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UK - Low budget PC

abberto
By abberto
in New Builds and Planning
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Hi all,

 

I am looking at building my first ever PC as my 5 year old laptop is dying. At the moment I don't use my PC for much other than Football Manager 2015 and Microsoft Office applications. However, I am thinking about getting into a bit of PC gaming as time goes on.

 

Initially, I need a PC that I can afford but that has the capability of multiple upgrades as time goes on and money becomes available. Would this be a good starting point at all?

 

 
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£49.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-DGS R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£32.17 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£28.68 @ Kustom PCs) 
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GT 730 1GB Video Card  (£49.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23  ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.50 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: be quiet! 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£32.40 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £254.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:30 BST+0100

My current laptop: HP Compaq Presario CQ62

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Hi all,

 

I am looking at building my first ever PC as my 5 year old laptop is dying. At the moment I don't use my PC for much other than Football Manager 2015 and Microsoft Office applications. However, I am thinking about getting into a bit of PC gaming as time goes on.

 

Initially, I need a PC that I can afford but that has the capability of multiple upgrades as time goes on and money becomes available. Would this be a good starting point at all?

 

 
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£49.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-DGS R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£32.17 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£28.68 @ Kustom PCs) 
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GT 730 1GB Video Card  (£49.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23  ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.50 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: be quiet! 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£32.40 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £254.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:30 BST+0100

 

I'm going to assume your budget is around 250 quid (because that's what you've put here) which is really tight, but I don't think that the GT 730 is even good enough for basic gaming. I'm going to suggest you go for the highest-end AMD APU available right now and that you go for a 500w PSU for about the same amount, and get no graphics card at the moment.

I'll piece this together.

Sig under construction.

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That's a great starting point. However, I'd go for a single 4GB stick of RAM or just get 8GB because it's like a fiver more. What's a fiver nowadays eh?

 

Very true. I'll take that on board :)

 

What's your budget? Because some people would always find a way to make it better :P Also, @abberto, remember to follow your threads.

 

Budget at the moment is around £300-£400. What part would be best to start with if I could have one component, in a box, sat waiting for the fun to begin? Also, cheers for the heads up about following my own thread :)

My current laptop: HP Compaq Presario CQ62

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This is slightly over the 250 quid budget I assumed but leaves enough room for expansion to 8GB of RAM very easily and gives you a pretty good APU that has decent onboard graphics that you can replace with a graphics card just fine.

The motherboard should be fine and the power supply is enough for that APU plus any reasonable graphics card with ease.

 

 
CPU: AMD A10-7870K 3.9GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£94.00 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-HD2 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£33.91 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Team Elite 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£46.19 @ More Computers) 
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23  ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.50 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£29.99 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £269.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:38 BST+0100

Sig under construction.

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This is slightly over the 250 quid budget I assumed but leaves enough room for expansion to 8GB of RAM very easily and gives you a pretty good APU that has decent onboard graphics that you can replace with a graphics card just fine.

The motherboard should be fine and the power supply is enough for that APU plus any reasonable graphics card with ease.

 

 
CPU: AMD A10-7870K 3.9GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£94.00 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-HD2 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£33.91 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Team Elite 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£46.19 @ More Computers) 
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23  ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.50 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£29.99 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £269.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:38 BST+0100

 

Budget is upto 400 so you could add a decent GPU for 140ish

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EDIT-

 


 

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  (£77.99 @ Amazon UK) 


Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  (£39.84 @ Aria PC) 

Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£30.44 @ Ebuyer) 



Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card  (£90.90 @ Ebuyer) 

Case: Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (£29.85 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£39.20 @ Amazon UK) 

Total: £400.35

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:51 BST+0100

Eeh, by gum.
 

ThrustJetViperPowerMustang: FX-6100 @4.4GHz (Stock Cooler) / 4x4GB Hyperam @ 1333MHz / OCZ Octane 250GB SSD / Asus HD6670 2GDDR3 / Asus M5A78LM-USB3

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CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£98.04 @ Ebuyer) 

Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£49.15 @ Ebuyer) 


Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£121.94 @ Amazon UK) 



Total: £395.45

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:43 BST+0100

 

Yay for 500GB SSD xD That APU should be good enough for the time being and there's room for expansion with the PSU.

 

Or one with discrete graphics:



 

CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£98.04 @ Ebuyer) 

Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£49.15 @ Ebuyer) 



Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card  (£96.18 @ Dabs) 



Total: £404.43

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:45 BST+0100

 

Slightly over and idk about the 750Ti...

USEFUL LINKS:

PSU Tier List | F@H stats

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CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£98.04 @ Ebuyer) 
Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£49.15 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£121.94 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £395.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:43 BST+0100
 
Yay for 500GB SSD xD That APU should be good enough for the time being and there's room for expansion with the PSU.
 
Or one with discrete graphics:

 
CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£98.04 @ Ebuyer) 
Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£49.15 @ Ebuyer) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card  (£96.18 @ Dabs) 
Total: £404.43
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:45 BST+0100
 
Slightly over and idk about the 750Ti...

 

 

 

 

 
CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£98.04 @ Ebuyer) 
Motherboard: MSI A68HM-E33 V2 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£34.83 @ Ebuyer) 
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£30.44 @ Ebuyer) 
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23  ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.50 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£39.20 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £263.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:42 BST+0100

 

 

 

 

This is slightly over the 250 quid budget I assumed but leaves enough room for expansion to 8GB of RAM very easily and gives you a pretty good APU that has decent onboard graphics that you can replace with a graphics card just fine.

The motherboard should be fine and the power supply is enough for that APU plus any reasonable graphics card with ease.

 

 
CPU: AMD A10-7870K 3.9GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£94.00 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-HD2 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£33.91 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Team Elite 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£46.19 @ More Computers) 
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23  ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.50 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£29.99 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £269.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 22:38 BST+0100

 

 

 

@abberto

These are your best bet by far

Current setup

Images of setup: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/183-show-off-your-setup/?p=5872590

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PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/mTHBVn

 
CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£85.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Motherboard: MSI H81I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£49.33 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (£35.84 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£38.70 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card  (£95.68 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: Corsair 250D Mini ITX Tower Case  (£72.10 @ More Computers) 
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£29.99 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £407.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 23:13 BST+0100
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PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Mmq3TW
 
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  (£77.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  (£39.84 @ Aria PC) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (£35.84 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£34.74 @ Aria PC) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card  (£164.92 @ Aria PC) 
Case: Thermaltake Versa H24 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.57 @ CCL Computers) 
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£29.99 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £409.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

 

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-04 23:19 BST+0100
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