[Closed] Help me build a PC that can play games for £500

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Usually head over to pc part picker for this stuff -

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/PB6MnQ/entry-level-amd-gaming-build

This looks like a solid build, coming in just a few quid over budget, will need a monitor though!

This looks like a solid build, coming in just a few quid over budget, will need a monitor though!

Can't really fault that advice.

Another option would be a similar build but with a 3400G processor and no GPU (and maybe a b550 motherboard). It should play games at reduced settings (and easily cope with school work) and get him to save up for the graphics card.

Is this a good deal? Part of Aldi's Black Friday promos, about the only thing that hasn't sold out, but I don't know enough about newer PCs for the spec to tell me much:
https://www.aldi.co.uk/p/709941431344600

House insurance for laptop ?

450/550 MB, 1650 graphics Ryzen 5 should be do-able under £500. Excluding monitor.

Stone Refurb have some gaming pcs. I am looking for one for my kids...

https://www.stonerefurb.co.uk/desktops/refurbished-gaming-pcs

https://www.gladiatorpc.co.uk/configure/config/72988

£60 over budget but could be worth a look

https://www.gladiatorpc.co.uk/configure/config/69656

£70 over budget but with a upgraded graphics card

ps5 will be infinity more powerful than any pc you can build for that.

Aye, but tricky to do schoolwork on

I'd look for 2nd hand parts myself...

Built a decent gaming machine 2 Christmases ago for £300.

Based on an i7-4770 processor, 16GB RAM, a 1060GTX 6GB Graphics card.

I'm not saying it would play the very latest games at 4K resolution with a fantastic frame rate, but I was getting 140fps avg on Call of Duty at 1080p with all the settings turned up to the max!

The build in gingerbllr's link looks very solid to me.

You may need a wifi card on top if not using ethernet, and I'd advice adding a couple of extra case fans as well to keep things quiet/cool as the stock cpu coolers on AMD CPU's need all the help they can get.

@mboy - what 2nd hand processor and GPU could I be looking at now?

gingerbllr’s link the CPU and GPU are pretty much the same price. Is that the general rule?

Depends - if you're building a gaming PC then spend more money on the GPU.
If you want to be multi-tasking lots of apps and loads of tabs open, then a better CPU is key.

GPU tech moves quicker than CPU tech too. You'll be upgrading the GPU before the CPU im almost certain.

gingerbllr’s link the CPU and GPU are pretty much the same price. Is that the general rule?

Depends on what you use it for, but simplistically the game has to a certain amount of grunt work on the CPU figuring out what's going on, then renders the picture on the screen using the CPU. Which tends to mean that a budget gaming PC needs a relatively good CPU, but a much more expensive machine still only needs the same one.

It also tends to be that games only use relatively few cores, and in general CPU's add more cores as the price goes up, rather than getting faster (they often get slower per core!).

Seriously looking at the part picker build with the suggested swap to the 3400G processor and no GPU. Its £10 more for the CPU and £150 saving on GPU. Yep - he can save for the GPU if he wants one. A review says 3400G runs fortnite at 50fps with medium settings so that might do for now.

Everyday is a school day so I've got him reading this thread and youtube researching the nuts out of self building.

Anyone know what 2nd hand GPU he could be looking at?

I just sold a AMD RX580 4GB for £80, something like that is a bargain if you have a decent power supply and don't mind a bit of fan noise.

I'm not sure running it for games without a GPU is the best idea, as above you likely will need low settings and still not achieve 60fps for fortnite. Would be a very frustrating experience imo. It would have no chance on games like Warzone or PUBG (assuming he's a BR fan).

I'd suggest a used 1050/1060/1070 dependent on budget. They all can get some significant performance boosts out of a good OC so it might be a good start if he wants to get into that.

I'd probably not go for the integrated graphics if you don't have to. They're ok but always going to be worse than a dedicated GPU.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/v6tFXb

£501, use the SSD from the knackered laptop and you're good to go.

Will pay most things at decent quality with acceptable frame rates and there's headroom for upgrades if that becomes an option. If there's any leeway in the budget maybe try to get a GTX 1660 Super gpu instead of the 1650. I just put one in a pc I built for my dad and I was very impressed with it. Around £220, if you can actually find any.

I might have got one of the last ones of these:
https://www.stonerefurb.co.uk/essential-pro-gaming-pc-bundle

When my kids were growing up we went for consoles, purely because I didn't want to spend my weekends configuring PC's to run the next game and providing phone support (as I worked away a lot), and I knew that consoles just work.

They also had cheap laptops for school - although now would a tablet suffice as my OH has Office on hers?

As always, pick your price point (a bit over or one above is fine once you fling the build through PCPartpicker) and get on with it.

https://www.logicalincrements.com/

Still haven't bought one! Strugggling with all the optional extras. They only want to play minecraft with mods etc. I believe I could get away with a normal PC for that but my thinking is that I may aswell get something suitable for other games when the inevitable happens.

Been looking at Fierce PC

FiercePC

Is there anything you would upgrade? I really do not have a clue what is worth doing.

I want to spend as little as possible but it be worth having - think Shimano SLX 😉

Fierce PC home

Interesting - I thought the Ryzen processors already have a GPU on the chip though? I built a PC up for my kids with a lower spec Dual core one and 8GB Ram and its more than enough for minecraft and older Xbox One/PS4 games. I'm not sure you gain much by adding a basic GPU. Add 16GB of system ram then the Ryzen will share that. Then add a GPU later if they want the better games.

What's wrong with the laptop?

You say it's a newish machine that's not economical to repair, did he drop it off Blackpool Tower? If it's the screen that's shattered and you can't find a replacement (spoiler: eBay), you'll likely fix that with an external monitor if the rest of it is fine.

Plus, y'know, the boy learns a life lesson that isn't "if I throw my computer down the stairs daddy will buy me a new one."

AMD Ryzens have the GPU built in yes...

Interesting – I thought the Ryzen processors already have a GPU on the chip though?

Only the ones suffixed with a G e.g. 3200G, 3400G (i dont think there's a 5000 series APU* yet). It's assumed if you're spending >£200 on a CPU that you're doing some work that'll require more power than a CPU socket can provide (and then dissipate as heat) even if you could squeeze them onto the same physical chip.

*AMD refer to thr CPUs with onboard graphics as APU which helps when googling for info.

Depends on what you use it for, but simplistically the game has to a certain amount of grunt work on the CPU figuring out what’s going on, then renders the picture on the screen using the CPU. Which tends to mean that a budget gaming PC needs a relatively good CPU, but a much more expensive machine still only needs the same one.

Edit: that should have read that the game has to do some work on the CPU running the game, then renders the graphics on the GPU. Hence the CPU wont bottleneck most gaming PCs untill you get quite advanced.

Just had this conversation with somebody at Fierce PC ended up ordering something with AMD Ryzen 5 3400G and no additional graphics card.

I had a conversation with the kids on the way to school this morn: "Computer shops will have a sale on after Christmas, Mummy and daddy will give you extra money"

They've been saving like crazy!

Shimano SLX would be more the 700-900 range. Also, what @Cougar said, did the laptop get accidentally dropped into a bandsaw?

ps5 will be infinity more powerful than any pc you can build for that.

Aye, but tricky to do schoolwork on

Can someone tell my 'isolating' 14 year old that please?

Stealth ad alert! And by "Stealth" I mean "blatant".

If you're interested OP I have a brand new PC that I was about to stick on eBay. Made up from various parts and pre-built PCs I've bought in an attempt to get a 30-series Nvidia GPU and a 5000-series AMD CPU. Not installed anything on it yet, not even been switched on. It's completely new. Current specs are:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 w/Wraith air cooler
Motherboard: MSI B450 Mortar Max
Memory: Adata XPG Spectrix 2x8Gb 3200MHz DDR4
GPU: Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060
SSD: Crucial P2 500Gb M2.2280
PSU: Corsair CV650 Bronze rated 80+ 650W
Case: dunno exactly what but it's big enough, has a glass side and some RGB fans

Was originally looking for around £800 with Windows 10 Pro 64-bit installed but I can take out the SSD and graphics card and do it for £400. You can then get a reasonable graphics card on eBay for under £100 and you'll have something that'll play pretty much anything at 1080p and has decent scope for upgrades going forward.

Is this a good deal? Part of Aldi’s Black Friday promos, about the only thing that hasn’t sold out, but I don’t know enough about newer PCs for the spec to tell me much:
https://www.aldi.co.uk/p/709941431344600/a >

Friends don't let friends by Medions. Given the horror stories I have heard from multiple people about the quality of them both hardware and driver wise. Avoid avoid avoid.

Secondary not-so-stealth ad if you're still going down the seperate GPU route:

I'll have one of these for sale soon as I have a new card on order.

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/gtx-970-gaming-4g.html

Good nick, never overclocked, very quiet for a big gaming GPU, happily runs Apex, COD Warzone, Witcher 3, Doom etc.

Looking for about £90, can post.