Advice on buying a new PC for around £400

[Duplicity2]

Hi there
I'm looking for advice on what to buy for about £400. I occasionally use my PC for games & I use it for entertainment (films & tv) everyday. I can get away with the monitor, network adaptor & DVD RW I already have so they aren't included in the budget.
Any ideas on what I can get for such a low price? I am in the UK & have been looking at configuration sites like pcspecialist, overclockers & chillblast.
I wanted to get a gigabyte mobo with intel CPU using socket Z97 & GeForce graphics, also SSD/HDD but can't afford it. I'm told that it's not worth spending more than £400 as it'll be obsolete in a couple of years anyway (my brother's advice).
If anyone has any ideas on what would be value for money for what I want, I would be grateful.
Cheers!

 

[tiny voices]

Don't bother with the Pentium if you aren't overclocking it on a Z97 motherboard and getting a good GPU to pair it with.

 

[zeyuanfu]

lol thanks! Very sound advice. I have taken it & changed the mobo, gotten rid of the case (I can use the one I have) & gotten rid of cooler (is the stock cooler what comes with CPU?) & GPU (I assume I can get one later if I want to upgrade?). Total is now £359 which makes me happy

CPU Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core £43.19
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING 7 ATX LGA1150 £130.76
Memory Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 £76.50
Storage Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM £38.70
Power Supply Silverstone 400W ATX12V £34.08
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) £36.00

With no GPU, this is playing exactly ZERO games.

Except Minecraft

NO, I just explained this. The junk iGPU on the Pentium barely gets 28-30fps in minecraft and it is jumpy. That is NOT good at all. Buying a Pentium and no GPU for minecraft is a HORRIBLE mistake.

I can live with 25 FPS.

 

[Duplicity2]

Are what I chose before OK choices please?

 

[tiny voices]

lol thanks! Very sound advice. I have taken it & changed the mobo, gotten rid of the case (I can use the one I have) & gotten rid of cooler (is the stock cooler what comes with CPU?) & GPU (I assume I can get one later if I want to upgrade?). Total is now £359 which makes me happy

CPU Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core £43.19
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING 7 ATX LGA1150 £130.76
Memory Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 £76.50
Storage Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM £38.70
Power Supply Silverstone 400W ATX12V £34.08
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) £36.00

With no GPU, this is playing exactly ZERO games.

Except Minecraft

NO, I just explained this. The junk iGPU on the Pentium barely gets 28-30fps in minecraft and it is jumpy. That is NOT good at all. Buying a Pentium and no GPU for minecraft is a HORRIBLE mistake.

I can live with 25 FPS.

That is a miserable mistake. 25fps is crap when for the same money you can have it LOCKED at 60fps. PM me and we can sort out your build.

 

[zeyuanfu]

Don't bother with the Pentium if you aren't overclocking it on a Z97 motherboard and getting a good GPU to pair it with.

Sone 8-series boards have BIOS updates that allow overclocking...

 

[tiny voices]

I have taken both your advice (iceblitzed & zeyuanfu) and put together some parts on PCPartpicker. Of course the price has gone up to £500 as I got greedy! If you wouldn't mind having a look & giving me your opinion? Here's what I picked:

CPU Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor £43.19
CPU Cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler £24.25
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard £111.56
Memory Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory £76.50
Storage Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive £38.70
Video Card Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card £109.99
Case SHARKOON MA-M1000 MicroATX Mid Tower Case £29.99
Power Supply Silverstone Strider Essential 400W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply £34.08 Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) £36.00
Total: £504.26

If this is what you mean, yes it is a great build.

 

[tiny voices]

Don't bother with the Pentium if you aren't overclocking it on a Z97 motherboard and getting a good GPU to pair it with.

Sone 8-series boards have BIOS updates that allow overclocking...

You MUST have a non-haswell refresh CPU to do the update though. ALL Z87 boards support overclocking NON-Refresh Haswell CPUs. If you put a Haswell-Refresh CPU in a Z87 board it won't even boot up. You NEED a non-Refresh CPU to do the update.

 

[Duplicity2]

Yes, that's what I mean I'll go back to that then lol

 

[tiny voices]

Yes, that's what I mean I'll go back to that then lol

Looks good! Should be an excellent computer.

 

[zeyuanfu]

Yes, that's what I mean I'll go back to that then lol

You COULD lose the case, though

 

[tiny voices]

Lose the case? What?

 

[Duplicity2]

Yes, that's what I mean I'll go back to that then lol

Looks good! Should be an excellent computer.

mobo OK?

 

[zeyuanfu]

Lose the case? What?

Build a bench case. saves you 30 euros.

 

[zeyuanfu]

Yes, that's what I mean I'll go back to that then lol

Looks good! Should be an excellent computer.

mobo OK?

Yes, it's great.

 

[tiny voices]

Lose the case? What?

Build a bench case. saves you 30 euros.

Terrible advice for a new builder. Sorry.

 

[Duplicity2]

Lose the case? What?

I have a case I could use. Might splash out on a new one as it's basic & old though

 

[zeyuanfu]

Lose the case? What?

Build a bench case. saves you 30 euros.

Terrible advice for a new builder. Sorry.

He said he had an old case...

 

[tiny voices]

Yes, that's what I mean I'll go back to that then lol

Looks good! Should be an excellent computer.

mobo OK?

Motherboard is fine. If you want to go with the mATX form factor that motherboard is about as good as it gets.

 

[Duplicity2]

Lose the case? What?

Build a bench case. saves you 30 euros.

Terrible advice for a new builder. Sorry.

Think he's having you on now

 

[tiny voices]

Lose the case? What?

Build a bench case. saves you 30 euros.

Terrible advice for a new builder. Sorry.

He said he had an old case...

Ahh missed that. Also Earlier I said that if you like you can feel free to PM me and we can sort out your build to make it MUCH better for minecraft.

 

[Duplicity2]

Yes, that's what I mean I'll go back to that then lol

Looks good! Should be an excellent computer.

mobo OK?

Motherboard is fine. If you want to go with the mATX form factor that motherboard is about as good as it gets.

Which one is mATX form factor?

 

[tiny voices]

The Gigabyte gaming 5. The case in that build is also mATX and only supports mATX boards. I Figured you knew this and were going for an Matx build.

 

[Duplicity2]

The Gigabyte gaming 5. The case in that build is also mATX and only supports mATX boards. I Figured you knew this and were going for an Matx build.

You give me too much credit! lol But I was asking as I realise they are different sizes though 😉

 

[zeyuanfu]

The Gigabyte gaming 5. The case in that build is also mATX and only supports mATX boards. I Figured you knew this and were going for an Matx build.

You give me too much credit! lol But I was asking as I realise they are different sizes though 😉

They are different sizes. mATX is smaller, so it has less connectors.

 

[tiny voices]

It does not have less connectors. It will ONLY have less ancient PCI (not GPU) slots which no one really uses. It will have the same SATA, USB, and all that connectors.