Help and ideas for PC gaming build

richje100 · 2 June 2019 at 5:32PM

Hello.

My boy wants to build his own gaming PC. Budget around £400. I know we wont get a new GPU within this but I'm sure his current gpu would be fine until hes saved up money again?

Games he likes battlefield, rust, ark, starwars, callnofnduty, halo.

My feeling is he wont need new storage as already has 500gb ssd and 4tb hardrive, keyboard mouse monitor and the case is a thermaltake view (think that's what its called) with the side panel being transparent and the top.

Currently running AMD 8300 95w and 8gb of ddr3 ram.

Can you recommend a noticeable upgrade? Hes also thinking of water cooling but lm not too keen on that idea.

Thanks for any input greatly appreciated.

DCFC79 · 2 June 2019 at 5:47PM

Why aren't you too keen on water cooling ?

richje100 · 2 June 2019 at 5:59PM

Just think so much can go wrong water and components. I'd feel better if it was professionally built but my boy wants to buy and build it himself which I'm not going to discourage.
I just fear a slight leak somewhere will end in catastrophe unless I can be persuaded.

DCFC79 · 2 June 2019 at 7:12PM

richje100 wrote: »

Just think so much can go wrong water and components. I'd feel better if it was professionally built but my boy wants to buy and build it himself which I'm not going to discourage.
I just fear a slight leak somewhere will end in catastrophe unless I can be persuaded.

I don't have enough experience as I haven't used it, the system would be secure in terms of leaks, not sure how a leak would happen but I understand your concern.

fred246 · 3 June 2019 at 1:22PM

The spec of his current PC sounds very good. I get the impression that he is just trying to build something that looks fancy through the transparent case. I sort of understand the fascination but I don't think it's very MSE.

Cisco001 · 3 June 2019 at 4:54PM

What is the current GPU?
And what is the current PSU?

If it is for CPU, motherboard and RAM only, I would say wait until July and get Ryzen 5 3600.

richje100 · 3 June 2019 at 6:35PM

Cisco001 wrote: »

What is the current GPU?
And what is the current PSU?

If it is for CPU, motherboard and RAM only, I would say wait until July and get Ryzen 5 3600.

Thanks. His current gpu is 1050ti and the power supply that i do not know tried looking at both side but it's under a cover in the case even with the sides removed.

Borealis · 4 June 2019 at 12:18AM

What's wrong with his current PC? He's got a better setup than me by the sounds of it!

I've got an AMD 6300, an MSI 970 Gaming motherboard and an R9 200 series. I have 16 Gb of RAM, which is overkill, and a 750 W power supply, which is also overkill. This runs a dual monitor setup and copes with every game I want to play, new and old, just fine, plus I video and image edit as part of my day job and it does that too. It won't run ultra graphics with every setting turned up max on the most modern releases, but very few rigs will. A little compromise makes very little difference to the experience.

It is perfectly fine with the bog-standard case fans, but I've installed after-market ones relatively inexpensively which run quieter. My next upgrade will be the CPU/motherboard combo, but I'm not in a hurry. The water cooling bells and whistles setup is the dream, but it's unnecessary unless you're super-duper serious.

I think it's fantastic he's keen to do the work himself - I was way into my 20s before I had the confidence to tackle a self-build and now I've done it a few times I can't see myself ever buying an off-the-shelf PC again. It's a great learning experience and taught me so much about computers.

I have zero experience with water cooling. If he wants it then wire/pipe the whole thing up outside of the computer and switch it on. Leave it on for long enough to reassure yourself that there are no leaks before putting it into the machine.

What keyboard and mouse does he have? I recently treated myself to a new Logitech G502 Hero mouse. It was a bit of an indulgence, but my goodness is it a lovely mouse and has really enhanced my gaming experience. An indulgence, but still, much cheaper than a new GPU or water cooling, and probably brings much more obvious benefits!

samsharma · 4 June 2019 at 7:35AM

Wok with what you have.

Cisco001 · 4 June 2019 at 4:02PM

GTX 1050ti is a bit low end to pair with good CPU.

Here is my suggestion of an balance upgrade. But you need to have decent PSU to run it. If not, you need to spend another £50 for 500W

PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/qdfzdX

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (£129.97 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£61.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£45.18 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI - Radeon RX 580 8 GB ARMOR OC Video Card (£165.27 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £402.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-04 15:59 BST+0100

jonnygee2 · 4 June 2019 at 11:11PM

Can you recommend a noticeable upgrade? He's also thinking of water cooling but lm not too keen on that idea.

Aside from the perfectly valid concerns about leaking, a custom water cooler loop is going to take up most of the budget for almost no performance increase. It's something used to get a little edge from a premium build, with your budget much better to invest in basic parts.

With £400 and some stuff already, you can definitely build a basic gaming rig. You have two options 1) invest in a good processor and keep the current graphics until card or 2) just build a £400 system.

The main advantage of 1) is that you'd also get a better overall system, a bit more future proofed and better for non-gaming tasks. The disadvantage is obviously it somewhat commits you to spending another £150 - 200 or so at some point down the line, and you won't get many benefits in gaming until you spend it.

The main advantage of 2) is that you get a pretty decent gaming computer right away. I think I'd go for 2) - the budget is the budget, after all, and it should be enough.

I think the specs posted by Cisco001 are about right, although personally I would not buy a micro-ATX motherboard because it's more difficult to build with and you have a normal sized case. I'd also buy an aftermarket CPU cooler, although just an air cooler / heat sink - I've found even £20 ones like this make a big difference

Help and ideas for PC gaming build

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