Is there such thing as a cheap gaming PC around £500

Goodmane

That's correct, just graphics card and Windows. The card you linked to would work but see here:

GeForce GTX 970 vs 1050

It would still be a fair bit cheaper to get a used GTX 970 ,and significantly better too, the 970 is perhaps twice as fast.

MarkE19

The link above is about the going rate for Win10 at ~£100 - if you find it much cheaper there is a good chance it will be a dodgy key sale from a corporate site license or similar and therefore could get deactivated by Microsoft.
I can install a no license 'trial version' of Windows 10 if you want. All you need to then do is buy a license and enter it on the PC to have a fully working system.

Mark.

LJx

It does have a separate SSD and HDD, I would take the newer platform over Sandy Bridge, and that 2 x 16GB of DDR4

Fat_Tony

Can anyone please offer an opinions on this?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Nvidia-1050-GDDR5-Black/dp/B01MG1MP73/ref=sr_1_10?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1542727164&sr=1-10&keywords=gtx 970

I think by the time I add postage, graphics card and the cost of windows to Marks PC then I think we will be severely over budget. What particularly appeals with the one on amazon is they have a very good reputation for after sales service, upgrades etc

It was all a whole lot easier when the kids just wanted a new playstation or DS

Goodmane

Assuming I am getting to the right product, a gtx 1050 for £117...Gigabyte, MSI and EVGA are good brands. Basically they all buy the same nvidia chip and make a few changes to card usually fans. They are virtually identical between brands.

It looks like a decent graphics card, the 1050 if you're buying new. I don't think it's a problem card to get the job done, but as said before a used GTX 970 from ebay will be cheaper anyway (seem to go for £80-100) and about twice as fast.

Edit. It looks like they do go up to £120  sometimes, and I can understand if you don't want the hassle of having to return it / not have something that just works if someone tries to sell you a broken one.

You could just get an older card for £20 or so, like the AMD 6850. Then update it at next birthday or whatever...

The gtx 1050 is about 3x as fast though....
UserBenchmark: AMD HD 6850 vs Nvidia GTX 1050

Goodmane

The CPU is slower, and the motherboard possibly doesn't work with overclocked cpus. The i7 2600k is stronger even at stock speeds and has a lot more to give besides. What about the new platform is worth taking over that?

As for RAM, 32GB is just too much, it just won't get used. I can see a point in 16GB, I have 16GB DDR4 myself as it was less hassle to buy as a matched pair. But it's not hard to pick up a kit of 16GB DDR3 ram (although it won't be necessary, 8GB is fine) that will work in the P8Z68-v pro motherboard, which if memory serves was the preferred, and well-regarded enthusiast motherboard of its generation.

I'm not trying to argue here. I'd genuinely like to know if there's a reason to prefer the new architecture. DDR4 is not a big deal imo, certainly not for a first gaming pc. Prior generations tend to have lower latency which makes up for quite a bit anyway. RAM is just fast, doesn't matter what type imho. It just allows the CPU more throughput without having to send the data back to the ssd / hard drive etc which takes a lot longer than keeping it in RAM.

Fat_Tony

Sorry I screwed up the link, I was after opinions on the full PC rather than a graphics card, ill try again

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072DXLRDD/ref=psdc_428651031_t4_B01N97ZMSV?th=1

Goodmane

It will kind of work but it's not full of branded components, and it's a small office style, horizontal case. If you just need it to work, then it's fine. But I wouldn't go for it personally.

The case looks a bit small for a full size graphics card upgrade, and the graphics card is probably a slimline one for that style of small case. So meaningful upgrades will be almost impossible.

The cpu is about 15% slower than the i7 2600k at stock.
UserBenchmark: Intel Core i5-3470 vs i7-2600K

Obviously there's no SSD which means it will feel slow (to turn it on / open apps and games) whatever the other components. You can probably cram one in, but it won't necessarily be easy. Who knows how many sata ports the thing has? It's motherboard is unspecified. You're buying blind...

The seemingly small size of the case is unhelpful for graphics and other upgrades too. It looks like an office PC with a budget to mid range GPU in it...it will likely be jam-packed inside and get hot due to poor airflow which reduces the life of the components. And / or be really loud from overly fast fans. Those cases / PCs aren't really sensible for gaming imo.

Fat_Tony

Thanks again for all the info - can you put the insides of a small form pc into a larger case?

Im going to guess its not as straight forward as that?

You were correct on the slimline graphics card, its described as low profile. So is it harder to get upgraded cards as low profile?

Goodmane

In theory it should work to use the insides in a bigger case. You'd have to check the specs of the motherboard to make sure.  

Slimline graphics cards are not usually/ever very powerful. People use them in work PCs and they were popular in htpcs as well. They typically don't get faster than mid range, and even then are compromised with cooling or possibly output options.

Do you know what sort of game its going to be used for? Some examples would help perhaps. What is driving the move to PC gaming vs xbox etc?