Budget Gaming PC improvement

[george.a.chilian]

So, I am a university student and looking to build a budget gaming PC. When I say budget I do mean it quite literally (my max budget is somewhere around £200 / 260$ ). So I dived into the wide spectrum of budget builds and came up with this PC.

Cpu: Core i7 860
Ram: 16GB DDR3 of Corsair Vengeance 1333mhz
GPU: Radeon HD 7870
And a Corsair VS650

I can get a Dell XC77 motherboard for cheap along with all those parts at about £160 or 200$.

I was wondering if there would be any room for improvement or if I should swap some of the parts. Any suggestions are welcome!

 

[daswilhelm]

If you are going to use an i7 860 you are going to want to overclock it, and that dell motherboard isnt going to get you there.

I'd look at a cheap b350 motherboard, a ryzen 3 2200g and 8gb of ddr4 and youll have something competent and able to be upgraded in the future.

 

[george.a.chilian]

I did look at the exact same cpu but it would leave me very little space for the Case, PSU and SSDs. I'm not a very big overclocking guy but I can't find a ATX 1156 motherboard and the Dell one is the only one that seems to be ATX

 

[Dugimodo]

Another option depending on your local suppliers is to find an ex lease business class PC that has room for a graphics card.
They can often be had very cheaply with an i5 2,3,or 4 series, 8GB of RAM, and windows 7 or newer but you are generally stuck with low power and low profile graphics cards like the 1050ti. It's a fairly common way to get a cheap gaming PC and there are quite a few you tube videos where people have done it.

 

[george.a.chilian]

Another option depending on your local suppliers is to find an ex lease business class PC that has room for a graphics card.
They can often be had very cheaply with an i5 2,3,or 4 series, 8GB of RAM, and windows 7 or newer but you are generally stuck with low power and low profile graphics cards like the 1050ti. It's a fairly common way to get a cheap gaming PC and there are quite a few you tube videos where people have done it.

I tried to do that with an Optiplex but surplus sales of business PCs aren't as popular as in the USA, and a Cheap core i5 machine can be quite hard to find. I chose the i7 860 as it has hyper threading which most of these Optiplexes lack

 

[Dugimodo]

Oh well worth a shot. Ex lease PCs are all over the place here in NZ. As long as you have 4 cores hyper threading still doesn't seem to help games very much for the most part and the faster cores in a newer i5 will more than make up for the hyper threading of an older i7

An i5 2400 for example (one of the most common second hand CPUs available here at least) will outperform an i7 860 in everything unless you get really lucky with overclocking and that's a low end i5 that's still pretty old and should be cheap.

 

[george.a.chilian]

Oh well worth a shot. Ex lease PCs are all over the place here in NZ. As long as you have 4 cores hyper threading still doesn't seem to help games very much for the most part and the faster cores in a newer i5 will more than make up for the hyper threading of an older i7

An i5 2400 for example (one of the most common second hand CPUs available here at least) will outperform an i7 860 in everything unless you get really lucky with overclocking and that's a low end i5 that's still pretty old and should be cheap.

I guess I could look around for a i5 2400 and a 1155 motherboard. But then what about the GPU? Will the 7870 cut it or is there a cheap alternative that will perform better?

 

[Dugimodo]

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

According to Toms hierarchy chart the 7870 is in the same ballpark as a 1050 which will play modern games at 1080P with reduced settings.
so it'll play older games great and newer games ok. What I tend to do is use the chart to help choose what cards are the best deal, you want to go as high up as possible for your money.

In truth though this is hypothetical for me as I mainly buy new and spend a lot more money these days, my gaming rig is a Ryzen 2700X machine and the only part that was second hand is the GTX 1070 which alone would have blown your budget.

Another option that is probably out of reach but could be worth looking into is a new machine with a Ryzen 2200g or 2400g and just use onboard graphics.
They perform around the level of a GT 1030 and game surprisingly well according to reviews I've seen. A lot depends on the particular games you want to play, could be worth checking out their reccomended requirements.

 

[george.a.chilian]

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

According to Toms hierarchy chart the 7870 is in the same ballpark as a 1050 which will play modern games at 1080P with reduced settings.
so it'll play older games great and newer games ok. What I tend to do is use the chart to help choose what cards are the best deal, you want to go as high up as possible for your money.

In truth though this is hypothetical for me as I mainly buy new and spend a lot more money these days, my gaming rig is a Ryzen 2700X machine and the only part that was second hand is the GTX 1070 which alone would have blown your budget.

Another option that is probably out of reach but could be worth looking into is a new machine with a Ryzen 2200g or 2400g and just use onboard graphics.
They perform around the level of a GT 1030 and game surprisingly well according to reviews I've seen. A lot depends on the particular games you want to play, could be worth checking out their reccomended requirements.

Your Gaming Rig is amazing! I could only dream of having a system like that! And thank you for linking the chart! I'm not very picky when it comes to Graphics as long as I have an enjoyable experience, so I think that the hd7870 will do well for my use.

 

[Kisianik]

So, I am a university student and looking to build a budget gaming PC. When I say budget I do mean it quite literally (my max budget is somewhere around £200 / 260$ ). So I dived into the wide spectrum of budget builds and came up with this PC.

Cpu: Core i7 860
Ram: 16GB DDR3 of Corsair Vengeance 1333mhz
GPU: Radeon HD 7870
And a Corsair VS650

I can get a Dell XC77 motherboard for cheap along with all those parts at about £160 or 200$.

I was wondering if there would be any room for improvement or if I should swap some of the parts. Any suggestions are welcome!

You did not mention the price of Windows OS.
260 pounds is a bit to little, if you could make it to 334 pounds you could combine https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01E97IVD2/ref=psdc_428651031_t1_B01H5OFUIK
and
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-1050Ti-Graphics/dp/B06XHZ29N5/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1536036445&sr=8-6&keywords=zotac+gtx+1050ti

Or at worst
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-1050-Graphics/dp/B06XHJX4G8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1536036523&sr=8-3&keywords=zotac+gtx+1050

And live happily ever after.

 

[george.a.chilian]

So, I am a university student and looking to build a budget gaming PC. When I say budget I do mean it quite literally (my max budget is somewhere around £200 / 260$ ). So I dived into the wide spectrum of budget builds and came up with this PC.

Cpu: Core i7 860
Ram: 16GB DDR3 of Corsair Vengeance 1333mhz
GPU: Radeon HD 7870
And a Corsair VS650

I can get a Dell XC77 motherboard for cheap along with all those parts at about £160 or 200$.

I was wondering if there would be any room for improvement or if I should swap some of the parts. Any suggestions are welcome!

You did not mention the price of Windows OS.
260 pounds is a bit to little, if you could make it to 334 pounds you could combine https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01E97IVD2/ref=psdc_428651031_t1_B01H5OFUIK
and
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-1050Ti-Graphics/dp/B06XHZ29N5/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1536036445&sr=8-6&keywords=zotac+gtx+1050ti

Or at worst
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-NVIDIA-GeForce-1050-Graphics/dp/B06XHJX4G8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1536036523&sr=8-3&keywords=zotac+gtx+1050

And live happily ever after.

I already have a product key for Windows 10 I got for free, lucky me . But indeed that is a very tempting option but still out of my budget. However I will try to see if I can get these parts at a cheaper price. Thank you!

 

[george.a.chilian]

Lucky me I found my system!!

I just woke up this morning and found that someone on the Facebook Marketplace was selling a core i7 2600k OCd to 4.3ghz with a MSI z77A g43 Motherboard and 8gb of ram for £170 and a 750w Power cool modular power supply for an extra £20 rounding everything up for £190. I still have to buy a gpu which will be a 7870 until I save up and get a 1060 and I'll just buy a 1tb sshd. Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions!