What Hardware Do I need? New to modern Desktop Gaming

[Khouli]

Hi, apologies, but i'm new to modern (last 20 years) of PC gaming (Last time I played a game onn a PC, a 3.25 inch floppy disk was required....

I'm getting broadband installed at my house and I'm considering getting back into gaming. I'm not a really serious gamer and definitely don't need the latest dedicated gaming PC. I just need an all in one Desktop PC with a good sized hi-res screen and enough umph to run games like Elite Dangerous (for example). I'm most likely to be found playing retro titles like The Settlers etc. I also want to be able to run all normal MS Office applications.

I don't want to spend over £700 and I want a system so simple that even an old fogie like me can set it up.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Why_Me]

Hi, apologies, but i'm new to modern (last 20 years) of PC gaming (Last time I played a game onn a PC, a 3.25 inch floppy disk was required....

I'm getting broadband installed at my house and I'm considering getting back into gaming. I'm not a really serious gamer and definitely don't need the latest dedicated gaming PC. I just need an all in one Desktop PC with a good sized hi-res screen and enough umph to run games like Elite Dangerous (for example). I'm most likely to be found playing retro titles like The Settlers etc. I also want to be able to run all normal MS Office applications.

I don't want to spend over £700 and I want a system so simple that even an old fogie like me can set it up.

Any advice would be appreciated.

This is the worst time ever for a new build due to the insane price of RAM, SSD's and gpu's thanks to the AI boom. Check SCAN UK and Ebuyer UK for their prebuilts.

How to get windows 11 for free (or less than $15)

You don't need to pay Microsoft's $139 retail price for Windows.

www.tomshardware.com

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor (£120.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte B550 EAGLE WIFI6 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£91.94 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: *ADATA XPG GAMMIX D10 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£78.09 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£124.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: *XFX Speedster SWFT 210 Radeon RX 7600 XT 16 GB Video Card (£324.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: *Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case (£50.47 @ Scan)
Power Supply: *MSI MAG A750BN PCIE5 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£55.00 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Total: £845.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2026-06-03 10:58 BST+0100

 

[Colif]

maybe a laptop would be a good thing to look at as well.
Can link it to a larger screen if its display too small... its what I would do if I had one.
Not a dedicated gaming pc then

Just a thought.