I have not bothered with gaming for 10+ years but am now considering building a budget PC that should be able to play most games. However I'm pretty clueless when it comes to PC's these days.

Since I've been out of it for so long, I have almost no idea of what's "good" anymore, I have done a little bit of research but if I'm honest I'm being slightly lazy so just going to ask for advise here lol, I've set a budget of around £500-600.

I've had a quick look around on ebuyer which is where I usually buy stuff from, and very quickly thrown a few items into the basket just to add up a rough total of what things are going to cost.

For now I have:

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz £151
GPU: Asus R9 380 4GB £156
RAM: Corsair 8GB DDR4 2133MHz £30
HD: WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm £40

As well as a random £40 motherboard, there are a tonne to choose from around the same sort of price so I have no idea how to pick out the best one, same goes, for PSU, I just picked a random 650W for about £40,

That brings the total to about £475 so far but then I'd still need a case and a CPU cooler, and anything else I've missed, as I already said - I am clueless, and these are just a few items I randomly threw into the basket after 5 minutes of searching just to see how the cost adds up. So feel free to point out where I'm going wrong.

I have thrown these specs into the system requirement checking tool on game-debate, and according to that website (I have no idea how accurate it is) that spec can apparently play a lot of games on high, and some of the more demanding games on medium settings.

Any help is appreciated, especially when it comes to things like motherboards, CPU coolers, and PSU's, as there is a lot of choice for around the same sort of price. Also, is it worth upgrading things like 12-16 GB RAM instead of 8GB? SSD instead of a HD? Spending extra for a more future-proof CPU or GPU?

This post was edited by ste91 on Jun 21 2016 11:08pm

Any help comes with a price unfortunately, this is not some charities I'm afraid.

Refer to this thread: http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=74566873&f=189

Pm me if interested

Except most others who frequent this subject provide better advice for free.

There's a reason FedOx is a meme here in CHD.

I guess you are from england. What sites do you prefer us to make a build on?
Yeah and its a must to have an SSD in your system today. I cry inside everytime i have to use a slow damn HDD system.

About PSU its kinda important to buy some quality i would recommend the brands Evga, Corsair and Seasonic.

Would you prefer a regular ATX/mid tower build or Mini-itx/microatx build?

16GB would preferable specially the next coming years.

I do about 12GB load in GTA V online and FTB minecraft.
Thats with rapid mode enabled on my SSD tho. To cache from RAM for faster loading.

Yeah I'm from England, I use ebuyer - I did price this up on new egg which at first seemed incredibly cheap but when I double checked the prices I realised there was an extra £100+ of shipping and taxes, so it worked out more expensive.

I've done a bit more research and I'm now considering how "future proof" I want this build to be, so instead of the i5-6400, there's the i5-6600k for £40-50 extra.
For the GPU at this budget I think the R9 380 is the best bet - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, unless I should go for the cheaper CPU, and spend extra here?

After having another look around, the items in my basket are:

CPU: i5-6600k 3.5GHz
GPU: Asus R9 380 4GB or for £5 extra the Sapphire Nitro, or for an extra £20 the MSI, are any of them worth it over the Asus version?
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 2133MHz
HD: WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170-Gaming or MSI Z170A PC Mate, not sure which is better
PSU: Corsair CX 750w

That stands at £598, just shy of my £600 budget, but that doesn't include a case so I may drop to 8GB instead of 16GB RAM for now, and throw another 8GB in at a later date.
I'm not sure on the CPU either, do I stay with the original choice of the i5-6400, or go for the slightly better and £20 more expensive i5-6500, or the 6600k which is the only one that can be overclocked so seems a better choice for the long term.


EDIT - I'd completely over looked the fact that the i5-6600k does not come with a CPU cooler at all, and that's going to push the build past the budget especially as I haven't yet included a case, so I think the i5-6500 is what I'll go for, it seems a better compromise on cost vs performance over the cheaper 6400.

This post was edited by ste91 on Jun 23 2016 02:48am

In the interim, you can get an i5 with a locked multiplier (like the i5-6400) and still overclock it via the baseclock with a Z170 motherboard.

I'll keep an eye out for the 480 then, I'm in no rush so waiting a week or two is fine.

After cutting the RAM down to 8GB, and changing the processor to the i5-6500, and the PSU to a cheaper Corsair VS 650w, the cost is now down to £565 and that's including a case, going to steal the DVD drive from an old PC so that's everything sorted I think.

The PSU I picked out was £52, there are a few for around £30-£35 but I'm suspicious about the quality in that price range.

Try to find a Cooler master Hyper 212 EVO, or Cooler Master TX3 ...CPU cooler.