Cheap Gaming Desktop

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16vCento
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Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

Our 5 year old wants to play Beam NG to smash shit up, and also play some stupid marble game he has seen videos of.

I've seen a few 350 quid things on ebay like this; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203662427494 ... media=COPY

I'm guessing that will do the job? My 9 year old Asus laptop runs Beam NG on low settings, but gets very hot, and that's a I5 processor, 8gb ram, 512gb SSD, Windows 10 set up.

I dont want to spend a lot as it won't get used for anything other than this really.
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Mito Man
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by Mito Man »

I’d say you really want a dedicated graphics card and a SSD because it won’t be slow as shit and can then be used for many years in the future without issue.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/29308165328 ... BMmNDhyY1g
This with 8gb ram, 240gb ssd and a 1050ti is £405 and will run games better despite the specs looking way worse.

You might be able to find something refurbished for with better specs for cheaper.
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16vCento
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

That doesn't seem bad, I can pull the SSD I fit to the laptop out as well for additional storage if I need it.
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teacherboy
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by teacherboy »

Something with a ryzen 5 5600g in it, 2 sticks of fast RAM as ryzen APU's scale with RAM speed, SSD or NVME drive and thats as good as a 1050ti and expandable in future when graphics cards get more available/saner prices.

I have one i built from scratch as my lounge gaming/media machine and its great - will run most games at reasonable settings at 30-50fps esports titles are faster still.

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-ryzen-5-56 ... aming.html
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by mr_jon »

Agree, came here to post this similar AWD deal which popped up on HUKD:

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/ryzen- ... it-3927200

Probably worth upgrading the mobo to a 550.

Then add a discrete gfx card later down the line when the 5 year old inevitably wants to play Elden Ring @ 100fps.

Cheers,
Jon
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Mito Man
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by Mito Man »

teacherboy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:29 am Something with a ryzen 5 5600g in it, 2 sticks of fast RAM as ryzen APU's scale with RAM speed, SSD or NVME drive and thats as good as a 1050ti and expandable in future when graphics cards get more available/saner prices.

I have one i built from scratch as my lounge gaming/media machine and its great - will run most games at reasonable settings at 30-50fps esports titles are faster still.

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-ryzen-5-56 ... aming.html
This sounded like porkies so I looked it up

That’s a ryzen 5600G with 32GB of Ram compared to a standard 1050 (non Ti) and it’s performance is no where near as good, seems to get worse with esports games such as Fortnite.
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teacherboy
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by teacherboy »

Mito Man wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:43 am
teacherboy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:29 am Something with a ryzen 5 5600g in it, 2 sticks of fast RAM as ryzen APU's scale with RAM speed, SSD or NVME drive and thats as good as a 1050ti and expandable in future when graphics cards get more available/saner prices.

I have one i built from scratch as my lounge gaming/media machine and its great - will run most games at reasonable settings at 30-50fps esports titles are faster still.

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-ryzen-5-56 ... aming.html
This sounded like porkies so I looked it up

That’s a ryzen 5600G with 32GB of Ram compared to a standard 1050 (non Ti) and it’s performance is no where near as good, seems to get worse with esports games such as Fortnite.
Oops - my bad, still works well for me for my needs but im not a mad fps gamer! Recent driver improvements though so getting better and easily enough for light gaming and still expandable if/when budget and availability of gpus allows.
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by Zonda_ »

I'm struggling with the nephew's machine, it tried to update to Windows 11 and came up with a message saying the spec couldn't handle it, looking further into it it's the processor than can't cope. I wondered about sticking a new one in but it seems cheaper to buy a whole new machine!
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

There's one in aldi at the minute for 1k that looks OK I might go down at dinner time and have a look.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/medion-i7-rtx306 ... lsrc=aw.ds
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

So moving on, I've manage to push this to being a surprise Christmas present.

I'm looking at laptops now, I've had a go on a friend's Asus TUF something or other with a i5, 8gb Ram, and a RTX3050.

There's a couple of them knocking about for about 650-700 quid with a 3050ti, 12500h i5 processor and 8gb RAM, I reckon if I stick another 8gb RAM in it should do for a few years, as my friends non TI 3050 ran BeamNg fine.

Anything else to consider for 6-700 quid?
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by RobYob »

512GB Steamdeck + Dock + nice peripherals.
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

Not seen that before, looks good for Steam but we have gamepass ultimate so a proper laptop looks a better fit, so we can use that as well as Steam.
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by RobYob »

16vCento wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 7:17 am Not seen that before, looks good for Steam but we have gamepass ultimate so a proper laptop looks a better fit, so we can use that as well as Steam.
I've read that Gamepass does work on the deck although I don't use it myself. Sounds like you might need a windows partition and OS install.

As it's a relatively new device some of these options are still a bit wonky. But if you're happy to tinker then it's a very funky bit of kit.
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

I would be if it was for me, but the patience of a 6 year old is not to be tested!
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by drcarlos »

16vCento wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:26 pm So moving on, I've manage to push this to being a surprise Christmas present.

I'm looking at laptops now, I've had a go on a friend's Asus TUF something or other with a i5, 8gb Ram, and a RTX3050.

There's a couple of them knocking about for about 650-700 quid with a 3050ti, 12500h i5 processor and 8gb RAM, I reckon if I stick another 8gb RAM in it should do for a few years, as my friends non TI 3050 ran BeamNg fine.

Anything else to consider for 6-700 quid?
They seem a bit of a bargain at that price. I have a ROG Zephyrus with a Ryzen 7 and 1660Ti, which I got from the Father in Law and if I hadn't got a very good deal on it (used twice and a nice price) I'd have bought a TUF with a similar spec to the one you mention and bumped the RAM to 16GB.
So far my impression is that you can feel it's been built to a budget as it doesn't feel a nice as my Mac M1 or HP Elitebook but it not at all bad just not the hewn from solid feel you get from the business grade kit.
Performance wise though I can't fault it, it's fast and doesn't break a sweat with what I need it to do (compiling stems is done in the Cuda cores of the GPU). The built in speakers are shite. For a gaming laptop it's quite a decent size a weight, no ultrabook, but no breezeblock either.
It's missing a couple of things though (not sure if that TUF does as well), firstly a webcam, I have a decent Cisco HD camera so I'm not bothered and I probably won't travel with it anyway. Secondly a fingerprint reader but using a PIN is no biggie.
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

So I found a bargain (I think) and took a gamble on it.

Gigabyte G5, i5 11400 6 core processor, 6gb RTX3060, 16gb dam, 512 gb ssd, rgb keyboard.

Was on the Currys outlet on ebay, damaged box, 200 quid off, and a 75 quid coupon as well, £611 all in, free delivery.

It's in Currys for £899 on their normal website but sold out, fingers crossed!

Reviews seem decent enough of it.

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/gigab ... 39821.html
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by drcarlos »

16vCento wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 4:30 pm So I found a bargain (I think) and took a gamble on it.

Gigabyte G5, i5 11400 6 core processor, 6gb RTX3060, 16gb dam, 512 gb ssd, rgb keyboard.

Was on the Currys outlet on ebay, damaged box, 200 quid off, and a 75 quid coupon as well, £611 all in, free delivery.

It's in Currys for £899 on their normal website but sold out, fingers crossed!

Reviews seem decent enough of it.

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/gigab ... 39821.html
That's a nice deal. Hopefully it turns up and it's all fine.
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

Yeah I thought it was a great deal, fingers crossed!
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by 16vCento »

Well it came, and it seems very good.

Plays the games he wants on the highest settings, and I tried GTAV to see how it looked against the series X, it certainly looks a lot more polished on PC than console!

All set up and put away for Christmas now, I'll open it Christmas eve and let it do any updated and charge it so it should be just a case of switch on and go.
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Re: Cheap Gaming Desktop

Post by Beany »

Last weekend I built the guts of a Ryzen 5600 system with 16gb RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD for a mate who's computer has been bust for ages - his PSU and GPU were still fine. Was quite impressed with the modern stuff. He's now very much GPU limited.

This week I've built a machine for myself. Ryzen 7600, 16gb RAM, 1 TB SSD, no GPU as it has a basic one built in (I'll fix that another time ;) ), and a new chassis and PSU, as my old one is getting a bit...flaky. That, and my old motherboard was dead. And it was an A8-3870, which if you know what that means will age it nicely....it's about a decade.

So far I'm very impressed - it's rapaciously quick with the modern CPU and NVMe storage and the integrated graphics, while not mindblowing, play Talos Principle at 60+ FPS with medium settings, and emulate PS2 stuff pretty well. It also plays back 4k natively with no CPU load, which is nice.

CPU draws about 12w at idle (about 2500-3000mhz) and boosts up to 5240mhz when asked, and stays there on all cores because I have a fairly overkill aircooler on it so it's topping out about 65-70 deg, even when running CPU stressors overnight.

Case arrived today (Fractal Torrent Compact) and PSU should be here tonight, so I've wanged it in the chassis after playing with it 'open' (AKA sitting on it's own mobo box, sitting on top of my old chassis :lol: ) so it'll be interesting to see how loud it is etc.

Also be nice to have a desktop computer again for a change, after years of laptops.
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