Cmon then PC gamers spec me up....

strumjoughlamps

what a bloody mind field.. Birthday has come and gone and my head is about to melt..

been looking for a desktop that is capable of playing modernish games not necessarily at the highest settings.

there are so many processors etc.. now I am struggling.. probably stretch to £600 don’t mind reputable 2nd hand..

where I am at.... I was considering the Alienware Steam Machine/Alpha i7 but so many problems with ‘yellow light of death’ and having to do constant power drains that buying used(the only way to get one) is just too high risk.

Sporky

I've not had any problems with my Alienware Alpha. Was a refurb at a sensible price - I'll see if I can dig out the seller.

crunchman

Do you need an i7?  I would have thought a recent desktop i5 ought to have enough grunt as long as you get a half decent graphics card.

joeyowen

get a 7th gen i5 and a 1050 gpu if you don't want top top quality.

1060,70,80 have all suffered a nasty price hike due to crypto mining.  I'd also be a little wary of buying a recent 2nd hand gpu, I would panic it has been run into the ground mining.

digitalscream

Yeah, at £600 you're looking at an i5 CPU (or possibly the AMD equivalent) and any NVidia 1050 graphics card. 16GB RAM and an SSD, and you're set.

Axe_meister

Your biggest problem at the moment for a gaming PC is the price of graphics cards and memory (if you can even find one available)
In terms of CPU performance I'd say the AMD Ryzen 5 1600x is probably the sweet spot in terms of price/performance, especially as the new Ryzen 2 CPUs are going to be released April 19 so there are some good price cuts around.
Here's a possible spec I've put together (minus monitor & Keyboard).
CPU - AMD 1600 £150
Motherboard- Gigabyte GA-AB350 £70
Memory - Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR4-3000 £97
OS Harddisk - Western Digital Green 240GB SSD £62
Data Disk - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200rpm £35.99
GPU - Palit Geforece GTX 1050 2GB £110
Case - BetFenix Nova ATX Mid Tower £30
Power Supply Corsair CX500 £49

Total ~ £606
Alternatively if 720p gaming is enough for you, you can go down to a AMD 2400G APU and scrap the GPU 
giving you a total price of £477 (you can always add a GPU later) for a decent monitor.


You will then need to supply the Windows license/keyboard/Mouse and monitor

This should do you well for 1080p Gaming are medium to high detail at good frame rates and will be future proof (AMD have stated they will keep the AM4 socket till at least 2020.

strumjoughlamps

Sporky said:

I've not had any problems with my Alienware Alpha. Was a refurb at a sensible price - I'll see if I can dig out the seller.

Cool, appreciated..

crunchman said:

Do you need an i7?  

Probably not just basing on the Alienware I was looking at.

Myranda

i3 in the 8 series CPUs is a brilliant gaming CPU and equivilent to an i5 from the previous gen... which makes the i3 8350K (£150) one of the best priced gaming CPUs so far.

Combine it with a 1060 (£260)

and you're in a good place for some gaming... add in a motherboard for about £150 and hope you have an SSD and power supply? and a cooler... or scrimp a few extra pennies together for those, and a cardboard box would do as a case until you can get a better one

ThePrettyDamned

I paid £600 for a second hand Alienware last year from John Lewis. It's console sized and has:

I7 6700
256gb pci-e ssd (the fastest type, although gains over a normal sata ssd are probably not huge) 
16gb ram
Gtx 960 graphics card 
2tb disk drive

It's a bit of a beast, and the card can be upgraded to a small Gtx 1060 if wanted as it has similar power requirements. I play doom at medium settings with no noticeable frame rate drops. 

I mostly use the PlayStation though, as the computer is really for photo editing. 

DanR

Most games are getting more processor intensive which is what' holding back the current gen of consoles.

So I'd not scrimp there but look to buy a used graphics card as some people upgrade pretty regularly so there a few bargains to be had.

If I was to rebuild I'd be looking at an i7 this time.

nanoman

I know it's £200 over budget but a lot of PC for the money
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-gd30-core-i5-7400-8gb-2tb-256gb-ssd-geforce-gtx-1070-windows-10-gaming-desktop-in-black-and-white-79997-laptops-direct-2909582

MattBanshee

I got a Dell refurb desktop on Ebay for £280 from a big seller, which had a 4th gen i5, 16gb RAM and a brand new 2tb HDD + 128gb SSD with genuine Windows. £30 for a top-notch wifi card and £130ish for a 1050ti 4gb graphics card, and I've got a build that plays all games on high/ultra (Wolfenstein 2 and Overwatch both play on Ultra at 60+ fps) and total spend was under £500. The PC even came with a basic keyboard/mouse set, which I have since upgraded but it certainly got me up and running.

Axe_meister

Has any body seen what Cous sell for these days even second and. My son sold an older RX470 on EBay and got £300 quid for it. He bought it new for £150.
Intel are currently way over priced at the moment. Due to the large monolithic die (Compared to AMDs glued together small dies) 
If you compare an Intel i7 6700k (quad core 8 thread) it will set you back £278.
For an AMD 1600 (6 core 12 thread) which is compatible from a single threaded performance point of view and 50% more cores Going for an AMD build is a no brainer.

strumjoughlamps

Anyone with knowledge of GTX 970 card?

Axe_meister

Equivalent to a GTX 1060 but DX11 only

Sporky

I got mine from Lapodo.

Alienware Alpha R2 Steam i5-6400T 2.8GHz 2GB  AMD M470X 1TB 8GB W10

strumjoughlamps

Cheers for input guys, I have found an Alienware Alpha R1 at a price that would have been silly to pass up..

so I will see how it goes and see if does what I am after.