[SOLVED] In this climate, is prebuilt worth it?

[hamaalam123]

Hi pc parts are expensive rn and my sister has an upcoming birthday (the big double digit 10!). Thing is as I only work part-time and its just the two of us, I only have a budget of £500. I have seen prebuilt PCs on amazon for £500 that claim to be able to run the games she wants to play (Warzone, Fortnite, Rocket League) but I doubt they're futureproofed for games like Halo or any future Bethesda games she wants to play. Is it just worth it getting something prebuilt within that budget despite the dilemma of lack of future proofing? I am not really a PC expert and I wont be able to increase this budget, so prebuilt seems reasonable, as of right now. May I please have opinions, cheers x

 

[DeckZPC]

what country do you live in so i can see if i can find a build and a website to buy them and also how fast would you need it. and most the time prebuilts seem good in specs but those specs could be a brand that didnt do well with them bad combo etc

 

[dorsai]

If it will do what you or rather she needs it to then go ahead and grab it. Personally I would look for a machine that can be upgraded down the road (especially the GPU) as it sounds likely with what you've said about it.

 

[hamaalam123]

what country do you live in so i can see if i can find a build and a website to buy them and also how fast would you need it. and most the time prebuilts seem good in specs but those specs could be a brand that didnt do well with them bad combo etc

i live in the UK, and on speed i don't mind as long as its reasonably fast, i don't need latest speeds or anything, thank you for your assistance!

 

[MJS WARLORD]

I have not bought a ready built pc for about 8 years , most of them are " made to a price " , example , a certain shop had a machine for sale , the same machine on the pc's companies website had different componants , i rang the company and they admitted that yes they were " made to a price " for that shop.

Another reason for not buying ready built is because some machines can be upgraded without changing lots of things and that makes your pc a money grabber.

As you say you are not a pc expert , get a pal to help you , study the componant spec of a machine you intend buying and then see if you can get get a better machine for the same amount of money from a company that custom builds pc's

FOOTNOTE..... google what do i need to run xyz game , this will make sure you dont buy a pc that is not good enough

 

[alceryes]

Note that she won't be playing the games you listed at great graphical settings - be sure to set expectations.
Depending on when you think you can throw another £500 at it, you may want to go for something that gets buy but has a decent CPU, at least 8GBs RAM, and a decent PSU. Then, when GPU prices come back down from crazytown, you can drop another £500 for a proper GPU.

The tiered upgrade approach is a good fit for that kind of budget.

 

[Pc6777]

if it uses standard parts that aren't garbage and its a good deal, yea nothing wrong with prebuilts(psu could be cheap, make sure it has a decent one). if it uses proprietary components don't touch it with a 10 foot pole imo.

 

[logainofhades]

This would play those games, and give you some upgrade potential.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (£119.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£71.98 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£64.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 250 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£33.55 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.49 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Video Card (£69.98 @ CCL Computers)
Case: SHARKOON VG7-W RGB ATX Mid Tower Case (£34.97 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£57.95 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £496.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-04-12 21:29 BST+0100

 

[Pc6777]

for the gpu you could get a 1050 ti on ebay for like 160-170 usd, it can play any game on at least low settings, and is futureproof for low settings 720p 30 fps gaming.

 

[DeckZPC]

This would play those games, and give you some upgrade potential.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (£119.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£71.98 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£64.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 250 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£33.55 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.49 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Video Card (£69.98 @ CCL Computers)
Case: SHARKOON VG7-W RGB ATX Mid Tower Case (£34.97 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£57.95 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £496.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-04-12 21:29 BST+0100

honestly idk i feel like a better graphics card in that one but yea thats upgrade potential

 

[johnsoner13]

Better just save up more tbh, low end prebuilts arent worth it

 

[Karadjgne]

Depends on your definition of 'pre-built'. There's the stuff from Dell or Lenovo or HP etc that you can buy somewhat cheaper but often times they end up as dead-ends as the 'proprietary' nature of them rears its ugly head in a big way any time you even think the word 'upgrade'.

But they are a fully functional pc, for all that they are.

Or, there's the boutique prebuilts from CyberPowerPC, ibuypower, CRX, Origin, MainGear etc which are not proprietary as they use aftermarket parts throughout. This maximizes 2 things, potential and price. You will pay more for that level of custom built to your choices.

But they do have gpus at 'reasonable' prices, far cheaper than paying scalpers pricing and no waiting for a year on a vendor list as they have vendor contracts, so don't have to gamble on public markets.

I'd suggest you get online, Google custom pc builders and go build yourself a couple different virtual pc's on several different sites, that way you can see what you are up against vs the DIY or big brand name pre-built approach and judge if the boutique offers better overall fit and function for the budget. But I'd also compare them all vs the above build, which is decent, to see if for roughly the same budget you end up better or worse in performance.

 

[logainofhades]

honestly idk i feel like a better graphics card in that one but yea thats upgrade potential

With their budget, and the current GPU climate, getting better is nearly impossible.

 

[madmatt30]

There are a few i5 9400 and gtx 1650 combo prebuilds on amazon for £599.

I don't think you're going to do better than that, £500 is virtually impossible in the current climate