Looking for a cheap pre-built gaming computer

[PlymouthJoseph]

Hey guys, my cousin is planning on getting into PC gaming and I was wondering if one of you guys could find the most powerful gaming PC including OS for £300. I know it really is not much, but that is all he's got, so any help would be really nice.

Once again... Try and find the best build for gaming for £300. Thanks guys.

 

[Iron124]

You could build a much better PC for £300 than you're going to get buying a prebuilt. That price range is like Wal-Mart cheapo grade...

 

[vortical]

You could build a much better PC for £300 than you're going to get buying a prebuilt. That price range is like Wal-Mart cheapo grade...

For 300 he'd be better served with getting a relatively cheap AMD A8 or A10 laptop than a prebuilt desktop. However if he/you're willing to build custom then there are some better options.

 

[PlymouthJoseph]

Yea, I know I could but his dad doesn't fully trust me building his son a computer with his birthday money... I just cannot be arsed with the hassle with it all

 

[vortical]

Yea, I know I could but his dad doesn't fully trust me building his son a computer with his birthday money... I just cannot be arsed with the hassle with it all

Prebuildts have brand markup and cost for builing etc. so if you are asking for one , the actual budget going towards parts is much less. Here's some links to customize a prebuilt comp. Maybe you can get something useful, but a laptop is the only real way to go if you can do custom at that price range.
http://www.ibuypower.com/
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

sorry for american websites, but they should give you some idea of the price range you're looking at

 

[Iron124]

Yea, I know I could but his dad doesn't fully trust me building his son a computer with his birthday money... I just cannot be arsed with the hassle with it all

Do your best to convince him of the value/performance ratio that you'll be getting. If you're experienced enough, you won't break anything and he'll be really happy with the results. Luckily (sorta), I've always been on a strict budget, so squeezing any little bit of performance out of cheaper hardware is what I'm good at. £300 comes out to around $407 US dollars, so I went off that for this build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 645 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($75.12 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master DK9-7E52A-0L-GP CPU Cooler ($8.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($34.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($36.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 250 2GB Video Card ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Azza CSAZ-206 ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $406.02
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-09 17:40 EDT-0400)

 

[PlymouthJoseph]

Yea, I know I could but his dad doesn't fully trust me building his son a computer with his birthday money... I just cannot be arsed with the hassle with it all

Do your best to convince him of the value/performance ratio that you'll be getting. If you're experienced enough, you won't break anything and he'll be really happy with the results. Luckily (sorta), I've always been on a strict budget, so squeezing any little bit of performance out of cheaper hardware is what I'm good at. £300 comes out to around $407 US dollars, so I went off that for this build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 645 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($75.12 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master DK9-7E52A-0L-GP CPU Cooler ($8.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($34.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($36.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 250 2GB Video Card ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Azza CSAZ-206 ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $406.02
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-09 17:40 EDT-0400)

Holy shit dude, you... You have some talent there! I'll try and get all those parts onto the UK sites and he should over the moon with it! The only downside I can see is the 320GB HDD... That isn't much to play with but it should be fine, and you sure the AMD Athlon is a good choice? I'm running a replacement laptop because my PSU blew and it has a AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-55 along with ATI Radeon X1200 and it cannot run YouTube at 720p without having frame rate issues... But hey, I'm going to go for what you put. Quite frankly, you hold the fate of how well my cousin's desktop works out.

 

[vortical]

Yea, I know I could but his dad doesn't fully trust me building his son a computer with his birthday money... I just cannot be arsed with the hassle with it all

Do your best to convince him of the value/performance ratio that you'll be getting. If you're experienced enough, you won't break anything and he'll be really happy with the results. Luckily (sorta), I've always been on a strict budget, so squeezing any little bit of performance out of cheaper hardware is what I'm good at. £300 comes out to around $407 US dollars, so I went off that for this build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 645 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($75.12 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master DK9-7E52A-0L-GP CPU Cooler ($8.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($34.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($36.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 250 2GB Video Card ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Azza CSAZ-206 ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $406.02
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-09 17:40 EDT-0400)

Holy shit dude, you... You have some talent there! I'll try and get all those parts onto the UK sites and he should over the moon with it! The only downside I can see is the 320GB HDD... That isn't much to play with but it should be fine, and you sure the AMD Athlon is a good choice? I'm running a replacement laptop because my PSU blew and it has a AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-55 along with ATI Radeon X1200 and it cannot run YouTube at 720p without having frame rate issues... But hey, I'm going to go for what you put. Quite frankly, you hold the fate of how well my cousin's desktop works out.

The athlon on the list:http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+II+X4+645
is much more powerfull than your tk 55:http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+64+X2+TK-55
but no its not ideal, but neither is a small budget

 

[Iron124]

Yea, I know I could but his dad doesn't fully trust me building his son a computer with his birthday money... I just cannot be arsed with the hassle with it all

Do your best to convince him of the value/performance ratio that you'll be getting. If you're experienced enough, you won't break anything and he'll be really happy with the results. Luckily (sorta), I've always been on a strict budget, so squeezing any little bit of performance out of cheaper hardware is what I'm good at. £300 comes out to around $407 US dollars, so I went off that for this build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 645 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($75.12 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master DK9-7E52A-0L-GP CPU Cooler ($8.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($34.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($36.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 250 2GB Video Card ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Azza CSAZ-206 ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $406.02
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-09 17:40 EDT-0400)

Holy shit dude, you... You have some talent there! I'll try and get all those parts onto the UK sites and he should over the moon with it! The only downside I can see is the 320GB HDD... That isn't much to play with but it should be fine, and you sure the AMD Athlon is a good choice? I'm running a replacement laptop because my PSU blew and it has a AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-55 along with ATI Radeon X1200 and it cannot run YouTube at 720p without having frame rate issues... But hey, I'm going to go for what you put. Quite frankly, you hold the fate of how well my cousin's desktop works out.

The Athlon X4 isn't a bad processor by any means. Sure, it's no FX Vishera, but it'll more than get the job done. Framerate and stuttering with HD video really depends on the graphics hardware anyway, and the R7 250 is a pretty darn good card for the price from what I've heard.

This isn't a hardcore gaming PC, but it's honestly better than what I myself am stuck using right now anyway. I think your cousin will be happy with it, good luck!

 

[realchaos]

UK prices are typically a bit higher than US prices because all of the prices already includes VAT.
After tinkering with some builds, getting an discrete GPU in such a small budget is not possible without cutting down on MANY components. As a result, I chose to go with an APU build and left you with all high quality components as a starting point for future upgrades.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor (£77.50 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88M EXTREME4+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£45.70 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£36.99 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.84 @ Dabs)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £326.00
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-10 03:59 BST+0100)

It should handle the basic usage perfectly fine (web browsing, watching videos, etc.) while being able to play games at 1080p on low-med settings (or you might even have to turn down the resolution a bit depending on the game).

 

[sora]

Yea, I know I could but his dad doesn't fully trust me building his son a computer with his birthday money... I just cannot be arsed with the hassle with it all

You can always try and show him YouTube videos. Try and convince him that it isn't complicated at all.