Sub £300 gaming setup for Racing Sims.

[Jme_Bud]

Hi all.

I'm new here. I want to build a budget small (m-atx) gaming PC for the living room specifically to use for racing sims. (My aging laptop can only manage Live For Speed!)

I've not built a PC in sometime so I've been having to catchup with the lastest components available such as APUs.

I've marked up the following build and would like some pointers on whether it can be improved or whether I've even taken the right route for the money.

I tried to make it so it's easily upgradable in the future when the budget allows.

CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor

Motherboard: ASRock FM2A55M-VG3+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard

Memory: Kingston Fury Black Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case

Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply

Kinds regards

Jamie

 

[Karsten75]

If you haven't done it in a while, you may find using PCPartpicker.com quite useful. Additionally, it will let you export a BBCode-compatible configuration that you can paste here, showing us the components, their prices and the total cost of the system. It will offer you compatible products, show you the required power (Watts) and a selection of local retailers in a variety of countries. That way we don't have to try and hunt around trying to see the prices and wondering where and why you selected certain components.

 

[Jme_Bud]

Thanks Karsten very useful tool!

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

[Karsten75]

That looks like a very nice build - Didn't think you'd make it under your price point, but you did. Be aware though that it's not a particularly potent gaming machine per se.

Not sure what laptop you're trying to outperform, but relying in the Integrated graphics is quite brave. Not many here would recommend that for a "gaming" PC.

 

[Jme_Bud]

Oh yeah, I agree, I'm under no illution that this barely passes as a Gaming PC, but it will be used for gaming. I can't imagine racing sims are highly GFX intensive. As long as I get a steady 30fps and and don't lose draw distance I'll be happy.

Ah yes the APU, this is my dilemma, I need to find out if I would be better off swapping for a cheaper CPU and finding a cheap GFX card, probably £70 Max.

I'm also £20 under my budget, so I'm wondering if I can squeeze to 8gb of ram or whether that money would be better spent on an SSD instead.

 

[filippi]

This is a good entry-level gaming rig. It will do far better than any APU:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor (£78.79 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-E33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£32.77 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.14 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.94 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card (£85.38 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£18.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£31.15 @ Aria PC)
Total: £312.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-14 22:54 GMT+0000

 

[Karsten75]

At the level you're building, I'd guess the money would be better spent on RAM than on an SSD.

Let me think a bit and I'll see if I can find any improvement in your proposed build. I'm not used to that specific segment of the market.

 

[sora]

Oh yeah, I agree, I'm under no illution that this barely passes as a Gaming PC, but it will be used for gaming. I can't imagine racing sims are highly GFX intensive. As long as I get a steady 30fps and and don't lose draw distance I'll be happy.

Ah yes the APU, this is my dilemma, I need to find out if I would be better off swapping for a cheaper CPU and finding a cheap GFX card, probably £70 Max.

I'm also £20 under my budget, so I'm wondering if I can squeeze to 8gb of ram or whether that money would be better spent on an SSD instead.

OP, 8GB of RAM would be worth it in my opinion as long as it is 2x4GB sticks.

 

[Jme_Bud]

Filippi, your list doesn't take into consideration delivery costs and there are a few components that were special offers that are now out if stock. It makes it over £400 if you take all that into consideration. If I do take the intel with GPU route it would have to be significantly less powerful. I try rigging an Intel with GPU together with part picker, then compare it with the AMD APU setup.

 

[Karsten75]

Filippi's build is probably the very best you can do at that price point. Shipping isn't something we have control over - unless you know of a local store that offers walk-in or an online store that does free shipping (maybe over a certain spending level?)

It struck me that both your builds and Fillipi's omitted an Operating System and a method to install that (optical drive). It might be that you can scavenge the optical drive of your current system or have a USB-attached optical drive - I've installed some machines like that. There's no way around the requirement for an operating system, though.

With that in mind, here's a cut-down build. The CPU is significantly cheaper than either the AMD A10 or the i3-4130, and correspondingly less powerful, So is the video card, but it is still better than an IGPU.

You can use Passmark.com to compare both CPU and GPU performance.

If you have any money, I'd urge you to upgrade from the Pentium to the i3-4130, and to a better GPU - EIther the Radeon 260X or the Nvidia 750 Ti.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£49.04 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: *MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£31.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: *G.Skill Value 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£27.08 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: *Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.94 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: *Zotac GeForce GT 730 1GB Video Card (£41.50 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£18.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: *EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£31.15 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: *Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.46 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: *Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.99 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £315.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-15 14:35 GMT+0000