# Cheap gaming PC



## bobclive22 (Apr 5, 2010)

Hi all,

Great grandson 14 years old want`s gaming PC, will this setup play latest games in high settings.

Will use second hand parts, CPU, graphics card and mother board.

i5 4690k Quad Core Haswell CPU
MSI Z97 Krait/Asus z97 PRO 1150 socket
GTX 960
8GB Kingston Hyper X RAM DDR3
500GB hard Drive
650 watt PSU


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## ashfinlayson (Oct 26, 2013)

Should be fine, only thing would improve matters would be a SSD.

You could get him some more ram for Xmas


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## bobclive22 (Apr 5, 2010)

Thanks,

Is 250gb SSD big enough.


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## ashfinlayson (Oct 26, 2013)

Id have thought so, could always add a 2nd drive later if space is required


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

Only personal pref but

Used best bang for buck gaming differences to the above system
1155 socket 2500k i5 (kind of a clock king still ,clocks 4.6 np some 4.8
suitable mbrd p67+ asus did a "military spec" one still around in "refreshed/guaranteed form"

gtx 1060 much better or 1050ti around the same as 960 but much lower power consumption,even clocked a little + hot hipower gx cards can get flaky used (overclocked) ..mine do , (hopefully the tt wont with wmi 

From the above you wouldnt need a 650watt psu a fully rated 500w would be fine + the 1050ti doesnt need a seperate gpu power lead at all.

250 ssd should be plenty as above, crucial one is nice + it includes acronis.dirt cheap 500gb hdd for backup/storing older games.
optical drive..like for £15 saves time if you buy a boxed dvd game.sure you can download from steam with the code alone but it takes awhile, the boxed dvd cuts a big chunk of dload time..hey g grandad this is taking ages ..maybe you even have an isp dload cap .
Some of the "gaming mice" are terrible even if they flash and have continuous fire buttons..anyway

What about the monitor?

Just ideas.


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

There is another option if you're still considering it.

The reason many /most go for K intel cpu's is they can be overclocked.The main thing on this (in the last 6 or seven years ) is that the applied core voltage shouldnt be over 1.4v.Youre taking a bit of a chance with used stuff that somebody gung ho may have run voltages in excess of that for a period of time.The cpu might still work ok but be flaky 
My 6 year old 2500k at 4.6 ghz will run anything in the gaming line, but so it will clocked back down to standard 3.3 and it has turbo 3.7.
The whole system gets a little tempramental  at the lower 1.2 type voltages .
Its been running at 1.35v so long etc  Im used to its little foibles .Kinda like TT without wmi 

What Im saying is a used unclocked cos it cant be cpu and motherboard will be a lot cheaper and safer for a cmas pressie.
The performance board may /may not have suffered a little over time with 400 bhp+ types also :lol:

The gx card..like a 1050 ti has limited overclock cababilities cos it has board only power(75w absolute max)

Oh there is one exception on non k or x overclocks. The skylake 6400 and 6500 cpu's can be overclocked (and hence hi voltages applied ) due to a bug intel werent happy about,so they might not be covered by a cant overvolt cos cant overclock safety net.


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

Imp:
The free windows 10 thing..
http://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-still-up ... -loophole/

There are other articles around with the same info.
This "offer" expires on 31st december .
Once you have upgraded you can create installable windows 10 on dvd or usb media so you can load it on another device or pc.
Also you need win 10 to run the v latest cpus coffeelake etc.

Just a heads up in case you build "lil Johnny's" pc with win 7 or 8 that you had lying around and then in the new year no free upgrade(copy).


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## Dash (Oct 5, 2008)

You don't need an power supply anywhere near that powerful. You won't use more than 200W for that, but I don't think you get below 400W these days. Overspeccing your PSU wrecks the efficiency.

Games these days tend to take between 10-50GB. Your operating system will take up less than 50GB. You can answer the size question yourself. If you run out of space you can buy more storage, or uninstall some old games.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Xbox one X,
You're not playing the latest AAA games on high setting with a 960 and 8GB of RAM running over a Haswell CPU.


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

Aside from the fact that pc gaming is dying a little..long topic but there are more pc ports from other platforms now, whereas it used to be the other way around.
Ive been pc gaming since civilisation began and even before when things were less populous and there was then an impending sense of Doom ..groan :lol: 
(bad puns).
Purely on gaming aspects since 2011 ,with an intel cpu,you wont find any noticeable difference between an i5 2500k and the latest coffeelake ,despite all the iterations between (even overclocked).

Other aspects like ddr3vsddr4(on the mainboard) are smoke and mirrors,what you gain on one hand ,you lose on timings and so on.
sli kinda dead in the water with modern gx cards
ssd sata 3 is plenty,(with the game/games and windows on it ) needed.
P67 + motherboard with usb 3.0 support yes. The real usb 3.1(2) extra speed, I think is beyond human reaction time speed for mouse /controller.
Wifi/lan"game killing"(kills all the other household broadband speeds) optimisation meh 
I suppose if everyone else is watching the sound of music dloaded onthe smart tv while "lil johhny" wants to kill aliens,ts on the sound of music watchers.

2500k(clocked)8gb ddr3 ,and say a 1050ti(4gb ddr5) will play any settings you like on available pc games ..unless you go for a dedicated 28 in + monitor with v high hd resolution.Start increasing the display size and hd resolution and you will slow things.

The trouble is buying anything used..even 4690's 6600's 7700's ..If someone has bricked the mboard or other components you could be sol. cpu's unless its been delidded or really thrashed are more friendly, but avoid "never been overclocked and watercooled since new" . Thats an oxymoron right there .
Someone goes to all the trouble of adding watercooling to the cpu and never overclocks it , when the standard intel aircooler would be plenty? :roll: .
I recently saw just such an advert for a 6600k cpu on ebay.It sold a little under the normal (like 106 vs 130) thatd be the "porky pie" effect.
There are some advertised gaming pc's with semi used bits ..275 gb ssd new about £80 on top of that.
Anyway , rambling..hows the gsons system progressing?


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Lots of good and useable info on the internet, build guides and alike etc.
8 series mainstream CPUs by design are 50% faster than the previous gen by virtue they have 6 cores vs 4 for around the same money in addition to the 15% increase gen to gen. So, lots of mis-information to be had too, therefore you will need to determine what you are trying to achieve. 
8400 is a good start and in gaming the CPU is what handles the physics of the environment you are playing within. M.2 is a factor of 4 faster than SATA3 SSDs, that should tell you lots and GPUs handle the assets of what you see on screen. 4K is where gaming is now, so bandwidth and fast VRAM are what you need, Gen 7 and 8 CPU have a bus speed of 8GT/s vs 5GT/s for previous offerings.

RGB lighting is not required.


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

For the op ,
There is no 4 to 6 multicore aspect for gaming and there hasnt been any 15% increase gen to gen on cpu gaming tic toc or not 
clocking or overclocking (if the cpu is capable long term) negates the cpu change cost to benefit ratio long term.
Specialised x cpus are a different story. Its still really i5 intel for gaming and any additional instruction sets with a new generation(even if supported) can be compensated for with increased clock speed.Therin lies some of the problem .Last gen i7 7700k could hardly be clocked at all on air without probs even tho the base speed was fast.
Marketing plays in to this a lot.

Its kinda like TT's . A mapped/clocked mk1 can hold its own no worries if the basic hardware is in good shape.Think of hybrid/BT's as the graphics components  .

For the past 6 years,aside from the buy the newest cos its best marketing,Ive kept an eye on my system.
gx updated from twin 460gtx to single 1050ti,ssd upgrade fine too for gaming.1080p 27 in monitor from 22 in etc.

All the bells and whistles new system would cost ..mm maybe £2000 with barely measureable rl "gameplay enhancement"
For sure go 4690k or 6600k but they all top out around 4.5Ghz unless you go weird /expensive cooling solutions.
2500k or 2600k i7 if you like tho it doesnt clock quite as well.
The problem is getting hold of unborked components 6 years on.
You wont get new ones from manufacturers.. show me the money.

Stay away from big dload benchmarks like futuremark and so on, they used to be good fun but are now advertising driven.
"buy new..its good for you" :lol:

lga 775 ahh nostalgia  then lga 1366 shone for awhile with triple channell ddr3.
Since then its really been 115xx pin sockets and not that much between them 
Lets add new chipset support for x i/o tehnology,
For gaming last 5 or 6 years. you wont notice or your grandson wont  .
Gx cards you will ...but 960 or 1050ti not really.1060 1070,1080 bigger action/bigger money.

I dont mention amd cpus/or non nvidia gx.. tried em over the years 

Anyway since I guess he isnt into model railways 
Heres a more friendly benchmark,4690 could probly do similar clocked.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/6314775
The gx,well this benchmark too is semi advertising orientated ,but a 1060 would provide all he needs,but would it be worth it.

ooh goes oooh stays you decide.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Clearly the above person doesn't work in technology as the basics are so flawed in the given comments. Under direct X 11 there's a slither of truth around core limits be it 4 actual cores or even 2 cores with hyperthreading, but under direct 12 that water mark moves to 6 or 8. Modern @triple A games" like Ashes of the Singularity take full advantage of the extra cores and you see this in better frame rates.

Quick google will show this. But the cost part will be more. Xbox one X, 1070 performance and cheap..!


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## barry_m2 (Jun 29, 2015)

Ive got a fairly decent spec gaming pc up for sale at the moment.

built it about 4 years ago and it's had very little use.

Silverstone FT03 Fortress Tower
Gigabyte Z77M D3H Motherboard
Intel i5 (3rd Gen) 3570 CPU 3.40GHz Quad Core (1155 Socket)
16GB RAM (4x4GB)
256GB Samsung SSD
2TB Samsung SATA Drive (in hot-swap bay)
NVidia GeForce GTX750 Ti 2GB Graphics Card
DVD+-RW
Windows 10 PRO installed


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

:lol: no just a rl long term pc gaming habit with a smattering of cost performance benefit analysis and an aversion to running "benchmarking suites" developed by board manufacturers to illustrate what their products can do, for sales  .
If dx12 games become de rigeur at some point ok but game suppliers cant afford alienate a 6-7 year user base right away.
You could allways get an old x58 rig and stick a now cheap xeon in


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

I'm simply pointing out the errors in the comments, but if you're happy with your results thats all that counts.

i'll just park this here..
"The way DirectX worked in the past was fine for the age in which it was created, however these days everyone has a multicore processor, perhaps with hyperthreading, and they may even have multiple graphics cards. Direct3D 11 attempted to speed up the process of sending tasks to the hardware to match with the more powerful components, but it was still flawed. With Direct3D 12, we have what's called a low-level API, offering developers more access to the hardware. The game itself can generate command lists in parallel and control when they're submitted to the GPU. This means there's less overhead, and as a result, the performance of your game is better. In essence, DirectX 12 has well-balanced parallel work distribution, and that means it can better utilize CPUs with multiple cores."

"All this means it's important to consider DirectX 12 when selecting your next processor, especially if you know you're going to be playing CPU demanding games."


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

Toshiba said:


> I'm simply pointing out the errors in the comments


Which errors, considering the thread title as opposed to whats the best you can get if money is no object ?


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

"Purely on gaming aspects since 2011 ,with an intel cpu,you wont find any noticeable difference between an i5 2500k and the latest coffeelake ,despite all the iterations between (even overclocked)."
Wrong on every level. CPU is responsible for frame rates and the game engine physics, it completely visible.

"There is no 4 to 6 multicore aspect for gaming and there hasnt been any 15% increase gen to gen on cpu gaming"
Wrong, on every level. 4 to 6 is a 50% increase and 6 to 7, 7 to 8 is over 15% in incremental performance each jump - thats a documented fact, not opinion.










"Other aspects like ddr3vsddr4(on the mainboard) are smoke and mirrors,what you gain on one hand ,you lose on timings and so on." More linked to the board and CPU, but DDR4 has a much wider bandwidth, 5GT/s vs 8GT/s this is how assets are moved around, again smoother and higher frame rates. The VRAM on the GPU is not infinite and 4k is x4 the amount of pixels vs 1080P.
Frame rate is king in MPS.

"For gaming last 5 or 6 years. you wont notice or your grandson wont" 
only if you are using a CRT!!!! :lol:

""benchmarking suites" developed by board manufacturers to illustrate what their products can do"
No, in game tests by gamers that measure the FPS, thats the true measure - but benchmarks like CINEBENCH are pretty much the standard for comparison in reviews.

I'm not advocating i7-8700k with 2 1080Tis - but you assertion that you wont see any "noticeable difference" is just not true.


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## 3TT3 (Aug 30, 2014)

Really?
A ss from an intel investors with sysmark optimised for intel processors  (and whatever new instruction sets added that will "mark good" )  .
15 or 20% from 2nd to 8th for gaming would be more like it (comparable core speeds).
Thats not saying there havent been minor improvements from 2500k to 8600k,but in a used market 2500k is half the price of a 6600k, not half the gaming performance. Age is the problem if items have been misused bad bios update etc, and the older it is the higher the chances

The 1050ti would be pretty close to a 960 and much less likely to be burned /flaky used (usingmbrd power only).
and in mho enough to run hi settings in 1080p,
A 970 would be better or a 1060 but would want to be a fav grandson  and then theres the monitor and synch.
1070 or 1080 cards well cost a lot... 
nb I do have an xga 17in crt still works , might be a collectors item some day 
Peruse these rl tests you can even look up higher power gx card examples.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/6314775
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/1950829
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4465135
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/4598088
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/5875913


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## Mark-TT (Mar 29, 2014)

I bought a GeForce GTX 970 2nd hand for my PC recently to replace my aging GTX 560 Ti and it's ideal for the latest games. It was much preferable paying £155 instead of £300+ for a higher end card. You can sometimes tell from the sticker in the picture how old the card is too. I noticed that mine was manufactured in February 2016 so that's not too old really.

The minimum you really want is the GTX 970 or 980. If buying new then the GTX 1060 6GB version is a good alternative. Not the 3GB version though because it doesn't have enough RAM.


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