Gaming PC for £750

[Patrick Bateman]

The current computer has just ticked over 13 years old and, in spite of replacing the graphics card and adding some RAM in recent years, I think it's time for a replacement as it's just slow these days. Temperamentally so even with basic functions navigating between chrome and other windows etc. if it's not in the mood.

My gaming is currently limited to War Thunder which won't need much to run by modern standards but as you can tell I don't like to buy a new PC every few years so I'm looking for as much bang for buck as possible. Might allow me to get into some newer games that have effectively been off-limits.

It's a bit of a minefield when searching as whatever option I look at there's always a forum post on the internet making X graphics card sound like a poor choice vs. Y etc.

Not overly fussed about a new build or going refurbished/used on ebay but would appreciate some suggestions from those whose knowledge is far more up to date than mine.

£750 is absolutely top whack just to cover the bare PC (built, I cannot be arsed doing that myself), no monitors etc. required here. Ideally something that doesn't have a case trying to do a poor impersonation of a grotty nightclub's disco lights.

Edited by Patrick Bateman on Wednesday 11th December 22:02

[Griffith4ever]

stepping up from a gen 1 intem chip to a gen 12 or whatever is going to come as a big shock. I went from a top of the range gen 2 i7, to a midrange gen 12 i5, expecting them to be roughly equivalent / a modest improvement. Boy was i wrong. I found out my old chip was holding a lot of things back. Its waaaaaay faster.

Buy a midrange current processor PC and then use your remaining budget to choose the best GFX card you can afford.

[Jinx]

What GPU did you upgrade to as anything you can salvage from your existing PC will leave a lot more wiggle room?

[hiccy18]

Your budget is a bit tight for a built machine: with an i5 12400F, 16GB dual channel DDR4 RAM and a 1TB M.2 you'd have enough change to get RTX3050, RX6600 or RX7600, or Intel A750, another £50 into the budget could get an RTX4060.

[Patrick Bateman]

From what I can see looking at used options it's more than enough for a decent enough machine for what I'm wanting, I don't need to go overkill.

Any of these in particular stand out?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/405414317684

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156215606033

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196882230609

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267093816819

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326355726073


The more recent graphics card I got was a GTX 1050 Ti so that'll be easily surpassed now.

Edited by Patrick Bateman on Thursday 12th December 18:10

[Whataguy]

If it’s just war thunder have you considered an Xbox?

I only needed a PC for MS flight sim and found that an Xbox beats one for performance and cost as it’s just one game I needed.

The Xbox series X is £400 and runs it in 4k. The series S is £200 and runs in 1080p.

I couldn’t spec a gaming PC for those prices. You can get a plain PC for non gaming use as well and still be below budget.

[Ikemi]

I'm not sure I'd trust eBay for pre-built machines. There's no comeback if there are issues, and it's *possible* that some of the equipment is subpar - or obtained from Alibaba e.g. the graphics card shows as a 4060, but it's an Alibaba knock off with potential reliability issues.

If you want a pre-built gaming PC, I'd look at very.co.uk - They offer 20% if you open a credit agreement with them for the first time. You can then pay off the credit agreement immediately, close the credit agreement account, and you've saved 20%! My wife did this on a new MacBook Air earlier this month!

https://www.very.co.uk/first-order-discount.page

That means you could get this within budget:

https://www.very.co.uk/hp-victus-by-hp-tg02-2002na...

HP Victus
Intel Core i5-14400F
16GB RAM
512GB NVMe M.2 drive
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

... for around £744

I always build my computers, but if someone wanted a pre-built, this is what I would recommend!

[Jinx]

Patrick Bateman said:

From what I can see looking at used options it's more than enough for a decent enough machine for what I'm wanting, I don't need to go overkill.

Any of these in particular stand out?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/405414317684

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156215606033

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196882230609

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267093816819

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326355726073

On another note...I don't suppose those.

The more recent graphics card I got was a GTX 1050 Ti so that'll be easily surpassed now.

If you don't mind second hand than go with CEX as you at least get 12months warrenty:

3070 Ti equipped 10th Gen i7 for £670

[grumbledoak]

I probably wouldn't buy an eBay special with no warranty.

Your budget isn't huge for something you want to last ten years.

If you don't want to build your own and upgrade it later I would look for a discounted gaming PC from one of the big box shippers, like the "very" HP above.

[Patrick Bateman]

Cheers for these suggestions and that 20% discount offer on Very is appealing although is 512GB storage not on the small side or have things become much more efficient?

My current computer shows 543GB free of 930GB and I don't exactly have loads on here as it is...

[grumbledoak]

Patrick Bateman said:

Cheers for these suggestions and that 20% discount offer on Very is appealing although is 512GB storage not on the small side or have things become much more efficient?

My current computer shows 543GB free of 930GB and I don't exactly have loads on here as it is...

It's a 512GB nVME. Not a bad size for your main drive. You can add more storage cheaply and easily later.

ETA here it is on the HP site, full price but 1TB an option
https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/product.aspx?id=A30X...

Edited by grumbledoak on Thursday 12th December 18:25

[Patrick Bateman]

fk it, I've pulled the trigger on the Very one and it did indeed come in under budget. Cheers again for the help.

Suppose I'd better get a proper look at the games I've been missing out on in recent years.

[grumbledoak]

Cool. Now go get Cyberpunk 2077 and turn the graphics settings to max

[Ikemi]

Patrick Bateman said:

Cheers for these suggestions and that 20% discount offer on Very is appealing although is 512GB storage not on the small side or have things become much more efficient?

My current computer shows 543GB free of 930GB and I don't exactly have loads on here as it is...

It's not ideal, but you're somewhat limited by your budget. There are some computers on the Very website that come with 1TB NVMe M.2 drives, but they're either more expensive, or they cut back on other components. I'd go for the HP I recommended, and then use external storage, and/or upgrade your internal storage (with either SSDs or more M.2 drives) when you need to ...

ETA: Just seen your latest message! Congrats!

[Griffith4ever]

with modern gaming you'll fill 512Gb quite quickly, along with Windows on it, but its very easy to add a 2Tb NVME for about £80 on Amazon if you keep an eye out.

You then just point Steam at the new drive. Its not uncommon for games to be over 80Gb

[Patrick Bateman]

Arrived first thing this morning so in the process of getting everything set up and up to date.

Incredible the difference in the size of the thing, it's tiny and light compared to my old one. Already nice just to navigate quickly between programs etc. without any little delay.

[Patrick Bateman]

Another query...any advice on monitors for £200 and under?

I currently use a 32" 1080 TV so it'll be easily improved but I do like the size even though the picture quality is obviously not brilliant used as a monitor. I've read 4k is best at this size but I don't have the hardware to go with that and use max settings from what I've read.

Is 1440p a decent compromise?

Edited by Patrick Bateman on Monday 16th December 21:54

[Griffith4ever]

you got a 4060? That'll run a 2k monitor happily, gaming. It'll also run an ultrawide happily (3840 x 1440).

I've a 3070 , so roughly the same speed and it runs the ultrawide with ease at max or near max settings. Before that I wan dual 2k monitors.

You'll be wasting a lot of resources running 4k at 32"

[gangzoom]

Patrick Bateman said:

£750 is absolutely top whack just to cover the bare PC (built, I cannot be arsed doing that myself), no monitors etc. required here. Ideally something that doesn't have a case trying to do a poor impersonation of a grotty nightclub's disco lights.

Hopefully you are enjoying the new rig, but for the same reasons as you I'm now just using streaming services, was using Stadia before it went bust, now GeForce Now.

£100/year, so £750 is 7.5 years worth of subscription costs. In return I can play any game in my Steam/Xbox library that's on GeForce Now, on any device with Internet access, never have to worry about updates/storage etc, and even on the cheapo subscription can turn the graphics settings to high/ultra for most games I play.