The "shoestring titan" gaming PC.

[mercutiouk]

Consider this something of a guide. It's at least a crack at helping a few folks with a "what should I buy" type issue when it comes to building a gaming computer for standard/regular use. I originally wrote most of it as a reply to help a chap on another forum, I figured I'd write it up a bit more and drop it here to help out and make the most of my efforts.

Building a gaming computer on a tiny budget. (aka "shoestring titan" as in shoestrings are very cheap)

So.
You've decided you want a "proper gaming computer" but seem to be looking at the wrong side of 500/600 £/(US)$/€ (or whatever you use) to buy one. I'll continue to use £ throughout just for ease. Price wise depending on country/etc you can GENERALLY replace the currency symbol between the 3 above and the numbers will stay _relatively_ similar

There's lots of self build suggestions but it seems rather complicated and hard to narrow down choices? Well stick with me and I'll try and give something of an inside track.

Some "basics" to get down: I'm trying here to build a system that will be a gaming titan. It will be done as cheaply as possible. I'll give a couple of suggestions where you could/should spend a TINY bit more if you have cash spare in your budget.

You want to be checking the b-grade/clearance/budget/deal of the day sections of your prefered e-tailer(s). Making use of pcpartpicker.com will generally list you (arguably) reliable retailers in most regions but the site doesn't check the b-grade/clearance sections so use it as a reference and check by hand.

First things first then.

Power supply.
Yep, we start here. While graphics and processor will make all the difference the PSU needs to be a solid foundation or the rest is pointless. A bad PSU can happily take your system with it when it dies so spend a bit more here. You generally want to spend around 10% of your budget (£50-60) on a PSU from a good brand. There's plenty around but something made by Seasonic (lots of others use them) is generally good. Antec/Corsair/Coolermaster/Bequiet are generally popular brands. Dig around for info about others but plenty of the rest are good too. The above definitely have decent budget options I'm familiar with so used those.

As said, £50-60.

Motherboard.
Next up is the main part you'll be sticking everything else in to. It's also the part you can probably save the most money on without vastly effecting performance. A good motherboard is fine if you aren't trying to scrape together a titan on a shoestring budget. As such ANY (yes, ANY) socket 1155 motherboard will do a perfectly good job. As such you are likely going to end up with a H61 M-atx board. Try and get one from MSI/Asus/Asrock or other reputable brand.

WARNING: Older socket 1155 motherboards often need a bios flash to be compatible with i3/5/7 3xxx(k) processors. Make sure you have a friend that can help or talk to the seller.

As little as £20. Generally more like £30/35.

Memory.
8GB in 2x4GB sticks. Again, go cheap. Memory can be somewhere to spend a TINY amount more for a percievable boost in performance so if crappymccheap "dodgysticks" are only £2/3/5 less than decently branded gamer orientated stuff get the gamer. Also don't get crappymccheap, do budget sticks from someone like crucial/corsair.

Generally about £35/40 spent here.

Storage.
1TB of SSD.


I JEST, I JEST.
SSD's are nice, they make using a computer feel nice but they really are a definite "luxury" item on our shopping list for a shoestring titan. Get 1 or 2TB of cheap storage. A couple of drives is nice as it gives you somewhere for backups, even a cheap router usually has a USB port on it these days to allow a mega-crappy "NAS" drive for backups but even a second drive in the PC can save you a drive failure.
I'd avoid buying 2nd hand hard drives as your data generally matters and drives of unknown origin are generally more trouble than they are worth.
If you have the budget, sure, grab a cheap SSD, use it as the boot/windows drive and you'll get a PC that feels more responsive. For gaming, it would be fairly minor other than loading maps faster if you have enough space on the SSD to put the game in question on it too.

£60 will usually get 1 or occasionally 2 TB.


Case.
This is pretty open to taste. If you want (taking this to the extreme) you could even skip the case and have bare parts sat on anti static bags with a desk fan blowing at them.
I'd generally recommend spending about £40 on a case with at least 3 fan mounts, most will have the exhaust fan included. There's plenty can be done to improve airflow in even the cheapest case if you are handy with a drill/cutting device and have a hole cutting bit/blade. In a friends case we cut a 120mm blowhole (top) and 120mm side hole for fans. The side hole means you can have "clean" air being sucked in directly at the processor. The top hole allows heat not otherwise handled to be sucked out the top as heat obvious rises.
Spend a bit on fans if you like. Even cheap 120mm fans will move air and can be had for a fiver. A CHEAP and nasty case (that will probably need extra "work") can be had for £20.

£20-50



So, that's the cheap "base" parts out of the way. The next 2 are what makes a difference between a "titan" and a "poodle" from a gaming point of view and are where the most money should be spent to give the biggest gains in gaming (basically all about FPS) performance.




Processor/CPU.
If you followed the above you have a cheap socket 1155 board (H61/H67/P67/Z68/Z77 chipset and a couple I've probably forgot.) Most likely a H61 chipset based board.

This board can take anything from a £30 Celeron G465 to a £500 Intel Xeon E3-1280.
We want something in the mid to high end range.

The old favourite is an i5 2500k. This is/was _reasonably_ cheap (£180 new as they are getting rare/£120 2nd hand) chip that has more than enough muscle for modern games. The i7 2600k (£255 new - getting rare/£160 2nd hand) is a slightly more rounded "gaming and serious work" type chip and can be considered if you know your prefered game can use all 4(/8) cores. The i7 2700k (£250 new/rare 2nd hand) is the bigger brother of the 2600k and has the best specs.
All these chips are "k" series "sandy bridge" meaning they can be easily overclocked for more performance if you get lucky and your H61 can play ball/when you buy a better mainboard.

The other/default option is a newer i5 3570k (ivybridge). These are still very available and are around £170. The i7 version of this is the 3770K @ £230 and, again has more cores for "serious work" or for if you know your prefered game(s) can use more cores (4/8).



Graphics card.
So, final part. This ones probably the 1 component that starts the most "fanboy" wars if arguing about computer components is important to you.

You really need to spend a balance here vs the CPU you buy. Some games (mostly MMO's) care more about the processor, a lot of other popular genre's like FPS/RPG etc with eye candy have a bigger benefit from a better graphics card.

Gaming graphics cards can be broken down into 2 groups, based on who's technology they use. ATI (Red) and Nvidia (Green). Both have a numbering format that takes a little understanding to know what you are buying.

ATI:
Ati cards are numbered like 7950/6870/4850 etc.

The first number is the generation. A 7xxx card is newer than a 6xxx card. It isn't always "better" though from a performance point of view. I'll explain the rest of the numbers then compare.
The second number is the family of card (low/mid/high) so an x9xx beats an x8xx, everything else being equal.
The last 2 numbers are a general indication of performance in it's generation+family so an xx90 beats an xx70.

Now, the thing that complicates it is putting these numbers together. All the numbers in combination make a reasonable difference so a 7950 beats a 6970 - easy enough. However a 6970 beats a 7870 under many circumstances. If they existed a 4970 would probably beat a 7100 (the 7100 exists but it's a workstation card, let the argument go).


Nvidia:
The numbering idea works much the same here.

Gen/Family/Power. E.g a 570GTX is pretty much as strong as a 480GTX (but the latter uses more power and generates more heat). A 770GTX is roughly on par with a 680GTX etc.

Check and compare cards.

As for what to actually buy... ATI generally has more power vs cost. Nvidia generally have better drivers and arguably better image quality. A good card to go for would be ATI7950, ATI7870, 680GTX, 670GTX, 760GTX, 770GTX. These cards are all in the £175-200 range, check the games you play and prices.



Total:

If you managed to really luck out, patiently buy the real cheap end of the "shoestring titan" budget or get some good 2nd hand deals you are looking at around £480. For the upper range of each (staying at I5 3570K new as the top chip) it's £625.
Considering the amount that CAN be spent on "high end" machines £500ish for a "top spec" machine with some cheaper components to save costs can get you quite a lot of gaming power for your money.

Best of luck.

[Uggorthaholy]

Marest already has an entire sticky dedicated to building PCs at specific incremented budget points Here Conveniently in the Build Help subforum.

[noteworthynerd]

Marest already has an entire sticky dedicated to building PCs at specific incremented budget points Here Conveniently in the Build Help subforum.

Indeed. If you'd like to contribute or suggest a build, please do so in that sticky. We keep all cookie-cutter build suggestions to that thread so that they are easily accessible.