PC Building - UK

[suffud]

In the next few months once my house move is sorted, I'm hoping to start putting some cash aside to upgrade to a PC rather than my 10 year old gaming laptop which is struggling now. I won't be able to spend something like 2k on a PC sadly, but 1k might be managable depending how much I can put aside each month saving wise. Plus some luck selling of older Valuable Yu-gi-oh trading cards to add to the cash pot. 

 

Does anybody have any advise in regards of to which websites are good for buying? I'd rather not go to stores like Curry's which will be overpricing. Also the build part wise in general will be alien for me. Being able to play a game such as Assassins creed Valhalla, Call of duty, Helldivers and Age of Empires ect on it would be nice, just not needing top settings. 

[Lee Cable]

So - I used PCpartpicker and then searched for each of my parts online that fit my budget! Some were amazon, and some actually ended up coming for currys as they had an offer on at the time! 

 

Generally i'd advise not getting a second hand graphics card anymore, as it'll almost certainly have been used for crypto. 3200mhz ram is more than enough too. Dont be lured into the super speedy stuff. You'll see very very very minimal FPS improvements and it just doesnt justify the extra cost. You'll want a decent m.2 drive, any of the samsung evo lot are really good. 

 

There are tons and tons of guides and build guides on youtube to look at and they'll walk you through it. Building really isnt as hard as you may think it is! Any issues, just ping me on discord, but genuinely you'll be fine! 

[Mushroom]

a prebuilt gaming pc from scan or overclockers at around 1000-1500 is the way to go (if your not looking to spec and build up a custom one yourself)...

 

dont even bother with other companies...

 

if you built it yourself with parts found at their cheapest prices using pcpartpicker website you might save up to 20% or more compared to a prebuilt option from scan/overclockers. sense of achievement too as you built it yourself, know each part and if it came to repair/troubleshooting or upgrading later then you are more equipped as you did it yourself

 

buying second hand on facebook or ebay could be a good shout, it would be much cheaper but you would need to get inside the case and clean it up, previous owner might have cats or a smoker or spilt a can of coke on it (lol) at the very least clean the fan filters and sitting dust... then you would probably want to update/replace a few parts but you would just replace latest graphics card if it needs it and a new storage device

buying an old yet excellent machine with a 3950, 5950 or 7950 ryzen cpu at its heart and enough RAM 16 or 32gb+, then just updating graphics card and putting new storage in would be best bet for value. you can get a 4tb pcie ssd for quite cheap nowadays

 

the youtube channel linus tech tips is a good place to go for info on this, they always say its far cheaper and economical to get individual parts second hand and put them together, or buy a decent machine (3950 or 5950 ryzen - lots of cores) second hand from up to 3-5 years ago and upgrade only the graphics card 

Edited December 9 by Mushroom

[Mushroom]

you can also time buying second hand parts according to the market, for example if there is new cpu coming out, just been released or is expected over next month, then people will be selling off their current gear in anticipation to get the new one, as lee said dont buy a second hand graphics card, i would add to that and say dont get a 3+ year old second hand power supply

 

look at the attached pic

 

£650 for a 5950x and 64GB memory... sure its got a 1650 which is 4 generations ago and the memory is DDR4 which is last gen now, but you just need to buy a new graphics card at about £300? 400? a proper capable PC for £1000 there

 

i bet with searching you can get similar as this £650 deal (5950x + 64GB ram) for about £300, then you low ball them a offer of £250 and they will probably accept. then you say you dont want the graphics card and knock £20-50 further off the price. £200? for that? nice! a new £300 graphics card and your "capable PC" costing £1000 now has cost you only £500 

 

Edited December 9 by Mushroom

[Mushroom]

one thing i forgot to mention, you want a decent monitor and half decent peripherals

 

if your budget is £1000 for the pc then you will want to add maybe 1/3 of that price on top(£300-350) for a good sized monitor with a high quality panel.

 

your pc might be able to run these games at a average/high quality or resolution but you will need to spend on a monitor, as that what you will actually be using to see (avoid TN and VN panels)

[Lillefigo]

If I were to build a PC at a £1000 budget (minus monitor and keyboard/mouse) I would probably go for something like this:

It's on the AM5 platform so it's compatable with future AMD cpus, and I've put in a decent case, motherboard, ram, power supply and storage. The CPU is decent for gaming, while the GPU is decent, but an easy upgrade 2 years down the line if you want to spend more then. 

Some others might arrest me and say put everything you can on the GPU, but I'd rather build a good platform and upgrade the GPU at one point if you feel the need.

Edited December 11 by Lillefigo

[Armybuilder]

Scan only one worth looking at imho

[suffud]

Thanks for the replies everybody. In Feb I'll be starting to plan this as the January paycheck is going towards late Christmas gifts due to the move for my partner. Also crap like Blackout Curtains and a new Washing Machine. Plus need to sort the loft or box room, get space for actually having the PC set up.  

I did plan on adding the monitor cost on top of the PC, along with a Desk. It's still gonna be a few months, likely May/June unless cards sell of well. 

 

All the PC part stuff has such long ass names too, kind of intimidating. The Websites mentioned will help for sure, always wary of scam sites too since parts are so expensive. 

I take it the Crypto mining stuff pretty much burns out the graphics cards or something similar?