400 euro budget for gaming pc

ryanb28

i have 400 euro to put towards a new gaming pc. Whats the best system i can get for this money? i want to try and build it myself to reduce cost

BloodBath

With that budget your best bet would be keeping an eye out for second hand bargains on adverts.ie.

You will get a lot more for your money than building anything.

TerrorFirmer

There's a guy on adverts selling these for 400, pretty good base to work from. Graphics card is old but will still play all the latest games OK-ish, you can replace the card down the line when you've more money and at that point it'd be good for anything at ultra settings really. Comes with an SSD and 2TB hard drive which you can't argue with at that price.

BloodBath

This also looks good, a bit over your budget but it comes with a much nicer case and a better graphics card. The CPU is a little weaker though.

http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/gaming-pc/12051671

TerrorFirmer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

There's a guy on adverts selling these for 400, pretty good base to work from. Graphics card is old but will still play all the latest games OK-ish, you can replace the card down the line when you've more money and at that point it'd be good for anything at ultra settings really. Comes with an SSD and 2TB hard drive which you can't argue with at that price.

I bought a monitor from that guy on saturday. Really nice guy and knows his stuff.

Alpha8

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor (£59.70 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI B250M PRO-VD Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£67.28 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£52.13 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 2GB Mini Video Card (£107.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: be quiet! System Power 8 400W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£39.99 @ Amazon UK)
Other: CiT F3 White Midi Gaming Case With 12cm Blue LED Fan & Black Stripe (£24.80 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £351.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-11 21:08 BST+0100

Best I could do if you're buying new, as for storage CEX has some cheap hard drives that will get this system going. Hope this helps

Billy86

OP, best I could find all first hand was €415 (includes all delivery charges and conversion rates), but if you keep an eye out on the items on Amazon, RAM especially, you could save €20-30. I got an 8GB Crucial (reputable company) stick for about €33-35 from them back in October. Some of these items are on sale though as is, so try jumping on them if you can while they're still available.

One thing to mention before: as far as I can see, you'll need to run a BIOS update on this motherboard for it to work with that card (same for the build post above). What that means is you need to know someone with a 'Skylake' generation CPU that you can pop into the motherboard when you first turn it on to update it to read the G4560 chip. I could be wrong on this, but have read that a few times about G4560 chips. I am unsure, but someone in here might be able to let you know if any computer shops will do it for you otherwise.

Another thing is that I have used the GTX 1050 card here because of how tight you budget is, but would seriously recommend you spending a little extra for a GTX 1050 TI or RX470 card. Others here could explain in more detail since I'm not much of expert on this stuff, but basically the 2GB of VRAM is going to get pretty restrictive, pretty quickly. While people say the 470 is about the same price as the 1050 TI, I've never found that to be true - you should be paying about €30 extra for the 1050 TI model than below, and about €80 extra for the RX470... but both are 4GB VRAM cards, which even if playing on ultra high graphics settings isn't a priority will still give the card a lot more lifespan.
GTX 1050 TIs: https://www.mindfactory.de/search_result.php?search_query=gtx+1050+ti&x=0&y=0
RX 470s: https://www.mindfactory.de/search_result.php/search_query/rx+470/Hardware/Grafikkarten+(VGA)/Radeon+RX+Serie/RX+470.html

Another alternative is seeing you can find anyone selling older, high end cards second hand on ebay, this is a handy quick reference guide to the best-to-worst tiers of cards: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gpu-hierarchy,review-33383.html . I bought my GPU (GTX970) second hand a year ago and it has been 100% perfect for me. I took a glance and from UK sellers you can get the likes of GTX780s and 960s for under €100, and 750 TIs, 480s and 660s for under €50, I'm sure people in here can more than help you out about what might represent good value and what can be expected from each.
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Palit-GTX750TI-/232300636047?hash=item361632678f:g:qRoAAOSw03lY4-6-
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/ZOTAC-GTX-750-Ti-2GB-/322477205403?hash=item4b1523a79b:g:nZAAAOSwB-1Y6LzB
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/BOXED-MSI-Gaming-4G-GeForce-GTX-960-OC-4Gb-GDDR5-PC-Graphics-Video-Display-Card-/322482189948?hash=item4b156fb67c:g:AjsAAOSwls5Y70P4
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/MSI-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-780-Ti-3072-MB-GTX780TIGAMING3G-Graphics-Card-/132157128665?hash=item1ec52dbfd9:g:f-wAAOSw03lY53Jb

If you go with one of the cards under 50 you could have the whole thing done up for about 365, but I would be advising you to start putting a few Euros a month away pretty soon, because you'd likely need to replace it in the next 12-18 months.



Anyway, the build... delivery is free on everything below except for €8 on the CPU (which is included in the price and still winds up cheaper than Amazon).

Mindfactory:
CPU: G4560, €65.66 https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Intel-Pentium-G4560-2x-3-50GHz-So-1151-BOX_1136476.html

GPU: GTX1050 2GB, €109.80 https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/2GB-KFA2-GeForce-GTX-1050-OC-Aktiv-PCIe-3-0-x16--Retail-_1126381.html

Amazon UK
Storage: 500GB HDD, €46.94 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0151KM1WS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

RAM: 8GB, €65.19 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Computers-Accessories/Crucial-Single-DDR4-2400-PC4-192000-288-Pin-Memory/B019FRED60/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492130169&sr=1-3&keywords=ddr4%2Bram&th=1

PSU: 400W, €33.89 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Master-Hyper-RR-212X-17PK-R1-Heatpipes/dp/B01ARGVNV6/ref=sr_1_12?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492129373&sr=1-12&keywords=psu (couldn't find it on PC Part Picker for some reason)

Motherboard: H110M, €58.60 https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-H110M-PRO-D-LGA1151-Micro-ATX-Motherboard/dp/B018XP3AI2/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492130471&sr=1-3&keywords=1151+motherboard

Case: €20.05, https://www.amazon.co.uk/DYNAMODE-DYNA-GC305-LockStock-Gaming-Computer/dp/B01KK5QBMU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_sims?ie=UTF8


Total: €414.73

EDIT:
Some games being ran on G4560 CPU and GTX 1050 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G3GgI7X4DY&t=310s
G4560 & 750 TI GPU - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwOxFUcnz2Y

Billy86

Another suggestion if you want to go down the second hand route:

1. GTX 970 GPU, €101.70 second hand off eBay - http://www.ebay.ie/itm/GTX-970-Mini-ITX-/122436990473?hash=item1c81d03609:g:QW0AAOSwuLZY6Rna
*I have this card and it is fantastic for 1080p gaming, I can get 60fps or as good as on just about any game at the absolute highest settings (Rise of the Tomb Raider, GTAV, Metal Gear Solid 5, Witcher 3 which are all amongst the most demanding games out there).

2. Second hand PC, €103.60 - http://www.ebay.ie/itm/HP-Compaq-Desktop-Elite-800-G1-SFF-Core-i5-4590-3-3GHz-4GB-RAM-500GB-WARRANTY-/142345447444?hash=item2124732814:g:YeYAAOSwc49Y7Opq
**This comes with an i5 4590 CPU which for your price range would be very good - coupled with the GTX 970 I am pretty sure it would allow you to play almost any game on high/ultra settings at 1080p at 60fps. It also has 500GB HDD which isn't huge but will allow you to have your OS and such, as well as a good number of games installed at one time. On top of that, it will cover your motherboard and 4GB of RAM -though you will need to figure out if it is DDR3 or DDR4 RAM (€25-30 on Amazon UK) and get another 4GB to go with it.

3. 4GB DDR3 or DDR4 RAM, €25-30.

And you will probably need...

4. A new case, since I'm pretty sure that one on ebay won't fit a graphics card. For this, you need to find out if the motherboard if mATX or mITX. If you just want the cheapest case possible, it should only be €20-25 on Amazon.

5. Possibly a new power supply, depending on the strength of the one that comes with that PC. Not certain, but I would guess about 400w would be the bare minimum you would need. With that CPU & GPU though, if you need to buy a new one I would recommend going for 450-500w. I actually missed an even cheaper on yesterday that you can get for $22.50 (free delivery) on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Power-Supplies/Silence-500W-ATX-12CM-Silent-SATA-MOLEX/B00P2GE38C/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492193283&sr=1-1&keywords=450w+psu

That's the makings of a very, very good gaming PC for about €230, €250 or €275 depending on if you need a new case and/or PSU, leaving you with €125-150 to build up a games library, get some controllers, a decent wireless keyboard and mouse if you want (about €10-15 each on Amazon) and so on.

TerrorFirmer

You do realise you're linking to live auctions in both your posts?

The final selling prices will be much higher, that's how Ebay works. Those aren't the 'buy it now' prices and are not even close to what the final going for price will be.

There's still 4 days left to go in some of the auctions you've linked to.

Billy86

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

You do realise you're linking to live auctions in both your posts?

The final selling prices will be much higher, that's how Ebay works. Those aren't the 'buy it now' prices and are not even close to what the final going for price will be.

There's still 4 days left to go in some of the auctions you've linked to.

Good point, just throwing out some suggestions for the guy - slipped my mind altogether.

Here's some off of Done Deal instead, all sellers based in Ireland:
https://www.donedeal.co.uk/pc-for-sale/i7-3770s-3-1ghz-4gb-500gb-dell-optiplex-7010usff/15235303
i7 3770, 500GB Hdd, 4GB RAM, motherboard and hopefully PSU covered for €150

Add on the new case and 4GB of RAM = €50 approx from Amazon

GPU - R9 270, €70 - https://www.donedeal.co.uk/pc-for-sale/msi-r9-270-gpu-graphics-card-oc-edition-2gb/15229797
or
GPU - GTX 970, €150 - https://www.donedeal.ie/pc-for-sale/msi-nvidia-gtx-970-gaming-twin-frozr/15109843

Total (R9 270) = €270
Total (GTX970) = €350
+ potentially €25 more to either if a new PSU is needed.

minitrue

Those Dell systems are weird and I'm pretty sure you will be in a huge world of pain trying to transplant it into another case and even if you manage that and wire up all the vital connectors there's a fair chance the pci-e slot won't stably run those sort of gpus (they only supply 50W of power). If going the second hand route I'd really stick with something that will take your video card without attempting to transplant it.

Billy86

minitrue wrote: »

Those Dell systems are weird and I'm pretty sure you will be in a huge world of pain trying to transplant it into another case and even if you manage that and wire up all the vital connectors there's a fair chance the pci-e slot won't stably run those sort of gpus (they only supply 50W of power). If going the second hand route I'd really stick with something that will take your video card without attempting to transplant it.

Is the issue the motherboard or just the entire system?

Either way, third attempt!

https://www.donedeal.ie/pc-for-sale/lenovo-desktop-intel-i5-3-10ghz-4gb-ram-1tb/14414449
€150... According to the description, it is set to fit a GPU. Weaker CPU but still reasonable for this budget I would assume, and not needing a new case means it would be €25 just for the RAM added on and not €50, so €245 or €325 depending on the GPU selected, plus €25 if a new PSU is needed.

or

https://www.donedeal.ie/pc-for-sale/desktop-pc-hp-compaq/14950293
€80... Suitable case, motherboard, 4GB ram, 500GB HDD, hopefully PSU. I'm not certain, but pretty sure it would need a new CPU.

+4GB RAM brings it to €105
+ Either R9 270 or GTX 970 for €70 or €150 = €175 or €255

Only thing left is possibly a €25 PSU and of course the CPU. Would the G4560 (€65) work on an older motherboard, and if not what would be a suitable GPU? I found an i5 3470S on ebay with a 'buy it now' price of around €65 including p&p, there are a few desktop models in the €65-70 region.
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Intel-Core-i5-3470S-2-9GHz-Quad-Core-Processor-LGA1155-Perfect-Order-Look-/252865239501?hash=item3adff159cd:g:S4oAAOSwB-1Y8Ghl

Which would bring it to €240 or €320 depending on the GPU selected, €25 more if a new PSU is needed.


Either would leave enough money for a bog basic keyboard, mouse, a few games, and an Xbox controller or two cheaper brand ones for the €400 budget and/or said new PSU if required.

minitrue

The motherboard is the big problem, you've already cleared up that a new case would be needed anyway just to fit a gpu but the board connectors are odd on top of the pci-e power issues.

The lenovo with his low profile gtx1050ti (and another 4GB and maybe even an ssd) would strike me as a possibility. Low profile makes it a bit awkward on top of the usual odd things you have to watch out for on those big manufacturer custom boxes but as you can get the seller to supply everything you should get something decent enough for the money and working.

The compaq has a core2duo and not going to be worth considering.

Saying all that, I'm not great with second hand stuff as a rule, I suspect the 400 euro one terrorfirmer pointed to before was a better bet but he's sold them all now it seems.

Billy86

Hopefully the OP picked up on one of those, so!

Otherwise would the Compaq issue not be solved by getting a new CPU like the €65 i5-3470 I pointed to?

Had not spotted the low profile requirement on the Lenovo. A new motherboard could be got for about €50 still keeping the total price well under €400, though the 1050 TI LP would push it over that (a 1050 standard LP would keep it below). Compaq with a new CPU would seem the better value at that stage, coming in at €55 less with a stronger CPU if that is doable, and keeps the 270/970 options available.

Would generally agree re second hand though, just giving alternatives as I posted an option last night with all new stuff at €414 (that might be able to be reduced to just barely under €400 with a cheaper PSU and a few quid off the RAM somewhere). The one thing that would be required for that build though would be the OP finding someone willing to give the skylake mobo a quick bios update to work with the G4560. Possibly that build with a better, albeit second hand GPU (4GB GTX 960 for €20 more? http://www.adverts.ie/graphics-cards/gigabyte-gtx960-4gb-oc/12649598 ) That would push slightly above the €400 budget again, but surely fore the extra performance it would be worth it?

TerrorFirmer

Think you need to do a bit of research before making all these recommendations, as to be honest you'll end up giving someone really bad advice!

You can't just slot any CPU into any motherboard - it needs to be the correct socket type, that Compaq for example is Core 2 Duo. Since that era, there has been socket 1156, 1366, 1155, 1150, 2011, 1151, etc....so it's six or seven generations out of date.

That Lenovo would technically work but you're limited to a low profile card and stock power supply - you also have the issue of finding a card that fits as these cases can be very tight on space and often the pci-e lane is very close to the PSU and dual slot coolers won't fit. Not to mention you have zero upgrade potential, even if the GTX1050Ti does fit, and heat may be a problem.

Majority of those Dell/Lenovo/HP/etc type machines do not use standard PSU's, so it's not possible to replace them/transplant them into a new case. Some older Dells from around 2010-2013 use standard parts but not all. Some older HP/Compaq machines also have bios issues with newer cards so anything modern may not work in them.

The best candidates for re-transplanting are Dell Ivy/Sandy bridge based full size Optiplex's. Most of these used standard ATX boards and power supplies so they can be transplanted.

That guy on adverts still has more of those PC's here.