The ultimate PC building guide
Best Gaming PC
The world of PC hardware is littered with choice, but we want to make it easy by guiding you with building the best gaming PC possible for under £500, £1,000 and £1,500. We update this article once a month with the best value PC components for your gaming PC budget.
The whole gaming PC market has been realigned recently thanks to the introduction of Nvidia's GTX 1080 / GTX 1070 and AMD's Radeon RX 480 graphics cards. Each is now the best choice at their respective price points so for us to include them in our systems we've had to change things around a bit.
In the case of our cheapest system that means we've freed up enough budget to move to the latest Intel CPU platform, leaving just our Oculus Rift/HTC Vive-ready PC as the only one using older tech (and even then that's only because it's the minimum spec Oculus specifies).
Elsewhere we've had to do the opposite, saving money elsewhere to squeeze the best graphics cards into our budgets.
5 THINGS EVERY GOOD PC BUILDER SHOULD
KNOW
If you're new to building gaming PCs, I have a few sage pieces of advice. I've been doing this for some time now and have the scars to prove it. Veterans may want to skip this bit, but it always pays to remember the basics.
1) IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GRAPHICS CARD
When it comes to building a great gaming PC, the single most important component has long been, and still is, the graphics card. Whether you’re looking to get the maximum performance for multi-player gaming or you just want your games to look their best, it’s the graphics card that will nearly always be the bottleneck.
As such, nearly a third of the budget on all these builds will be spent on the graphics card. You can compromise and still achieve decent gaming performance if you’re after a more general machine, but we’d still recommend spending at least a quarter of your budget on graphics.
Nvidia's latest flagship graphics card, the GTX 1080, is just about to land too, which should push prices down across the board. We've included it in our most expensive builds but we'll have to wait and see how it affects cheaper builds once it's for sale and other prices drop.
2) RAM IS RAM
There was a time when RAM made a reasonably noticeable difference to overall PC performance and it was worth spending big. However, the need to splash the cash on high-performance RAM these days is minimal. Unless you’re really at the cutting-edge, this is definitely an area where you can make savings.
Not that you should get the cheapest, smallest amount possible; around 8GB of mid-range RAM will be fine for the majority of gaming scenarios. It's only when you're building a more expensive rig, or planning to overclock, that you need to think about your choices more.
3) GAMES LOAD FASTER WITH SSDS, BUT AT A
COST
The benefits of SSDs should hardly need highlighting these days but for those still unaware, the upgrade in performance from a hard drive to an SSD is huge. Your PC will boot up faster, games will load faster, levels will load faster and your whole PC will feel much snappier as most apps and files load almost instantly.
However, if pure gaming performance is your goal then compromising by not having an SSD is a way to save money and still get plenty of storage space. This is because SSDs affect performance only while data is being loaded into and out of memory. Once you’re in a game that loading has already taken place, at least until you change levels or move to a new area on a large map.
So while you could easily pick up a 128GB SSD for £40 or so, you may be better off buying a 1TB hard drive for the same money, and not have to constantly worry about running out of drive space. Note that half-a-dozen high-end games can easily take up 128GB, and that’s without accounting for all your photos, videos and other media.
4) SAVE MONEY WHERE YOU CAN AFFORD TO
Another area where you can save money if your budget is really tight is the stuff that holds, cools, and powers all the other components. While budget power supplies will be inefficient, and may not even be able to deliver the power they claim, even the cheapest will get the job done. Just make sure you go with a reputable brand such as Corsair, Cooler Master or Be Quiet, to name just a few, and avoid unbranded and super-cheap options.
Likewise with cases, as long as it holds your components, it’s doing all it needs to. What we look for in higher-end cases is luxuries such as better design, ease of use, build quality, cooling, noise reduction and extra features. But if all you need is the basics then buy the basics.
When it comes to the cooler for your CPU, though, it's worth getting something decent. You can get very good coolers for £20 that will outperform the stock cooler that comes with most CPUs. And it’s not like that stock cooler is free – OEM chips without the cooler are £10-£15 cheaper.
OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER
Along with all the components we’ve picked out below, you’ll also have to think about including the cost of a licence for Windows. Now you may have an existing copy you can use or you may be happy to use Windows 7, a key for which can be had for as little as £20.
Otherwise, a Windows 10 licence will cost around £40.
We’re also not thinking about peripherals here. So if you need a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers or gaming headset, you’ll need to add anywhere from £100 to £1,000 to your budget if you’re after top-quality peripherals.
THE 1080P GAMING PC – BEST GAMING PC
UNDER £500 / $650
CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 – £54 at Overclockers.co.uk | $65 at Newegg.com
Motherboard: MSI H170M Pro-VDH – £72 at Ebuyer.com | $147 at Newegg.com
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB 2400MHz, 2 x 4GB – £34 at Ebuyer.com | $23 at Amazon.com
SSD: 120GB Kingston SSDNow V300 – £35 at Amazon.co.uk | $43 at Amazon.com
HDD: WD Blue 1TB – £39 at Amazon.co.uk | $49 at Amazon.com
Power Supply: Corsair VS450 – £31 at Scan | $58 at Amazon.com
Case: BitFenix Nova – £26 at Overclockers UK | $40 at Amazon.com
Cooler: Included with CPU
TOTAL: £464 / $664
With the AMD Radeon RX 480 now being the obvious choice at around the £200 price point, we've had a thorough rejig of our budget build. The RX 480 with 4GB of VRAM is only £173 so we've been able to bump this system up from being based on Intel's older LGA1150 CPUs to the latest LGA1151 chipset.
The CPU and motherboard we've used are very basic but the latter supports DDR4 memory so you can potentially upgrade the CPU and motherboard at a later date without having to also buy new RAM.
Potential swaps: There are very few obvious tweaks we'd make to this system, as it's just such a great balance and has great upgrade potential.
The main thing would be if you insist on using Nvidia graphics then you'd be looking at getting a GTX 970 for around £200. It's not quite as fast as the RX 480 but it's pretty close.
Otherwise if you do fancy upgrading any other component we'd suggest just stretching your budget a bit further, rather than compromise the system elsewhere. Want a larger, faster SSD? Save another £50. Want a faster CPU? Save another £70 and get the Core i3-6300 or another £100 and get the Core i5-6400.
As it stands, this system will allow you to play most games at 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) with high detail settings and many at 1440p too. Not bad for £500. And, if you don't mind going slightly overbudget, a cooler such as the Raijintek Pallas 140mm Low Profile (£33.95 from Overclockers) will help if you choose to overclock your CPU.
THE QUAD HD GAMING PC – BEST GAMING PC
UNDER £1,000 / $1,200
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A – £116 at Amazon.co.uk | $131 at Newegg.com
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 2666MHz – £70 at Ebuyer | $90 at Amazon.com
Graphics card: MSI GTX 980 – £290 at Overclockers.co.uk | $373 at Amazon.com
HDD: Toshiba 2TB HDD – £60 at Scan | $69 at Newegg.com
Power Supply: EVGA Supernova GS 650W 80 Plus Gold – £79 at Amazon.co.uk | $85 at Newegg.com
Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 v2 – £66 at Amazon.co.uk | $60 at Amazon.com
TOTAL: £1,009 / $1,200
There was a hope that the recently-arrived Nvidia GTX 1070 would be priced at a level that would make it a natural shoe-in for our sub-£1000 PC. However, with it available for around £400 it's just a bit too pricey to fit in.
Its arrival along with that of the AMD RX 480 have pushed prices down, though, so we can move from the R9 390X we chose last time and instead go for the GTX 980. It's more powerful yet less power hungry and it's now available for under £300.
Potential swaps: If you're happy to really compromise on the CPU (to, say, a Core i3-6100) and maybe drop the SSD altogether then you could switch to the GTX 1070. However, it's not something we'd particularly advise unless you can see yourself quickly being able to afford to upgrade your CPU and storage.
Alternatively, if you really do want to build a balanced system with the option of upgrading your graphics later you could go for the faster and much more overclockable Intel Core i5-6600K (£199.99) and drop the graphics card down even further to a GTX 970 (£200).
Either way, the key to this build is that the motherboard here is based on the latest Z170 chipset and so supports all Intel’s latest CPUs, and likely its next generation of chips too - based on the so-called Kaby Lake architecture. Plus, it includes support for the latest USB 3.1 standard and has masses of upgrade potential in terms of more storage or graphics cards. There are a few enthusiast features included, too, which make upgrading, overclocking and testing easier.
This setup will get you high frame rate performance with high detail settings in most games running at 1440p (2,560 x 1,440).
THE 4K GAMING PC – BEST GAMING PC UNDER
£1,500 / $2,000
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 3200MHz – £87 at Amazon.co.uk | $85 at Newegg.com
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 – £599 at Amazon.co.uk | $850 at Amazon.com
SSD: Samsung 950 Pro 256GB – £139 at Amazon.co.uk | $190 at Amazon.com
HDD: Toshiba 3TB HDD – £68 at Novatech | $91 at Amazon.com
Power Supply: EVGA GQ 80 Plus Gold 650W – £70 at Scan | $74 at Amazon.com
Case: Corsair 400C Black Window – £86 at Overclockers UK | $113 at Amazon.com
Cooler: Corsair Hydro H100i v2 – £103 at Amazon.co.uk | $104 at Amazon.com
TOTAL: £1,550 / $2,023
Once again it's Nvidia's brand new GTX 1080 that is at the heart of our £1,500 system this month. However, it's even more expensive than before, and in fact prices for several components have increased markedly in the last month or so - Brexit kicking in?
The upshot is that we're £50 over budget this month where last time we were £12 under budget, while the US version of this build is $180 higher than last time. Both are hefty increases that really affect our options for tweaking the build, without dropping back from that GTX 1080.
Potential swaps: All told this is a very nicely balanced PC, but if you're buying a totally new system I'd recommend getting a Skylake, 6000-series Intel processor, Z170 motherboard and DDR4 RAM, so that you're much more future-proofed. The Intel Core i5-6600K from the top-end build plus the Asus Z170-A and RAM from the £1,000 system would fit the bill, which would bring the total cost of this Oculus system up to £761.91.
Otherwise, the most obvious swap would be to go for the AMD RX 480. It's not much faster than the GTX 970 but it does have a larger chunk of VRAM and is better suited for higher resolutions.
If you’re looking for more advice on which graphics card, motherboard, or RAM to buy, check out our Best Graphics Card and Best Z170 Motherboard
Potential swaps: What are our options for keeping things under budget? Well, despite the fact that the Intel 6600K makes up a good £25 or so of the increase, we'd be reluctant to downgrade it. If pushed, though, it could be dropped to an Intel Core i5-6400, which would save £55.
Alternatively we could opt for a cheaper SSD - something like the Samsung 850 Evo 250GB (£73 at Currys) - and drop down to the Corsair H60i cooler (£60 vs £100).
Really, though, there's a lot to be said for dropping to the GTX 1070, if you really are set on keeping things under budget. The GTX 1070 actually offers better value, even if it's less powerful overall, and it'll still give excellent performance at 1440p. Plus, it's not like the GTX 1080 actually provides totally seamless performance at 4K either, so you'd still have to compromise on graphics quality to get a consistent 60fps. You'll just have to compromise a touch more with the GTX 1070.
OCULUS RIFT-READY PC
If you're looking to put together a new system or tweak your existing PC so that you can take full advantage of an Oculus Rift, thankfully Oculus has provided a handy guide to the minimum specs you'll need and, as of now, this is how much it'll set you back.
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 – £180 at Amazon.co.uk | $199 at Amazon.com
Motherboard: MSi Z97-G43 Intel Z97 – £78 at Amazon.co.uk | $199 at Amazon.com
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury White 1866MHz, 2 x 4GB – £37.60 at Amazon.co.uk |$35 at Amazon.com
SSD: 120GB Kingston SSDNow V300 – £34 at Amazon.co.uk | $42 at Amazon.com
HDD: WD Blue 1TB – £41 at Amazon.co.uk | $49 at Amazon.com
Power Supply: Corsair VS450 – £35 at Scan | $58 at Amazon.com
Case: BitFenix Nova – £26 at Overclockers UK | $40 at Amazon.com
Cooler: Included with CPU
TOTAL: £655 / $946
The CPU, graphics card and amount of RAM are as Oculus has specified, while in the rest of this system we've used the same components as from the cheapest £500 gaming PC setup. All except the motherboard, which we've had to improve in order to hit Oculus' stipulated three USB 3.0 ports.
Potential swaps: All told this is a very nicely balanced PC, but if you're buying a totally new system I'd recommend getting a Skylake, 6000-series Intel processor, Z170 motherboard and DDR4 RAM, so that you're much more future-proofed. The Intel Core i5-6600K from the top-end build plus the Asus Z170-A and RAM from the £1,000 system would fit the bill, which would bring the total cost of this Oculus system up to £761.91.
Otherwise, the most obvious swap would be to go for the AMD RX 480. It's not much faster than the GTX 970 but it does have a larger chunk of VRAM and is better suited for higher resolutions.
Source:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/best-gaming-pc
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