Gaming PC Advice

Computers & Tech
#1

FoL V2.0 turns 16 in the middle of January. She is a very dedicated student and is a bit worried about the possibilities of her GCSEs being cancelled. She has worked her arse off for these exams so we want to spoil her. She has a notebook but we want that to be separate for schoolwork. So recommendations for a decent specification machine please. We’ve got a brand new 55" Samsung TV in the room where the gaming will take place so hopefully a monitor won’t be necessary.

I know nothing about putting PCs together but figure folk on here might be able to advise what I should look for. Budget to be somewhere in the £300-£500 range ideally for PC only. We have mouse and keyboard already and hope to use the TV as a screen.

EDIT: Budget now a more realistic £1k

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#2

AMD Ryzen are currently king of the hill for CPUs and cheaper than Intel.
With that budget, I would look at a s/h GPU, maybe something like a 1060/1070. GPUs are mad money these days.

Cheap mobo, 16GB RAM if you can afford it. SSD of around 256GB.

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#3

That’s a big screen - you’ll need the machine (or mouse/kb) a fair way away

If you have an old machine with a valid windows license you can transfer that will save a few quid

My sons machine is a ryzen 5, 1060 card and 8 gb. At HD res it’s ok for middling games at reasonable detail. That was £600 with a donated sdd/Windows

Check what games she wants to play and check the specs required. You may have to up the budget a touch…

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#4

Thanks for the helpful comments

Right then, a quick scan of what is out there suggests that £1000ish is more reasonable.

It is a big room. Do you reckon a monitor is worth buying? I’ve not gamed much (Doom on a sun station in the 1990s is about my level).

What would people suggest? A link to an actual machine for sale would be a blessing here as I have no feckin’ idea what I should be after…

#5

Yep, PC gaming is not cheap these days.

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#6

We were looking at building our own gaming PC for Sam, it came out around £750, but that was before lock down…

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#7

My next upgrade is the CPU. I want a Ryzen, but that also means new mobo and RAM too. I probably keep the 970 gpu for now. And I want an M2 disk.

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#8

Same position. We have a 4790k with a 970 and a 6700k with an RX580, and a 6800k with a 1050.

Would have to spend a decent amount on a Ryzen/mboard/cpu to get much of an improvement (£3-400).

So I think our best bet is probably going to be RTX3060s depending on availability etc. 3 of them :sob:.

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#9

The new Nvidia range of graphics cards is a game changer - they can do ray traced games, which will look amazing. If I wanted to spoil someone with a gaming PC that’s what I’d get for them.

Scan are usually good. They will build a custom machine. Here: https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/desktops-gaming/geforce-rtx-3070-high-end-4k-gaming-pc

The basic machines in that section have enough with regards to processor and ram, a big M2 SSD and a great graphics card. I think that’s the way I would go.

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#10

I’ve just ordered a couple of these for my boys. We bought them new monitors to run from their laptops for crimbo, but have had numerous problems with the laptops having a hissyfit about running a separate monitor, with framerate and compatability problems.

Mesh Ryzen Gaming PC - CS | £699.00 | Mesh Computers

The 3600 is a very capable processor, and the rest of the spec, although not cutting edge, should serve them well for a couple or 3 years hopefully with the games they play.

I am just about to upgrade my own machine, which is 4 years old now, as I want to play Red Dead, Cyberpunk, and most important to me, the new flight sim at high resolutions. I will wait until later in the year, when the new processors & GPUs are more affordable, hopefully, and easier to obtain without being taken to the cleaners financially…

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#11

I’ve just ordered a new PC to build:

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Niche requirement: old fashioned PCI slot for the sound card!

While it’s not a gaming PC it’s easily good enough for games, and I recently bought a graphics card that’ll slot in nicely.

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#12

I’d be surprised if it worked out any cheaper than ready built these days.

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#13

It’s not, but there are almost no mobos that have PCI slots.

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#14

My son had this built 12 months ago. Less than £1K and been bomb proof.

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#15

prices and availability have changed alot in that time

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#16

My apologies, he tells me it was actually 9 months ago.

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#17

Any use ? Is also on the Wam.

#18

Thanks for the heads-up. I think I’ll buy something new for her as it is her 16th and she is likely to be studying her arse off for the remainder of the year.

#19

Are you going to spend a grand plus on a proper job? I did look through and found that spending several times that was remarkably easy!

I think that you can come under a grand if you want. To be fair, your TV might end up being a limiting factor, as there’s no point having a PC that can run games at 180 fps if your screen is limited to 60Hz.

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#20

I’ve decided to buy a monitor. I’m at £1100ish at the moment. The issue may be delivery. Anybody care to critique the spec on this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marksman-Computer-Thunder-Processor-Graphics/dp/B00XWYKAW4/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2W166218KUK0E&dchild=1&keywords=gaming+pc+bundle+ryzen+5&m=A3SS7S5K9P54JA&qid=1609517945&refinements=p_36%3A80000-120000%2Cp_6%3AA3SS7S5K9P54JA&rnid=419151031&s=computers&sprefix=gaming+pc+bundle%2Ccomputers%2C224&sr=1-13

I realise it is Amacuntz. I need guaranteed delivery before Saturday 16th January which this should satisfy (big day is Monday January 18th). If I can do better for the same money, my daughter would be pleased to hear it.

EDIT: Sorry Adam, I meant to reply to the thread.