactly what capabilities the one I got has, but it will work with more than PCIe card installed.

No real upgrade path without replacing the lot

 

Being more realistic, have a look at used sale sites, for example facebook PC sales pages, and see if someone is getting rid of an older gaming system. Before the pricing went silly at the end of last year, I sold a complete system for £200 including i5-5775C, 8GB ram, and what is possibly worth most of that by itself today: a 1060 3GB.

 

I just saw used RX580 8GB pricing on ebay, it is insane. I sold mine for <£100 last year. They're going on ebay for over double that now. Absolutely crazy.

 

Random notes on the mobo I got:

 

[porina]

9 minutes ago, Buckyy said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-10100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£107.00 @ Alza) 
Motherboard: MSI H410M-A PRO Micro ATX LGA1200 Motherboard  (£88.00 @ Alza) 
Memory: Patriot Viper Elite 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 CL16 Memory 
Total: £195.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-24 13:11 GMT+0000

 

Surely this is good, all I need is a decent CPU?

actual total is 

Base Total:									£202.72
Shipping:									£8.97
Total:									£211.69

10100F does not include built in GPU, so you'd have to reuse your existing until you get a new gaming GPU, and that's where the problem remains. There's not a lot out there for the remaining budget. Poking around ebay some more, I'm wondering if a 980 might be a good point.

 

The 10100F would be roughly equivalent to a high end CPU from like 6 years ago, so ok for gaming still today, and with a mobo like that you have some upgrade potential should you need it in future.

 

Wait, something is wrong with that total. It looks like it is only adding the CPU+mob, not the ram. You're not going to have enough left for a useful GPU.

[Buckyy]

14 minutes ago, porina said:

10100F does not include built in GPU, so you'd have to reuse your existing until you get a new gaming GPU, and that's where the problem remains. There's not a lot out there for the remaining budget. Poking around ebay some more, I'm wondering if a 980 might be a good point.

 

The 10100F would be roughly equivalent to a high end CPU from like 6 years ago, so ok for gaming still today, and with a mobo like that you have some upgrade potential should you need it in future.

 

Wait, something is wrong with that total. It looks like it is only adding the CPU+mob, not the ram. You're not going to have enough left for a useful GPU.

The the CPU, RAM and Motherboard totaling £211.69, that leaves £138.31, wouldn't this GPU would be for my budget build? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XFX-AMD-Radeon-RX-480-RS-4GB-GDDR5-GRAPHICS-CARD-7-Less-FPS-Than-RX-580-2/284157442058?hash=item42291a780a%3Ag%3AEdAAAOSwMQVf8ibE&LH_BIN=1

[Buckyy]

Sorted, I am getting the following.

 

CPU: Intel core i3-10100F

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 2666 MHz C16

GPU: XFX RX480 4GB

M/B: MSI B460M PRO

 

Going a little bit over my budget at: £361.11 (£11.11 over)

Already got a cooler master cpu cooler with Intel brackets.

 

 

 

Thanks for everyone's help!

- Buckyy

[DeadnightWarrior]

1 hour ago, Buckyy said:

The the CPU, RAM and Motherboard totaling £211.69, that leaves £138.31, wouldn't this GPU would be for my budget build? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XFX-AMD-Radeon-RX-480-RS-4GB-GDDR5-GRAPHICS-CARD-7-Less-FPS-Than-RX-580-2/284157442058?hash=item42291a780a%3Ag%3AEdAAAOSwMQVf8ibE&LH_BIN=1

Yeah, basically the RX480 is a little less fast than the 580 and it should serve you well for 1080p @ medium to high settings in most games.
I use a 4Gb 580 with a Ryzen 2400G and I'm quite happy with it at that resolution.