[SOLVED] Building a Budget Gaming PC (<£500), any Recommendations?

May 3, 2020
4
0
10
Hi, I'm going to be building my little brother a gaming PC. His budget is £500. I'm looking to pick parts that have some longevity and upgrade-ability. Will be running on a 1080p display and would like to be able to run modern titles at 60fps, graphics settings won't be a huge deal here, as he's coming from a 5 year old laptop.

I'm looking for suggestions on parts you would replace, keeping within budget. Just really want to make sure my brother is getting the best for his money!

PartModelRough Price
CPUAMD Ryzen 5 2600£120
MOBOGigabyte B450M DS3X£65
GPUXFX RX570 8GB£130
RAMCrucial Ballistix 2400 MHz (2 x 4GB)£35
SSDKingston A400 240GB£30
CASEThermaltake Versa H18£35
PSUUsed EVGA SuperNova NEX 750W£50
HDDUsed WD BLUE 7200RPM 1TB£10
OSWindows 10 OEM £25
TOTAL: £500

Cheers,
D'Arcy
 
Solution
Your build is quite nice. The only comments I have is for the RAM and Windows 10. If you're going Ryzen, it's recommended to at least go for 2666MHz RAM as the Ryzen CPUs are much more dependent on RAM speeds as opposed to Intel. As for Windows, you can find an OEM key on Ebay for 5 quid.

Personally, since this is for gaming, I would do it this way:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-9100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor (£64.55 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H310CM-HDV Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£48.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA SU635 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video...
Your build is quite nice. The only comments I have is for the RAM and Windows 10. If you're going Ryzen, it's recommended to at least go for 2666MHz RAM as the Ryzen CPUs are much more dependent on RAM speeds as opposed to Intel. As for Windows, you can find an OEM key on Ebay for 5 quid.

Personally, since this is for gaming, I would do it this way:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-9100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor (£64.55 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H310CM-HDV Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£48.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA SU635 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card: Palit GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB GamingPro OC Video Card (£220.38 @ Aria PC)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H15 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£40.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £437.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-03 11:50 BST+0100


I am using the same used PSU and HDD you suggested for 10£ and 50£.

As for longetivity, it's true that the B450 platform will offer more flexibility due to AM4 socket. In which case I would recommend the 1600AF, which is pretty much a 2600 that's much cheaper.

Let me know what you think.
 
Solution
May 3, 2020
4
0
10
Very helpful thank you! I'm out of practise of choosing a build, I built my PC in 2014 (dearly departed).

I shall look into the memory requirements of the Ryzen 2600. I was looking at the 1600 but I thought perhaps for games that are more CPU intensive it might be better to try and squeeze some extra performance headroom with the 2600. Will definitely shop around on eBay for the Windows copy though!
 
Very helpful thank you! I'm out of practise of choosing a build, I built my PC in 2014 (dearly departed).

I shall look into the memory requirements of the Ryzen 2600. I was looking at the 2600 because i I thought perhaps for games that are more CPU intensive it might be better to try and squeeze some extra performance headroom with the 2600. Will definitely shop around on eBay for the Windows copy though!

So I'm referring to the 1600 AF, which is different to the 1600.

The 1600AF is a model that came out in 2019. It's basically a 1600 that uses 12nm instead of 14nm and Zen+ instead of just Zen. That is what the 2600 uses (12nm and Zen+). The only difference is that the 2600 is clocked 0.1/0.2GHz higher. The price difference of the 1600AF should make it quite worth it. If you're still confused, many reputable YouTubers such as Linus, BitWit, JayzTwoCents will be able to explain it better than me.

It's very subtle as it's listed as Ryzen 5 1600 on Amazon and NewEgg. The difference is in the product SKU, which includes "AF" in the product model number.

I recommend to have a look as it can save you 20-30£ which can be added to having a better GPU or faster RAM.

Good luck
 
May 3, 2020
4
0
10
So I'm referring to the 1600 AF, which is different to the 1600.

The 1600AF is a model that came out in 2019. It's basically a 1600 that uses 12nm instead of 14nm and Zen+ instead of just Zen. That is what the 2600 uses (12nm and Zen+). The only difference is that the 2600 is clocked 0.1/0.2GHz higher. The price difference of the 1600AF should make it quite worth it. If you're still confused, many reputable YouTubers such as Linus, BitWit, JayzTwoCents will be able to explain it better than me.

It's very subtle as it's listed as Ryzen 5 1600 on Amazon and NewEgg. The difference is in the product SKU, which includes "AF" in the product model number.

I recommend to have a look as it can save you 20-30£ which can be added to having a better GPU or faster RAM.

Good luck

Great, thank you! Will definitely look into that, didn't realise this was a different model. Used to watch JayzTwoCents and LTT all the time, good recommendations. Thanks for your help bud
 

Iniaskle

Commendable
Mar 5, 2019
292
25
1,740
Hi, I'm going to be building my little brother a gaming PC. His budget is £500. I'm looking to pick parts that have some longevity and upgrade-ability. Will be running on a 1080p display and would like to be able to run modern titles at 60fps, graphics settings won't be a huge deal here, as he's coming from a 5 year old laptop.

I'm looking for suggestions on parts you would replace, keeping within budget. Just really want to make sure my brother is getting the best for his money!

PartModelRough Price
CPUAMD Ryzen 5 2600£120
MOBOGigabyte B450M DS3X£65
GPUXFX RX570 8GB£130
RAMCrucial Ballistix 2400 MHz (2 x 4GB)£35
SSDKingston A400 240GB£30
CASEThermaltake Versa H18£35
PSUUsed EVGA SuperNova NEX 750W£50
HDDUsed WD BLUE 7200RPM 1TB£10
OSWindows 10 OEM£25
TOTAL: £500

Cheers,
D'Arcy
Just like julienruc said, I would get faster RAM. 2400MHZ for ryzen is too low. Ryzen prefers higher speeds like 3200mhz. It does cost more but in my opinion it is totally worth it :)
 
Pick another gpu, im not going to comment on anything else but your PSU pick "EVGA SuperNova NEX 750W " can handle older graphics cards well.

If you are going to pick ryzen cpu you will be bottlenecked hard with rx570, even gtx 680 from 8 years ago is on par with it and gtx 770 beats it (this is stock speeds) :https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/Radeon-RX-570-vs-GeForce-GTX-770/3741vs2531

Just either pick new gtx 1660 super or similar like others here suggested, or get used 970/ 980 / 780ti gtx depending on the price. Only if buy used gpu from seller who has very good reputation.