Any ideas on an affordable desktop for gaming?

jac29

Hi Guys,

I recently posted on here for advice on getting a desktop pc for me and got some fantastic help, so...........i'm back!

My 16 year old son is looking for a desktop tower to use through his tv for the main purpose of gaming. I know very little about pcs but know that there are plenty of you here who do, so.....

Can anyone advise on an affordable tower that would be suitable for this purpose plus provide any additional info' I may need to know to help him make the right choice. His xbox has just broken and as he has entered the world of the employed he has decided to treat himself to a desktop instead of a replacement xbox.

I know nothing about this sort of thing and don't want to see him use his very hard earned money on something that doesn't do what he wants it too. Equally I don't want to see him pay over the odds for something from a 'computer store'.

Really grateful for any knowledge you can share, anything you can point me to that looks like it might fit the bill. Also any advice regarding leads etc that he will need to get it to work through his tv.

Thanking you all in advance for looking x

Kalahary

Can you put a value on 'affordable'?

Also, is the TV HD ready? It would look much better for him if the computer had a HDMI output. You will have to buy a HDMI cable but don't get tricked into spending lots for one i.e. £100. HDMI uses a digital signal and therefore the quality of the cable makes no difference. The packets either gets there or they don't. Good build quality still helps though, not good if the connectors fall off the end.

gonzo127

agreed we need a value put on this as affordable and gaming mean a lot of different things to different people, also are you willing to build your own? they really are not that difficult to build

Knarf44

The price of gaming desktops starts at about £500 and can go up to well over £1000, so how much is he wanting to spend?

At the lower end something like this with a 1GB dedicated Graphics card will run most of the graphics intensive games. Don't forget he'll need a decent monitor - something like this ; a set of speakers and an appropriate Belkin surge protector.

JamesY_2

Build one yourself.

Phenom 955BE
ATI 5770
4G ddr3
Asrock 880g extreme
ATX case

Cheap ebay power supply - corsair 620 or coolermaster m620

Knarf44

I'm not sure the son in question has the interest in building the PC himself which is why I recommended a pre-built system. For non-techie people it's much easier to simply take the PC out of it's box, connect the appropriate cables and off you go.

As a selfbuilder I know that sometimes you can get better value by carefully selecting your components but you also have to be prepared to deal with any problems if they occur eg DOA motherboards etc. In fact it was sorting out the problems that gave me the most pleasure :cool:

By the time you have added an OS and an HDD to your list, it's near enough the same cost of the HP I suggested.

gonzo127

Knarf44 wrote: »

At the lower end something like this with a 1GB dedicated Graphics card will run most of the graphics intensive games.

Please don’t be taken in by the graphics card memory, until you are gaming at very high resolutions the memory doesn’t make much difference and it is usually better to spend the 'extra' money on getting a better chipset with 512mb ram than it is to get a lower chipset with 1gb

JamesY wrote: »

Cheap ebay power supply - corsair 620 or coolermaster m620

i think this needs to be re-worded, buying a 'cheap' power supply can be one of the most expensive mistakes you can make, just think the power supply is connected to everything and if this blows it can, and usually does, take everything else with it, what this should be reworded to would be to ‘get a good power supply cheaply from ebay’

Knarf44 wrote: »

By the time you have added an OS and an HDD to your list, it's near enough the same cost of the HP I suggested.

agree that it isn’t always cheaper to build yourself these days however the benefit you get is being able to be very selective with your parts so you get a good all-round system instead of a couple of really good high end parts connected to pile of poo others, which do tend to limit the performance of the high end parts you have


anyways until we have an idea of what sort of budget the op is working with we cant really suggest too well

JasX

Just posted this in another thread for a 13 yo kid wanting a £450ish system for gaming, reposted here as a similar route could be sccaled up for bigger budgets -also building from a 'bare bones' system where 2/3rds of the hard work building has already been done is alot easier than a from scratch build (which in itself is nothing to be scared of )

""

A good route i've seen others do on here is go the 'barebones' PC route for the core system then toss in a graphics card and other system bits you need (can bring the cost down further if you have an old PC somewhere to re-use the DVD drive floppy drive etc from as they've not changed in years)

Here is a good starting place:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html

your brothers processor is the £254 bundle, you could consider the £284 bundle for the Q8300 which is about 15% faster and comes with a better PSU, both come with 4GB ram. (Don't get the £290 i3 as its slower than the £250)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

to that you'll need to add (in order of criticality)

£70 Operating system (buy a windows 7 home edition UPGRADE disk - £70 - follow these instructions for a clean install http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp )

£50 Hard disk - buy a samsung 1TB F3 specifically (Model# HD103SJ, not the crappy 'ecogreen' one with a different number), Fastest conventional drive on the market before you spend £££ for an SSD drive, very good for a gaming machine.
eg http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

£20 CD / DVD drive - (or £0 if you can re-use one from an old PC)

£20 keyboard and mouse - (again £0 if you can't reuse one or get for 'free' somewhere)

£8 wireless PCI card (or £0 if you can use a cable / reuse a card form an old PC)

£60-120 basically whatever you have left on the best graphics card you can afford, use this site to compare:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

you might be able to save a bit by getting the student edition of windows7, I don't know much about those versions or if you can clean install to a blank hard drive when you're not 'upgrading' but worth checking out.

Chimpofdoom

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=979 <--not bad for the price imo...

But then I've been out of the PC scene for a while..

Xbox 360 = cheaper gaming alternative

jaydeeuk1

JasX wrote: »

Just posted this in another thread for a 13 yo kid wanting a £450ish system for gaming, reposted here as a similar route could be sccaled up for bigger budgets -also building from a 'bare bones' system where 2/3rds of the hard work building has already been done is alot easier than a from scratch build (which in itself is nothing to be scared of )

""

A good route i've seen others do on here is go the 'barebones' PC route for the core system then toss in a graphics card and other system bits you need (can bring the cost down further if you have an old PC somewhere to re-use the DVD drive floppy drive etc from as they've not changed in years)

Here is a good starting place:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html

your brothers processor is the £254 bundle, you could consider the £284 bundle for the Q8300 which is about 15% faster and comes with a better PSU, both come with 4GB ram. (Don't get the £290 i3 as its slower than the £250)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

to that you'll need to add (in order of criticality)

£70 Operating system (buy a windows 7 home edition UPGRADE disk - £70 - follow these instructions for a clean install http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp )

£50 Hard disk - buy a samsung 1TB F3 specifically (Model# HD103SJ, not the crappy 'ecogreen' one with a different number), Fastest conventional drive on the market before you spend £££ for an SSD drive, very good for a gaming machine.
eg http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

£20 CD / DVD drive - (or £0 if you can re-use one from an old PC)

£20 keyboard and mouse - (again £0 if you can't reuse one or get for 'free' somewhere)

£8 wireless PCI card (or £0 if you can use a cable / reuse a card form an old PC)

£60-120 basically whatever you have left on the best graphics card you can afford, use this site to compare:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

you might be able to save a bit by getting the student edition of windows7, I don't know much about those versions or if you can clean install to a blank hard drive when you're not 'upgrading' but worth checking out.

Or could just go with

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200542

Almost same spec for £399, but its all put together and has a system warranty. Although building is more fun! Has a crappy radeon 5450 which you could sell on ebay for £30, and put another £50 on top to get something like a radeon 5750 or even 5770.

gonzo127

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

Or could just go with

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200542

Almost same spec for £399, but its all put together and has a system warranty. Although building is more fun! Has a crappy radeon 5450 which you could sell on ebay for £30, and put another £50 on top to get something like a radeon 5750 or even 5770.

you would need a new power supply with that system if you are going to upgrade the GPU as it states 250w/330w which really wouldnt run a good GPU

anyways as stated before until we get a budget we are just shooting in the dark here