A question about what type of PC to go for with very limited budget.

[Glaziola]

Hello community,

I am someone who plays only League of Legends, Wow, Diablo and older games on the PC.
I dont care about graphics as long as the frames per second are above 40, 50 etc.
For 6 years now I have been using my desktop pc to play all games on low settings and it was awesome, 120fps in wow and like 40fps in raids.
The machine is running perfectly fine as of this moment, 90fps in Wow open world and 30 fps in Alterac Valley, LFR etc.
For that pc I paid 300€ and it was totally worth the money for six years of flawless entertainment. Im at University at the moment and unemployed so I have a very limited Budget which consists of Pocketmoney since I still live at home with my parents.
Unfortunetly WoD changes some system requirements and League is getting an visual update and Im not sure how my pc will handle that.

My stats for the pc are following:
Core 2 duo E4400
Asus 5pgc-MX
2GB DDR2
Nvidia geforce GT 220
360gb HDD

My question to you guys, should I buy myself another 300€ PC and enjoy it for another 5 years and then replace it again or save up 1000€+ and go for a monster machine that will last for much longer time?

[Foreboding]

I wouldn't buy a monster machine if I were in your position. The only people who should buy monster machines are those with tonnes of money to waste, for everyone else it's silly as the newest PC is only at the top for a few months and then it gets outshone by the latest beast.

I recommend saving up ~500€ to spend and get a PC that stretches the best to that amount. Should last you a few years with the games you play.

[Glaziola]

I wouldn't buy a monster machine if I were in your position. Maybe save up until you have around ~500€ to spend and get a PC that stretches the best to that amount. Unfortunately, due to the rapid development of technology, even a 500€ probably won't last 5 years if you want to maintain those frame rates.

Yeah I was afraid of the technology evolving too fast :/ which is exactly why I made the thread to ask for opinions.
I thought so too, just to get another cheap pc and buy a new one every couple of years. Thanks.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Half of monster machines strength is just used in bragging rights. About a quarter of it is used in making everything run 60+ FPS with everything on ultra/maxed out. The final quarter of its strength is in making things run good enough for your average gamer to have a good time with moderate settings at decent FPS.

[Glaziola]

Half of monster machines strength is just used in bragging rights. About a quarter of it is used in making everything run 60+ FPS with everything on ultra/maxed out. The final quarter of its strength is in making things run good enough for your average gamer to have a good time with moderate settings at decent FPS.

It seems to be nothing for me then, because I dont really care about bragging rights and highquality graphics xD
All I want is the games to fluid for a couple of years no matter the graphic settings, since I always played on low so my eyes are used to it, hehe.

[CandyFresh]

Hiya...this is about the cheapest, resonable build I could come up with:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (€59.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€51.79 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€37.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€50.39 @ Pixmania DE)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (€138.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 361 ATX Mid Tower Case (€33.60 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€42.90 @ Caseking)
Total: €415.51
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-12 15:17 CEST+0200

Might be worth getting an aftermarket CPU cooler (if when overclocking the G3258 with the stock fan temperature is an issue, but test it out 1st as you might not need one and can save some cash) and another 4GB stick of RAM down the line might help also.

You will need to overclock the G3258 btw (plenty of guides available & it quite stright forward)

This may last you quite a while as current consoles (PS4 / Xbone) quite weak compared to PC and that may hold back development of PC gaming.

[Glaziola]

Hiya...this is about the cheapest, resonable build I could come up with:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (€59.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€51.79 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€37.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€50.39 @ Pixmania DE)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (€138.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 361 ATX Mid Tower Case (€33.60 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€42.90 @ Caseking)
Total: €415.51
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-12 15:17 CEST+0200

Would be worth getting an aftermarket cooler (really need to overclock that GPU) and another 4GB stick of RAM down the line.

This may last you quite a while as current consoles (PS4 / Xbone) quite weak compared to PC and that may hold back development of PC gaming.

Cool, thanks!

[CandyFresh]

Just edited the advice re. aftermarket cooler & RAM on my above post btw

[Mystrome]

Another thing to consider is saving up about an extra €45 and go for a SSD like this: Crucial MX100 256GB. Since you mentioned you only play a few games, install sizes (except for WoW) are fairly small so I bet you won't need more space anyway. And if you do need more space, you can always add another drive later. Or add the SSD later. That will make your machine load things up considerably faster.

[Glaziola]

Just edited the advice re. aftermarket cooler & RAM on my above post btw

Yeah I read it, thanks for the advice

Another thing to consider is saving up about an extra €45 and go for a SSD like this: Crucial MX100 256GB. Since you mentioned you only play a few games, install sizes (except for WoW) are fairly small so I bet you won't need more space anyway. And if you do need more space, you can always add another drive later. Or add the SSD later. That will make your machine load things up considerably faster.

Yeah I was thinking of getting an SSD for the OS and Games later on. But the focus lies on getting a stable system first.

[Mystrome]

Yeah I was thinking of getting an SSD for the OS and Games later on. But the focus lies on getting a stable system first.

In my opinion, that's the single biggest upgrade you can make relative to the investment. Trust me I know how tough it can be to work with a tight budget. You always worry about later regretting going for a cheaper solution that doesn't quite deliver what you had hoped for. I can promise you won't have that issue with choosing a SSD.

A 256GB SSD will leave you with about half its space free after installing an OS, WoW, Diablo and LoL. Should be enough I'd say.

And maybe you can salvage your current HD and use it for storage.

[Glaziola]

In my opinion, that's the single biggest upgrade you can make relative to the investment. Trust me I know how tough it can be to work with a tight budget. You always worry about later regretting going for a cheaper solution that doesn't quite deliver what you had hoped for. I can promise you won't have that issue with choosing a SSD.

And maybe you can salvage your current HD and use it for storage.

I'll keep that in mind, theres no need to buy another hard disk if I can use my old one until I get an SSD.
I don't do anything that takes massive space away anyway.
Wow is the largest thing on my PC.

[CandyFresh]

The point about the SSD is a good one. I got a 128GB one, small but enought for Windows + WOW + Wildstar, I got Steam etc on seperate HDD. You could salavge you current 360GB HDD and go instead for:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (€59.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€51.79 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€37.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€58.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (€138.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 361 ATX Mid Tower Case (€33.60 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€42.90 @ Caseking)
Total: €424.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-12 16:36 CEST+0200

[Arbiter]

The point about the SSD is a good one. I got a 128GB one, small but enought for Windows + WOW + Wildstar, I got Steam etc on seperate HDD. You could salavge you current 360GB HDD and go instead for:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (€59.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€51.79 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€37.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€58.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (€138.94 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 361 ATX Mid Tower Case (€33.60 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€42.90 @ Caseking)
Total: €424.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-12 16:36 CEST+0200

If you're going to shove that CPU into a PC, you really need a Z97 board to at least eventually overclock it. Even if it means waiting out a bit for a decent CPU cooler.

[CandyFresh]

You should be able to overclock the G3258 in a H81 board (Z97 is better, but for cost reasons a H81 is fine)

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/asu...herboards.html