Noob PC Builder - €400 gaming pc

Effluo · 22-06-2011 12:44am #1

Alright lads,

Haven't posted here for a good while, but here I am and naturally enough I'm looking for a bit of input.

So I have a mate that's looking for a new pc for around 400-450 euro, closer to €400 tho(incl. OS).

This guy is pretty young and I don't want to recommend him a pc which ends up having a load of driver issues like many complete builds tend to do. So as an alternative I was thinking that maybe if he bought a midi-tower Dell or Lenovo ready made desktop and then just threw in a low powered GPU he could get a machine that's capable of playing some games at a HD resolution.

I haven't been keeping up with the world of components so much of late and so am not sure what the best card for this purpose would be. Order of the day is low power consumption(due to crummy psu in ready made pc) and low cost.

Would like a bit of input into if people think my reasoning makes any sense. And suggestions on Desktops and GPU's.

Thanks

deconduo · 22-06-2011 1:00am

Including OS is a tall order. If he's a student you can get Win 7 for €45. Then you could do something like this:

Total build cost: €346.79 + €30 shipping
4GB-Kit Corsair Twin3X4096-1333C9A DDR3, CL9 €30.59
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB, SATA II (HD502HJ) €33.59
Samsung SH-222AB bare schwarz SATA €17.83
Xigmatek Asgard, ATX, ohne Netzteil, schwarz €31.61
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €41.17
AMD Athlon II X3 450 "Boxed" 95W, Sockel AM3 €59.54
MSI 760GM-P33, Sockel AM3, mATX, PCIe €42.83
XFX RADEON HD 5770 1GB DDR5 DP HDMI DUAL DVI €89.63

Effluo · 22-06-2011 1:35am

Idea is that I get a prebuilt desktop and just stick a low power GPU in it.

Not a full build as he's a bit of a noob and I'm not sure if he'd be ready to test each component if something went wrong etc.

marco_polo · 22-06-2011 1:43am

It just seems that complete builds have way more driver issues, because the success stories never get any thread time around here.

Solitaire · 22-06-2011 2:15am

So long as its set up to work straight off the bat a custom build would not have any driver issues greater than the OEM jobbies. Both would still need a load of stuff meticulously reinstalled if they had to be formatted, and both will need at least some driver updates from time to time. On the other hand, OEM systems don't have the highest hardware reliability...

Mister Man · 22-06-2011 4:39am

Don't buy a prebuild PC. It's just a terrible idea! Wasting extra money that could be spend on a better CPU/GPU or whatever. Just build the PC For him. Driver issues are always minor things anyway, I'm sure he could sort it himself, or you could do it for him?

Monotype · 22-06-2011 5:48am

If you build your own, the user won't have to deal with a load of bloatware and pop-ups of trials expiring!

Effluo · 22-06-2011 10:44am

Well tbh Marco_Polo I can only speak about my own limited experiences with PC building and that hasn't always been great. Even though I'm a huge advocate of building pc's and am personally really happy with my own. I think the number of thread's relating to building/driver issues on this forum is a testament to the problems that often occur.

Mister Man wrote: »

Just build the PC For him.

I don't mean to sound like an ass, but this is one thing I will not be doing. One thing I do have a lot of experience in is friends getting extensive free technical advice and there's a reason why people get paid for doing that job. Either way I'm not currently in the country, so that won't be happening.

What I was thinking was that if something went wrong with the PC he could simply send it back to where he got it(minus the GPU) and they'd sort it for him.

He'd get a reasonably capable pc that can play a game now and again for the same money which he was probably going to spend on a pc that couldn't do anything particularly well. He gets to talk to their own technical support if anything goes wrong and I am safe in the knowledge that if one the components comes DOA, that I don't have to talk to him for 2 hours on the telephone every night trying to troubleshoot and then RMA the part back to Germany.

The situation is, is that there's someone who has a small budget and little technical knowledge. It's not ideal, but that's the situation and tbh I'm not going to be his technical support. I think that going the prebuilt route is the only way that he's going to get a capable pc for the money he has to spend.

Something like this:
http://www.dabs.ie/products/acer-aspire-x1900-pdc-e5800-3gb-500gb-dvd-win7-7GTV.html

Along with a low powered card seems like a good option to me. Prebuilt PC's at this price point really aren't that bad value.

IrishMetalhead · 22-06-2011 11:04am

Effluo wrote: »

Well tbh Marco_Polo I can only speak about my own limited experiences with PC building and that hasn't always been great. Even though I'm a huge advocate of building pc's and am personally really happy with my own. I think the number of thread's relating to building/driver issues on this forum is a testament to the problems that often occur.

I don't mean to sound like an ass, but this is one thing I will not be doing. One thing I do have a lot of experience in is friends getting extensive free technical advice and there's a reason why people get paid for doing that job. Either way I'm not currently in the country, so that won't be happening.

What I was thinking was that if something went wrong with the PC he could simply send it back to where he got it(minus the GPU) and they'd sort it for him.

He'd get a reasonably capable pc that can play a game now and again for the same money which he was probably going to spend on a pc that couldn't do anything particularly well. He gets to talk to their own technical support if anything goes wrong and I am safe in the knowledge that if one the components comes DOA, that I don't have to talk to him for 2 hours on the telephone every night trying to troubleshoot and then RMA the part back to Germany.

The situation is, is that there's someone who has a small budget and little technical knowledge. It's not ideal, but that's the situation and tbh I'm not going to be his technical support. I think that going the prebuilt route is the only way that he's going to get a capable pc for the money he has to spend.

Something like this:
http://www.dabs.ie/products/acer-aspire-x1900-pdc-e5800-3gb-500gb-dvd-win7-7GTV.html

Along with a low powered card seems like a good option to me. Prebuilt PC's at this price point really aren't that bad value.

the reason you hear about issues on this thread is because people only post about there pc when theres something wrong with it they never post when all is well with it, i've built countless pc's in my short time and only 2 of them had issues and even then they turned out to be hardware where they just need to be rma'd, so in all honesty the success rate is higher or on par with pre built oem pc's considering most repair jobs i do is on new oem pc's and not on any custom systems

Effluo · 22-06-2011 11:16am

IrishMetalhead wrote: »

considering most repair jobs i do is on new oem pc's and not on any custom systems

It's likely that most people who build their own pc's generally have a lot more technical knowledge. If I couldn't fix problems myself then an IT technician would have had to have been over at my house around 10 times in the last two years.

That being said... Half of those were down to vista xD

Mister Man · 22-06-2011 1:30pm

Effluo wrote: »

What I was thinking was that if something went wrong with the PC he could simply send it back to where he got it(minus the GPU) and they'd sort it for him.

Warranty is void once you open a case as far as I know, so that whole idea of just taking the new GPU out and sending it back is out the window.

That Acer is a serious waste of money. Dual Pentiums aren't a great CPU, For the same price he could get something much better.

For the same price of getting that Acer, he could get better parts & pay someone to set it all up for him.

deconduo · 22-06-2011 1:35pm

HWVS will put everything together for €20, or if you're in Dublin CC I'll do it for free.

Effluo · 22-06-2011 2:35pm

Mister Man wrote: »

Warranty is void once you open a case as far as I know, so that whole idea of just taking the new GPU out and sending it back is out the window.

There's bound to be at least one manufacturer which allows you to put something else in the PC and keep your warranty. For instance, you always see people buying a pc and sticking an extra bit of ram in there once they get it and I don't think they all lost their warranties over it.

Also... I'm getting a lot of bashing here

Just saying "Prebuilds are crap" isn't really helping me. There comes a price point where "Off the shelf" pc's beat prebuilds on convenience and price and even performance sometimes. Self-build pc's aren't for everyone, for instance I wouldn't give my mother one. We're all reasonably techy here and maybe ye are forgetting about the value of a warranty to lay people.

€400, prebuilt including an OS installed, with some kind of tech support and gaming capabilities is what my mate is looking for. What's the best he can get?

IrishMetalhead · 22-06-2011 3:10pm

you can get prebuillt pc's for less then €400 however they'd be useless for gaming like that acer you posted earlier which has a pentium dual core which arn't so good (not to meantion that it's a slim desktop aswell so a standard gpu wouldn't fit in it) and would than likely have intergrated graphics which means you'll have to buy a gpu anyway and more than likely upgrade the psu which means you'll be looking to spend well over the budget, also ironic that you said you wouldn't give your mother a custom builded pc when i've infact have built one for my mother for €300 where as it would of cost here €500+ for a prebuilt pc and it still hasn't had any problem now that it's close to 3 years old thats an achievment =]
so in short what i am saying custom pc's can be everyone and has the same chance of failing as pre-built pc's and i think everyone can agree with me here but the more basic the set-up like what your friend is looking for is less likely it will fail espiecally when you get someone well experience to build it for you so i cannot recommend a decent prebuilt gaming pc for less then €400 because it's just not possible unless you go second hand which isn't a good idea

Effluo · 22-06-2011 3:55pm

I bet your mother uses ever bit of the processing power of that €500 pc xD

Case:
Yes, it looks as though the case on that particular PC is slim which obviously won't do, but similar spec would surely be available(with a midi-tower) for the same price.

PSU:
On the point of PSU, yes the PSU in the prebuilt will suck, but it will most likely have a reasonable overhead which would allow for a low powered GPU as shown with many other people who have done what my initial idea was in the past.

Pentium:
That pentium processor is fine though, Games generally aren't CPU limited, certainly not in desktops anyway and that CPU (if you check the benchmarks) holds it's own pretty well and would suit fine for the task required.

Maybe I'll ask my question in a different way then. What's the best the best gaming pc for €400?

Komplett-Tech: Ryan · 22-06-2011 4:16pm

Hmm 400euro gaming PC. Thats a fairly tough challange. I'd say go with a cheap prebuilt machine and throw in a graphics card with whatever money you have left. The only thing we would have in stock that is in your price range, and is also somewhat upgrdeable is a HP G5210nl (Search our site)

Moon54 · 22-06-2011 4:27pm

€400, prebuilt including an OS installed, with some kind of tech support and gaming capabilities is what my mate is looking for. What's the best he can get?

Your best bet might be to get a basic Dell desktop like this Inspiron 560 Quad Core for €369;
http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-560/pd
and upgrading it with decent graphics card.

I don't know what PSU the 560 has, so I can't recommend a particular card,
but I'd imagine adding a low-power one, eg a ~100watt card like the ATI 5770 or similar, should be OK.

You'd have a 1 year warranty, tech support and the Win 7 64-bit is preinstalled.

Effluo · 22-06-2011 4:33pm

Komplett-Tech: Ryan wrote: »

Hmm 400euro gaming PC. Thats a fairly tough challange. I'd say go with a cheap prebuilt machine and throw in a graphics card with whatever money you have left. The only thing we would have in stock that is in your price range, and is also somewhat upgrdeable is a HP G5210nl (Search our site)

Thank you

xD

I thought I was alone here

Also, now that you're handy can you confirm that if a new GPU was put into that HP would the Warranty be voided?
Cheers

I think the main factor in this working out is that he could upgrade the GPU and be in the knowledge that it won't void his warranty. That will prolly limit which Manufacturer he could go for.

Edit: Just checked out the HP, processor seems weak in comparison to the spec I posted earlier

marco_polo · 22-06-2011 4:36pm

Moon54 wrote: »

Your best bet might be to get a basic Dell desktop like this Inspiron 560 Quad Core for €369;
http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-560/pd
and upgrading it with decent graphics card.

I don't know what PSU the 560 has, so I can't recommend a particular card,
but I'd imagine adding a low-power one, eg a ~100watt card like the ATI 5770 or similar, should be OK.

You'd have a 1 year warranty, tech support and the Win 7 64-bit is preinstalled.

300 Watt Power Supply int the tech specs, how much of that is 12V power is anybodies guess.

Solitaire · 22-06-2011 4:39pm

Its a bad time to do that though, especially for systems that will be powering a 720p or 768p monitor, as Socket FM1 is around the corner at this point and unless AMD goes mad charging crazy prices to OEMs (which I somehow doubt, as Llano's a budget platform) then you should be seeing cheap OEM machines with reasonable integrated graphics cropping up from next month onward.

Komplett-Tech: Ryan · 22-06-2011 4:39pm

Nah not at all. The manufacturers arn't so stupid anymore. You are more then welcome to upgrade as you see fit and it will not effect the warranty. What will void the warranty is if they detect any damage as a result of upgrading. Bent pins, broken caps and that sort of thing. If you do go for a pre-built pc then have a look on adverts.ie for a nice cheap second hand card.

IrishMetalhead · 22-06-2011 4:42pm

lol not really an athlon x3 isn't that fast but fast enough to notice it's decent.
and i'm pretty sure most gpu's get bottlenecked by the old pentium dual core's.

anyways best gaming pc for €400? a custom pc, best pre built pc, something second hand, either you'd want it to have an AMD Athlon II processor as there best cpu's for sub €50 despite there age as there much better then the old pentiums and are genually cheaper.

Had a look on hardwareversand and here options for both prebuilt and custom:

Custom:

CPU: AMD Athlon II x2 255 - €48.71
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=30594&agid=1242

Motherboard: ASRock N68-GS3 - €35.69
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=39734&agid=1292

RAM: 4GB Corsair ValueSelect - €29.57
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=38051&agid=1192

Graphics Card: 1GB Club-3D Radeon HD6790 - €107.61
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=45287&agid=1004

HDD: 500GB Wester Digital Caviar Blue - €31.92
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=39670&agid=1342

Disc Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc AD-5260S DVD+RW - €17.70
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=36861&agid=699

Case: Xigmatek Asgard - €31.61
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=28607&agid=631

PSU: SuperFlower Amazon 450W - €41.17
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=30074&agid=1627

Shipping - €30

Total - €373.98

and your friend is only a young lad so he could more than likely get a copy of windows 7 for around €50

Prebuilt:

Desktop - €278
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=46349&agid=1718

Added RAM: 2GB Corsair Value Select - €15.29
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=35762&agid=1192

Graphics Card: 1GB Club-3D Radeon HD6790 - €107.61
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=45287&agid=1004

Shipping - €30

Total -€435.90

Komplett-Tech: Ryan · 22-06-2011 4:45pm

Surely the X2 would be the bottleneck in those systems? I've got one in my htpc here and it's a really underwheling CPU.

*Edit*

Was just looking through our site and i've found something that will suit your friend down to the ground It's even got a 1st gen i5!!. It is a litle bit more expensive, so he would need to find an extra 100euro. But its a fully built system with a half decent graphics card already installed. It's also not "too bad" looking for an off the shelf PC. Ooof.. Built in Wireless-n card too

*Edit 2*

Would help if i actually told you what it was.. The sku is 20056896, you can put that in the search bar and it will bring you directly to it.

Effluo · 22-06-2011 5:28pm

That other PC you linked to is far too expensive

Not sure about either of those builds tbh MetalHead.

The Pentium that's in the Acer is quite a bit more powerful than both that are in the systems you posted. Although i think the pentium would be fine for games, I wouldn't want to take "that" much off it.

I Like how you got the 6790 into both tho xD

@Solitaire, funnily enough I did read a few article about Llano, but I don't remember being totally overblown by it.
Do you think it will really be a market changer?

Jonny7 · 22-06-2011 5:28pm

Komplett-Tech: Ryan wrote: »

Hmm 400euro gaming PC. Thats a fairly tough challange. I'd say go with a cheap prebuilt machine and throw in a graphics card with whatever money you have left. The only thing we would have in stock that is in your price range, and is also somewhat upgrdeable is a HP G5210nl (Search our site)

Ryan.. when are Komplett gonna sell some prebuilt gaming pcs again?

Your only homegrown competition in Ireland are custompc and dell alienware and they both charge a fortune

I know you'd never beat hardwareversand for price.. but theres so many people who just want an entire machine only from Ireland and end up spending a mint on something on one of those other sites

Elmidena · 22-06-2011 5:38pm

Effluo wrote: »

It's likely that most people who build their own pc's generally have a lot more technical knowledge. If I couldn't fix problems myself then an IT technician would have had to have been over at my house around 10 times in the last two years.

That being said... Half of those were down to vista xD

Built mine a couple of weeks ago with no prior experience to it. Just read all the instruction books that came with them to make sure I was doing it in the right order. If your mate has trouble, instead of being 2+ hours on the phone to you every night when you're out of the country, tell him to consult forums online for assistance. That's also what I did and diagnosed that my PSU was faulty when it was randomly rebooting.

If he's ever made a jigsaw in his life I'm sure he'd be well able to manage throwing the parts together. The only real point he'd have to be extra careful with is the thermal paste, and not to prang the mobo on installation. Takes a few hours but it's not rocket science. For me, the hardest part was knowing what parts to order! Once he diagnoses a problem online, he could email or phone the manufacturer for whichever part accordingly.

Tar.Aldarion · 22-06-2011 7:59pm

You deffo want a new pc? maybe a second hand one off adverts or something? I game on something atm (new pc coming this week) that would only sell for 200-300 and its great.

You can get windows free in colleges a lot, I get most s/w from microsoft free due to college and I'm finished college. Maybe if he asks about in there, if he is a student that is.

Jonny7 wrote: »

Ryan.. when are Komplett gonna sell some prebuilt gaming pcs again?

Your only homegrown competition in Ireland are custompc and dell alienware and they both charge a fortune

I know you'd never beat hardwareversand for price.. but theres so many people who just want an entire machine only from Ireland and end up spending a mint on something on one of those other sites

I know the lad from games who does this in england http://www.glhf.co.uk/
a few irish sites wouldn't be bad!

Jonny7 · 22-06-2011 10:18pm

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I know the lad from games who does this in england http://www.glhf.co.uk/
a few irish sites wouldn't be bad!

wow.. not half bad

An Irish site like that would do plenty of business just from these forums

Komplett-Tech: Ryan · 23-06-2011 8:16am

Jonny7 wrote: »

Ryan.. when are Komplett gonna sell some prebuilt gaming pcs again?

Your only homegrown competition in Ireland are custompc and dell alienware and they both charge a fortune

I know you'd never beat hardwareversand for price.. but theres so many people who just want an entire machine only from Ireland and end up spending a mint on something on one of those other sites

It's something we would really like to bring back but the company feel that right now is not the correct time. I've actually built 20-30 pc's for Komplett customers ranging from cheap HTPC's to 4k monster builds. It's not a komplett service, but something i do for customers who want a custom pc, but don't want the trouble of making themselfs.

Komplett-Tech: Ryan · 23-06-2011 8:19am

Jonny7 wrote: »

wow.. not half bad

An Irish site like that would do plenty of business just from these forums

There is, one of the guys on boards.ie runs http://www.leetstreet.net/

Effluo · 28-06-2011 4:11pm

Right well after talking to him about it, he'd like to just get a second hand pc.
I saw Tar was saying he might have something for him, but anyway here's what I was looking at on adverts.ie

http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/dell-inspiron-530/684648
Maybe get this at around €210

Or this
http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/intel-core-2-duo-e6750-desktop/687930
for around €280 (if its PSU + Case is alright and fresh install of windows)

I like the first one because of the better CPU and price, but I don't like the fact that the PSU in those machines are apparently v low powered

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Inspiron#Inspiron_530

Is there any decent GPU going around with a low power consumption that could fit into that Inspiron 530? I remember the 4770 and the 4670 were great performers in that kind of range for a long time.

The second PC, PSU & Case depending could be a winner too if it goes for the right price. It would certainly play games better than the Inspiron.

What do you guys think?

Noob PC Builder - €400 gaming pc

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