Question Gaming pc under £800

[jd1883]

Looking at getting my son a new gaming pc, views on these two please, and any advice appreciated, fairly novice to all this.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/compu...ming-pc-1-tb-hdd-256-gb-ssd-10194262-pdt.html

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/compu...ming-pc-1-tb-hdd-120-gb-ssd-10195687-pdt.html

 

[Oussebon]

If you could nudge it £50 up there'd be this as an option:

AlphaSync Ryzen 5 8GB RAM 1TB HDD 240GB SSD RX 5600 XT Gaming Desktop PC

Buy our AlphaSync Ryzen 5 8GB RAM 1TB HDD 240GB SSD RX 5600 XT Gaming Desktop PC from our wide range of Gaming Pcs

www.ebuyer.com

Which has a slightly faster CPU than either, a better graphics card than either, and faster RAM. Also the case will have better airflow. It would be the better investment long-term, I think.

Of the two above, it's annoying. The Acer has the better graphics card so would - mostly - perform better in today's games. However the PC Specialist model has an R5 3600 CPU, which would make it more futureproof with regards to future GPU additions. And the 1660 (the GPU in the PCS build) while not as fast as the 1660 ti, is no slouch for modern gaming. Also if your son took up streaming you'd have better performance and more meaningful CPU upgrade options on the PCS one because of the platform they chose to build it on.

Nothing else in PC world's catalogue is close to as good value at that price point as those two - so if you are buying from PC World, then it is definitely between those two.

Not sure which I'd pick. Maybe the PCS one.

Note that if you did decide to buy the Acer, you could actually buy the same thing from PC Specialist directly:

PCSPECIALIST - Award winning Desktop PC Reviews, Review PCSpecialist

PCSpecialist is an award winning manufacturer of high quality computers and laptops, with reviews from many industry leading magazines and websites.

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

For £80 less - note the Sabre MK1 on that page. It's near enough the same spec as makes no difference.

If you don't mind buying refurbished there's this:

Refurbished PC Specialist Tornado R5 Ryzen 5 3600 8GB 1TB & 128GB GTX 1660 Windows 10 Gaming Desktop - Laptops Direct

Buy Refurbished PC Specialist Tornado R5 Ryzen 5 3600 8GB 1TB & 128GB GTX 1660 Windows 10 Gaming Desktop from LaptopsDirect

www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

Which is like the PC Specialist on PC World but with a better GPU (same one as the Acer) and £50 less.
There are a few other refurbs on there too with decent specs.

Of all of those, I'd probably suggest the ebuyer alphasync if the extra £50 is doable and you're not locked to buying from PC World.

 

[Zoid]

Looking at getting my son a new gaming pc

Buying a pre-built machine is certainly a fine way to go, and @Oussebon is steering you on the right track above. I just wanted to ask - have you considered building a custom gaming PC with your son?

Building a PC can be a great father-son bonding activity, which is why I always bring it up for consideration in posts like these. You can often end up with a better end product by building your own, and you're also more invested in the machine for having put it together yourself. The process of assembling parts is not difficult. With some patience and the appropriate amount of research (which we can help with), it could be a fun activity for you and your son.

Just figured I'd toss that out there

 

[jd1883]

If you could nudge it £50 up there'd be this as an option:

AlphaSync Ryzen 5 8GB RAM 1TB HDD 240GB SSD RX 5600 XT Gaming Desktop PC

Buy our AlphaSync Ryzen 5 8GB RAM 1TB HDD 240GB SSD RX 5600 XT Gaming Desktop PC from our wide range of Gaming Pcs

www.ebuyer.com

Which has a slightly faster CPU than either, a better graphics card than either, and faster RAM. Also the case will have better airflow. It would be the better investment long-term, I think.

Of the two above, it's annoying. The Acer has the better graphics card so would - mostly - perform better in today's games. However the PC Specialist model has an R5 3600 CPU, which would make it more futureproof with regards to future GPU additions. And the 1660 (the GPU in the PCS build) while not as fast as the 1660 ti, is no slouch for modern gaming. Also if your son took up streaming you'd have better performance and more meaningful CPU upgrade options on the PCS one because of the platform they chose to build it on.

Nothing else in PC world's catalogue is close to as good value at that price point as those two - so if you are buying from PC World, then it is definitely between those two.

Not sure which I'd pick. Maybe the PCS one.

Note that if you did decide to buy the Acer, you could actually buy the same thing from PC Specialist directly:

PCSPECIALIST - Award winning Desktop PC Reviews, Review PCSpecialist

PCSpecialist is an award winning manufacturer of high quality computers and laptops, with reviews from many industry leading magazines and websites.

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

For £80 less - note the Sabre MK1 on that page. It's near enough the same spec as makes no difference.

If you don't mind buying refurbished there's this:

Refurbished PC Specialist Tornado R5 Ryzen 5 3600 8GB 1TB & 128GB GTX 1660 Windows 10 Gaming Desktop - Laptops Direct

Buy Refurbished PC Specialist Tornado R5 Ryzen 5 3600 8GB 1TB & 128GB GTX 1660 Windows 10 Gaming Desktop from LaptopsDirect

www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

Which is like the PC Specialist on PC World but with a better GPU (same one as the Acer) and £50 less.
There are a few other refurbs on there too with decent specs.

Of all of those, I'd probably suggest the ebuyer alphasync if the extra £50 is doable and you're not locked to buying from PC World.

Thanks for that, not locked to pc world at all, those were just the best ones I could seem to find. You're right that if options could be switched round they'd make a better rig. What I don't want to happen is that in the next year or so he needs to upgrade. The worry I'd have with refurbs is the reliability and warranty.

 

[jd1883]

Buying a pre-built machine is certainly a fine way to go, and @Oussebon is steering you on the right track above. I just wanted to ask - have you considered building a custom gaming PC with your son?

Building a PC can be a great father-son bonding activity, which is why I always bring it up for consideration in posts like these. You can often end up with a better end product by building your own, and you're also more invested in the machine for having put it together yourself. The process of assembling parts is not difficult. With some patience and the appropriate amount of research (which we can help with), it could be a fun activity for you and your son.

Just figured I'd toss that out there

It's something I did think about, but was worried about making a costly mistake, although we have tinkered with his old rig with generally successful results, nothing that's had me digging deep to sort out. I'd have no idea where to start though with putting stuff together and deciding what goes with what. Also, with the prebuilt I could have they'd be here and running in less than a week. Still tempting though!

 

[Zoid]

It's something I did think about, but was worried about making a costly mistake, although we have tinkered with his old rig with generally successful results, nothing that's had me digging deep to sort out. I'd have no idea where to start though with putting stuff together and deciding what goes with what. Also, with the prebuilt I could have they'd be here and running in less than a week. Still tempting though!

Well, to give you an idea of where you could start, here's a parts list around your budget (although this doesn't include Windows) that would perform on par with the pre-builts you listed with a couple of advantages like 16GB of (faster) RAM and a full 1TB SSD. Depending on what local pricing you can get on a Windows license, you could probably fit one into the ~£800 price range by shaving some money off other components.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£155.50 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard (£94.98 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£69.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£100.97 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB OC Video Card (£219.97 @ Technextday)
Case: Corsair 275R Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case (£72.95 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£92.31 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £806.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-07 14:48 BST+0100

 

[Inspireless Llama]

The pro of a prebuilt PC could be that the pc as a whole has warranty. If something breaks, the entire PC has the same warranty. With a custom built PC you have different warranties for every different part.

A custom built PC does give you more options, I think that's the main pro. To this day I haven't figured out if it's actually cheaper or not. Another pro could be that IF you need something replaced, it's possible that it's easier to do over a prebuilt PC (depending on what kind you buy of course). From what I saw in youtube videos is that for example an alienware PC will be harder to replace parts on than one from ibuypower or a simular builder.

As for making costly mistakes: It's pretty hard to destroy your PC, the easiest mistake is getting incompatible parts, where PC partpicker will be a great help. Sometimes it will come with warnings that are false positives, but ask about them here, and people will be able to tell you if it's a false positive or an actual incompability.

Where are you ordering from? For me personally as a Dutchie (it's a small country) I think I could have my custom built PC up and running quicker than a prebuilt PC LOL. Since it's one day delivery everywhere here I'd have all my parts tomorrow. A prebuilt PC I'd order today, it would be built tomorrow and maybe even day after and then delivered the next day.


You possible could look at a custom PC like this:

Spoiler

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($172.39 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Best Buy)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($79.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial P2 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($64.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card ($229.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB510L ATX Mid Tower Case ($57.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 500 W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.97 @ Newegg)
Total: $770.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-07 09:59 EDT-0400

EDIT: UK version:


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£155.50 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (£108.50 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (£84.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial P2 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£67.15 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card (£260.52 @ Novatech)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB510L ATX Mid Tower Case (£48.12 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: be quiet! System Power 9 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£52.71 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £777.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-07 15:03 BST+0100

 

[Oussebon]

+£100 for the Windows licence, unfortunately.

If you put the same spec (ish) as the Alphasync into PC Partpicker it's £814.55 (including Windows), which is only a £35 saving off the list price.

Self building versus what a system integrator can achieve with mass purchasing isn't necessarily the best value option, though ofc you get more freedom of choice or can balance the system differently.

There are plenty of (good) video tutorials online for self building. It's ultimately just a more expensive version of Lego. Some linked here:

Page 5 - Novice building pc on the cheap, upgrade over time support.

Page 5 - Love gaming? Join the PC Gamer community to share that passion with gamers all around the world!

forums.pcgamer.com

As well as the price, prebuilds do have other advantages (e.g. it arrives, it doesn't turn on, you pick up the phone and make it someone else's problem).

Either way I suggest you watch a video or two, as even if you buy prebuilt at least it gives a sense of how your thing was built and perhaps a little insight into the components.

What I don't want to happen is that in the next year or so he needs to upgrade.

Any gaming PC will ultimately want an upgrade - more storage, more RAM (from 8gb to 16gb), and after a few years a new graphics card to help run new games at high settings. And after many years, a new CPU and motherboard.

What you want to defer for as long as possible in terms of upgrades is the new CPU, new mobo, new PSU, and new case, as these are things that you usually upgrade only to avoid some kind of limitation to everything else in your system.

That being the case, whatever system you go for I'd recommend an R5 3600(x) over an Intel i5.

 

[Zoid]

Good points by all. It does look like at this price point especially, the financial benefit of a custom build is marginal. Most entry-mid level gaming systems sold by system integrators always tend to under-spec RAM and storage, which always peeves me a bit, but ultimately the gaming performance you can get for your money in this segment will be about the same.

My main reason for floating a custom build in this thread is for the bonding opportunity it would create between OP and his son but of course OP can always just buy a rig off the shelf and then get to bonding in games instead!

 

[Oussebon]

Or they could buy off the shelf, dismantle it, and bond over re-assembling. Limitless options

(Nb: don't do this if you value the warranty - I'm kidding, mostly)

 

[Inspireless Llama]

I went through 2 sites of custom build PC's where you can choose what parts you want, but to me it seems that with both, if you want to go for (what I think) are sweetspots you're going far over budget (both ended up at about 950 pounds).

I was looking for Ryzen 5 3600/16gb RAM/500gb SSD/GTX1660, I think with cyberpower I even opted for an RX580. Then a custom build PC actually looks alot cheaper.

Looks like with most PC's prebuilt in this pricerange there's always something lacking. It's either a weak CPU, a weak graphics card, little storage, or RAM where I'm like not sure if it's good.

 

[Oussebon]

The Alphasync's only real weakness for the price range is 8gb RAM (the RAM frequency itself is listed as 3000MHz). And adding more RAM / upgrading it is easily remedied. Although performance in many games would be unaffected anyway at 8gb.

The mobo is only A320, but it supports 3000 series. And by the time a CPU upgrade is needed, we'll be on to a new platform anyway. And it sports the RX 5600 XT, which gives performance akin to the RTX 2060; better than the 1660, 1660 Super, or 1660 ti by a decent margin.

I tried pretty hard to find something better value, and I'm reasonably familiar with UK custom builders (especially PCS) but I didn't even try to work up a better value spec on those as there was no way it was going to happen (which @Inspireless Llama seems to ahve also concluded).

For me, it's between Alphasync for performance, value, and ease, and self-build for freedom of choice, fun, and possible economies depending on spec chosen,

 

[jd1883]

This has been suggested, comments?

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor (£177.18 @ Aria PC)

Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£69.97 @ Laptops Direct)

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£69.98 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£59.44 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£53.50 @ AWD-IT)

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB DUAL EVO OC Video Card (£227.58 @ Aria PC)

Case: Deepcool MATREXX 30 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£28.47 @ Scan.co.uk)

Power Supply: EVGA BR 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.99 @ Amazon UK)

Total: £731.11

 

[Oussebon]

Easiest if you can post the link via Partpicker. The build page has a BB button that creates it ready-formatted with links for the forum.

You are happy to consider self-building, then?

When buying parts from Amazon, I would only go for items sold by Amazon.co.uk themselves. Buying from third parties on online marketplaces instead of authorised resellers can lead to warranty issues.

The R5 3600 would make more sense for gaming, in that it's a similar price and faster. Unless your son is likely to stream their gameplay, the 3600 would be the better choice I think.

I'd get a case with better airflow.

Also a better PSU as EVGA Bronze is not great - even for budget PSUs. And with things the way they are, that might be an ambitious price for it.

Apparently the Seasonic Core GC is £61 on CCL with free delivery. Or the be Quiet Pure Power 11 for a few quid more on the same site.

Do you already have a Windows licence?

 

[jd1883]

Yes, feel like self build might be the way to go, slightly worried but will just take our time. Have tinkered with various pc's before, but obv nothing this major. Thanks for the advice about the parts, more input I get from different people the better so I can narrow things down.
No, don't have a windows licence, something we need to factor in.

 

[jd1883]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor (£177.18 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£69.97 @ Laptops Direct)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£73.48 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£59.44 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£53.50 @ AWD-IT)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB DUAL EVO OC Video Card (£227.58 @ Aria PC)
Case: Deepcool MATREXX 30 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£28.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA BR 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£60.40 @ Alza)
Total: £750.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-09 15:07 BST+0100

 

[Inspireless Llama]

Looks good, but you could consider going for a Ryzen 5 3600 instead of the 2700X. Apparently the 3600 outperforms the 2700x (I'm not 100% sure about this) and it's cheaper.

About ATX vs mATX, I'm not sure who wrote it, but there's some explanation about that, apparently there's not much of a difference vs an ATX case and mATX case. Still sometimes you really need to check for size incompabilities. Generally I think it's easier to build in a full ATX case though (and if there's like a 40mm size difference I don't think it matters that much).

 

[jd1883]

Yeah, this was something someone put together for me after I asked for advice, not sure why they went for the smaller case, think I'd prefer the full size.

 

[Oussebon]

Windows is about £100, so worth bearing in mind

There are some refinements I'd suggest to the above build, which is definitely in the right ballpark

£60 for a budget PSU means you shouldn't be buying a budget PSU as you can just get better for the cash. Note the Seasonic GC mentioned earlier

The motherboard is a budget B450 mobo but seems a little pricier than it ought to be - can shave off some costs there

The SSD in your list is M.2 but the mobos at this end of the market only have 1 M.2 slot, which is capable of supporting much faster SSDs that you might want to buy as an upgrade /extra down the line. Filling the M.2 slot with an SSD that's just as fast in 2.5" form factor makes the upgrade more annoying to perform.

A decent budget ATX case that should see you right even with some beefier hardware in the case would be something like the Fractal Focus G.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor (£177.18 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£54.99 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£73.48 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£53.50 @ AWD-IT)
Video Card: Palit GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB GamingPro OC Video Card (£220.38 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case (£50.47 @ Ebuyer)
Custom: Seasonic Core GC 500W 80+ Gold PSU (£61.22)
Total: £751.21
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-09 18:06 BST+0100

 

[jd1883]

Ended up picking the 3600 for gaming, after what you and
Inspireless Llama said, also looking at specs not that much difference. Had forgotten the Seasonic Core, not heard of them but looks good. Any reason you'd pick that video card over the one I said?

 

[Oussebon]

Cheaper, same performance as makes no difference, a tenner you can spend elsewhere.