Gaming PC Advice

The Silver Surfer said:
by the way he's got one of these...
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/packard-bell-imedia-s2885-refurbished-desktop-pc-10106323-pdt.html?srcid=369&xtor=AL-1&cmpid=aff~Reevoo~Comparison Engine&istCompanyId=bec25c7e-cbcd-460d-81d5-a25372d2e3d7&istItemId=ltpptqrmr&istBid=t&awc=1599_1465130574_f49401c8e3221a967d29eada245d7128

and he originally just wanted a more improved graphics card but its a small stack pc and not only would I need bigger slots than it can handle for the graphics card, it would need a far bigger power supply - I think the spec is ok, so if you could suggest any good small graphics cards and bigger psu's that might be a way round it. I did look myself a while ago but it just seemed the easiest way to go would be a whole new rig.
Click to expand...
You've got the basis for a decent entry level gaming rig there already but like all of these type of PC the case limits you. You may get away with a 750Ti card in there as they're fairly low power users and very compact: for £85. The PSU's in these type tend to be non standard so you probably wouldn't be able to do a straight swap.

I bought something similar for the son from Asda awhile back purely because they were flogging it off at £170. Similar spec to yours with an i3, 8Gb ram, 1TB HD and Windows 8.1 (now with the free update to Win10). I stripped everything out of the case and put it in his old full tower case with his older but more powerful PSU. He bought himself a 960 graphics card for about £150 and got a decent little rig at a cheap price.

Perhaps you could think about a getting a cheap full case and better PSU and doing similar?
 
ColinLee said:
You've got the basis for a decent entry level gaming rig there already but like all of these type of PC the case limits you. You may get away with a 750Ti card in there as they're fairly low power users and very compact: for £85. The PSU's in these type tend to be non standard so you probably wouldn't be able to do a straight swap.

I bought something similar for the son from Asda awhile back purely because they were flogging it off at £170. Similar spec to yours with an i3, 8Gb ram, 1TB HD and Windows 8.1 (now with the free update to Win10). I stripped everything out of the case and put it in his old full tower case with his older but more powerful PSU. He bought himself a 960 graphics card for about £150 and got a decent little rig at a cheap price.

Perhaps you could think about a getting a cheap full case and better PSU and doing similar?
Click to expand...


Yes id considered doing exactly that, if its not a straight swap for the psu though.. what does that entail? I cant be arsed fucking about with bios settings and all that!
 
The Silver Surfer said:
Yes id considered doing exactly that, if its not a straight swap for the psu though.. what does that entail? I cant be arsed fucking about with bios settings and all that!
Click to expand...
Should just be a straight swap as long as they've not put weird connectors on the motherboard. It will be the physical size that's different going off the pictures I've seen of the back of yours. The hardest bit is getting the case connectors in the right order on the MB, you know, all the little 2 and 3 pin ones that group together? If you've got a local PC shop you could always take it down and ask them to do it for you especially if you're buying the PSU & Graphics card off them.
 
If only this was posted a month ago
ive just flogged my old setup after an upgrade
it was a 2nd generation i7
8gig ddr3
top notch asus board
and a gtx590
all this still ran all latest games
sold for 150 quid

you would have just needed a decent psu
 
roach3 said:
If only this was posted a month ago
ive just flogged my old setup after an upgrade
it was a 2nd generation i7
8gig ddr3
top notch asus board
and a gtx590
all this still ran all latest games
sold for 150 quid

you would have just needed a decent psu
Click to expand...

:(( bugger

im still looking!
If I can get something like

i5
16 gb ram
2tb hdd
750w psu

or one of these http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...ower-empire-gt-ii-gaming-pc-10141718-pdt.html

then buy an MSI GeForce GTX 970 GAMING Twin Frozr 5 4GB Graphics Card for £260 from Scan
 
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ColinLee said:
You don't need 16GB of ram, 8GB is plenty enough for gaming and the 750W PSU is overly large, 500/600W is more than adequate for Intel/Nvidia hardware.
Click to expand...

I see no harm chucking some extra ram in that all. The large PSU is to handle the graphics card which are usually 500w +.
Just trying to future proof it.
 
The Silver Surfer said:
I see no harm chucking some extra ram in that all. The large PSU is to handle the graphics card which are usually 500w +.
Just trying to future proof it.
Click to expand...
There's no harm with more memory of course but if you're working to a tight budget (which yours is) then that's £30 or so that can be spent on the graphics card which in a gaming rig is the main component.

The website I listed with an idea for a build from scratch actually totals up the wattage requirements (it also checks for other incompatibilities) for you, http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/2H86M8 only totals up to 287W so a 500W PSU is more than adequate. Even adding an additional 970 graphics card for dual SLI only takes it up to around 430W.

Bigger PSU's cost more (don't be tempted by a cheap one, they can fry everything) so again it's about balancing your budget across all of the parts with the graphics card taking the meat of the costs.

Edit: I should have added that if the MB has 4 memory slots and you're only using 2 of them then that is what I would call future proofing, although that can be a thankless task with PC's to be honest.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@ColinLee

Cheers for the info and that ^ does look a decent set up, one thing i'd like to pick your brains on is the following at curry's

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...ower-empire-gt-ii-gaming-pc-10141718-pdt.html

it has space for a dedicated graphics card which I could buy separetly, maybe even a reconditioned one.

What are your thoughts on the..

AMD A58 FCH Motherboard ?

Its only got two slots as far as I can tell which isn't too bad unless like you say I upgrade the RAM which would mean buying totally new sticks double the size.

and where does the following processor fit into the food chain? It seems to me its about i3 territory

- AMD A10 7850K APU
- Quad-core
- 3.7 GHz / 4 GHz with Turbo Core
- 4 MB cache
 
The Silver Surfer said:
@ColinLee

Cheers for the info and that ^ does look a decent set up, one thing i'd like to pick your brains on is the following at curry's

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...ower-empire-gt-ii-gaming-pc-10141718-pdt.html

it has space for a dedicated graphics card which I could buy separetly, maybe even a reconditioned one.

What are your thoughts on the..

AMD A58 FCH Motherboard ?

Its only got two slots as far as I can tell which isn't too bad unless like you say I upgrade the RAM which would mean buying totally new sticks double the size.

and where does the following processor fit into the food chain? It seems to me its about i3 territory

- AMD A10 7850K APU
- Quad-core
- 3.7 GHz / 4 GHz with Turbo Core
- 4 MB cache
Click to expand...
According to http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html it's placed in the tier immediately under the i3 so not a bad CPU at all although it's selling point is usually the cracking onboard integrated graphics which would be useless to yourself. Not a lot between them really.

I'm not convinced about the Curry's PC at £400 tbh. They're out of stock at the moment for good reason, they're relatively out of date.

Given your budget and your existing PC I would give serious thought to finding your local PC shop and asking them if they can strip it down for you and put it in to a new case with PSU and a 970 card. You'd save money on that and would have as good or better performance than the Curry's one. maybe you could update the i3 to a i5 or better within your budget.
 
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