Can anyone spot any downsides to this gaming PC please?

[Deleted User]

I would advise against ebay PC heard to many stories about the PSU as above make or modal not mention and cheap PSU will not do any good. Save your money and buy nearer time as prices will drop on parts. Also look in to building it yourself.. might look complicated but it not and will be to afford better parts as your not paying someone to build it... windows 10 due out end of year and it free for the 1st year just so you know.

Have alook at overclockers or scan for parts... and pleanty of videos on youtube on how to build a PC it how i learnt. Also overclockers sell some good bundles on CPU, Mobo & ram at a good price.. al you need is case, dvd drive, PSU and harddrives... thou if you can buy a SSD drives. but wait til oct/nov then buy and build.

Cisco001

Iain79 wrote: »

I would advise against ebay PC heard to many stories about the PSU as above make or modal not mention and cheap PSU will not do any good. Save your money and buy nearer time as prices will drop on parts. Also look in to building it yourself.. might look complicated but it not and will be to afford better parts as your not paying someone to build it... windows 10 due out end of year and it free for the 1st year just so you know.

Have alook at overclockers or scan for parts... and pleanty of videos on youtube on how to build a PC it how i learnt. Also overclockers sell some good bundles on CPU, Mobo & ram at a good price.. al you need is case, dvd drive, PSU and harddrives... thou if you can buy a SSD drives. but wait til oct/nov then buy and build.

overclockers are overpriced.

If you go for self build route. play around at uk.pcpartpicker.com

Johnmcl7

Cisco001 wrote: »

You don't need 750W PSU for gaming machine!!
Even GTX 980, a quality 500W will do.

Agreed, it's the quality of the PSU that matters - my last desktop PC was running on a decent 375W PSU and that's currently running a first gen Nehalem i7, AMD 5850, six sticks of ram, two optical drives, two hard drives, wifi card and PCI-E soundcard without issue.

For the spec the OP listed it wouldn't need anything like 750W particularly when it doesn't even have a single high power GPU, a high rated PSU like that is only necessary with two or more high power GPU's.

John

Strider590

Cycrow wrote: »

a decent make 300W PSU can deliver more power than a cheap 600W PSU.

Ermmmm...... Well not really.

The wattage is the total power output across all rails +/-12, +/-5, +/- 3.3. 600W is obviously more than 300W. Although these days it tends to refer primarily to the 12v rail, as this is the one that really takes the hammering.

Below, note 12v output 848w, total output 850w.


Where they differ is with the output on each individual power rail, a better quality PSU will give these details in the specifications, whereas a cheap one is more of an unknown quantity.

For example my new PSU could literally start a small car from it's 12v rail.

Obviously a better quality PSU can also be driven harder for longer and is unlikely to complain.

Cycrow

Strider590 wrote: »

Ermmmm...... Well not really.

The wattage is the total power output across all rails +/-12, +/-5, +/- 3.3. 600W is obviously more than 300W.

Where they differ is with the output on each individual power rail, a better quality PSU will give these details in the specifications, whereas a cheap one is more of an unknown quantity.

For example my new PSU could literally start a small car from it's 12v rail.

Obviously a better quality PSU can also be driven harder for longer and is unlikely to complain.

Actually the wattage is not the same. Different makes quote it in different ways.

many cheap psu quote the maximum peak output. Whereas others (like the more expensive ones) quote the maximum sustained load.

which is why you cant simply compare the wattage, because you are not comparing the same thing

Johnmcl7

Strider590 wrote: »

Ermmmm...... Well not really.

The wattage is the total power output across all rails +/-12, +/-5, +/- 3.3. 600W is obviously more than 300W. Although these days it tends to refer primarily to the 12v rail, as this is the one that really takes the hammering.

You're assuming the cheap PSU's could output the higher power they were rated for which in my experience they couldn't or at least not for long. Ebuyer were doing 600W PSU's for a tenner at one point, I ended up replacing them in a few PC's that people were wanting help with as the PSU had prematurely died with a decent PSU rated much lower which worked without issue. People generally want a single number to by and with PSU's as in most cases, you can't just go by the wattage.

John

IronWolf

mwddrwg wrote: »

Thanks for the tips. Just to explain a bit more, my son is only 11 at the moment so it's mostly going to be used for Minecraft initially. May be a bit of Call of Duty as well. So doesn't need to be too flash? Obviously may need to be upgraded as he gets older so was thinking pf getting my own upgrades when needed later on.


Is the spec I put in the first post OK for most games he'd play now?

Minecraft, especially if its modded, its a pretty intensive game (I think mainly due to how crap its coded) so you should get a decent rig.

mwddrwg

IronWolf wrote: »

Minecraft, especially if its modded, its a pretty intensive game (I think mainly due to how crap its coded) so you should get a decent rig.

Thanks for the tip. Yes, it's modded and all sorts, and he also plays a lot online with his mates on our main PC at the moment. He just wants his own machine to use when he likes.


Seems to run OK on ours though, come to think of it, with 4GB of RAM and a 3GHz processor plus Nvidia graphics card (model name escapes me) so might get away with lower spec. But maybe not as our lad's pretty clued up on his PC specs for an 11 year old and would probably notice. :cool:


Thanks for all your advice - will keep looking, comparing and saving!

tronator

mwddrwg wrote: »

My son wants a gaming PC for Christmas so trying to plan ahead.

If it's really for Christmas, then wait until autumn to shop around. Then you will get more for the same price. If you buy now you'll have a 7 month old PC on Christmas.