Best super cheap used new budget build for £300

[connor_6]

Good super cheap budget build recommendation for £300 any recommendations. Im thinking buying an old refurbished first gen i3 pc for £100 and adding ram swapping for i5 750 and hopefully getting a r9 280 for £100. Any recommendations.

 

[Geekwad]

It'd need to look like this if new:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD A10-7870K 3.9GHz Quad-Core Processor (£105.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£57.01 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£57.65 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£20.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£20.02 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: SeaSonic ECO 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£39.34 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £300.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available


http://www.anandtech.com/show/9307/the-kaveri-refresh-godavari-review-testing-amds-a10-7870k

But I like your idea of looking for used that you refresh/refurb.....

 

[connor_6]

It'd need to look like this if new:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD A10-7870K 3.9GHz Quad-Core Processor (£105.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£57.01 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£57.65 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£20.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£20.02 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: SeaSonic ECO 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£39.34 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £300.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available


http://www.anandtech.com/show/9307/the-kaveri-refresh-godavari-review-testing-amds-a10-7870k

But I like your idea of looking for used that you refresh/refurb.....

Thanks for the reply. Would really like a dedicated graphics card for dark souls 3 coming out next march. I thought my original idea was a good one but its turning out to be very hard and plus it leaves no upgrades. An i5 750 is pushing on may even bottleneck in games like crysis 3 and gta 5 but if I buy new a g3258 etc at least it will be up-gradable but still suffer in those games.. Anything in the middle i5 2xxxx 3xxxxx is £100 and stuck in middle of no where. Seems like I have to suck it up and go all new £500+ or build old one that will only last a year or 2.

 

[Geekwad]

Check out the benchmarks in the article......that will at least compare somewhat to a g3258 in performance (some games more than others), but you can easily drop in a dedicated GPU when you can swing a 960 (this would be the best choice as the PSU wouldn't need to be swapped out).

You're right though, the 1150 and g3258 would offer a much better upgrade path.....

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£39.48 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: MSI H97M-E35 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£59.17 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£34.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.98 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£94.42 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£20.02 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: SeaSonic ECO 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£39.34 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £323.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

 

[connor_6]

Check out the benchmarks in the article......that will at least compare somewhat to a g3258 in performance (some games more than others), but you can easily drop in a dedicated GPU when you can swing a 960 (this would be the best choice as the PSU wouldn't need to be swapped out).

You're right though, the 1150 and g3258 would offer a much better upgrade path.....

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£39.48 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: MSI H97M-E35 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£59.17 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£34.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.98 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£94.42 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£20.02 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: SeaSonic ECO 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£39.34 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £323.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Thanks for your reply again. Your second build with the g3258 looks promising, I would swap out the 750ti for a used r9 280x oc for a similar price or can get a gtx 770 for 140 new but may need a bigger case. I could also save money on a hard drive because I have my old 500gb laptop hard drive I could use. I could also maybe save money on used ram. I had a look at getting a 2500k i5 and overclocking it but the motherboards for that are rare and expensive so once again thats a dead end just like the old pc refurb idea is. Your builds are making it clear that something more modern is the way to go. I am worried the g3258 wont do well in civ 5, starcraft 2 and for multitasking etc. So may just have to save up extra and go for an amd or other quad core.