Budget Gamming

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SvenBent

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My wife co worker needs a bit of advice on some budget build she wishes to buy for her son (age around 15) for gamming.

personally im not really that happy about them but wanted a second opinion to kinda make sure Im not just biased

System1 (275$)
CPU: AM Athlonx II x4 6400
RAM: 8GB Balistix Tactical DDR3L PC16000 ram
GFX: ???
Motherboard: Asrock 970 extreme 3
Storage: 500GB HDD

System2: (390$)
AMD FX4300
RAM 8gb
GFX: R9 270x
Wifi
dvd
SSD with win10
500GB SSHD




My issue here is both of these machines has AMD machines with bad FPU performance from a time where I personally would not touch an AMD CPU.


are there any other used better deals out there?
Her budget is 300 to 400 dollars ( Prefferable towards the 300)
 
she would be better off buying a used Optiplex like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-OptiP...h=item1cc2a210b3:g:c8UAAOSwZltcBW65:rk:2:pf:0 and something like a 1050Ti or 1060 6Gb. To buy an AM3/AM3+ system now is a waste. Granted my daughter has my old PC which is a 970/AM3+ Gigabyte board with 8350 / 8GB Ram and ax270 and it runs games OK, granted games like PUBG will struggle, but overwatch and fortnite run fine.
 
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I'd go with something like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hp-Compaq-...d626f17:g:2GIAAOSwGLRbc0Ol:rk:4:pf:0&LH_BIN=1

Slap in a low profile gpu an ssd and you're done for well under $200 and will blow the pants off of both those two systems in the OP.

I really like the Dells, but I wouldn't pay that much. I bought an i5-2500 Optiplex with 8gb 250gb and win7 and a monitor/kb/mouse for $65 locally. Search for i5-3470 based systems as they're dirt cheap for some reason and have a decent amount of power to start with.
 
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umm, an I5 3470 isn't as fast as an I7 3770. And that computer has no hard drive. Similar spec Optiplex 7010 cost almost exactly the same except it can be had in an MT using a full dual height graphics card

RX 550 would be about minimum for modern games, at a 720/1080p mix. $50 card but they go for as low as $20-30. dual slot only though.
 
matt167 said:
umm, an I5 3470 isn't as fast as an I7 3770. And that computer has no hard drive. Similar spec Optiplex 7010 cost almost exactly the same except it can be had in an MT using a full dual height graphics card

RX 550 would be about minimum for modern games, at a 720/1080p mix. $50 card but they go for as low as $20-30. dual slot only though.
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The i5 is fast enough where it counts--single thread and 4 cores:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-i7-3770-vs-Intel-Xeon-E3-1240/822vs896vs1201

Plus, you can always upgrade to the 3770 in the future since the tdp of both is the same.

I like the 7010 MT for sure if you can find it for the price of the HP, but I couldn't find it for anything less than double. :(
 
The HP shows $35 to ship to me, so I'll assume that it's total value is about $80, and another $20 for a hard drive bringing it to $100.. It's a nice office PC for 1 bill. low profile cards being non existent or expensive make it not worth it for gaming. A LP GT 1030 will cost about $100 on it's own.

This 7010, 8gb/ 250gb I5 3470 is $124 for the mini tower variation.https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optip...=item4430c0ac75:g:LksAAOSwFURcF~Hg:rk:17:pf:0 A 1030-1050 TI or RX 550/60 would fit right in and work out of the box, probably max 720p in most titles and would do 1080p with settings turned down
 
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matt167 said:
The HP shows $35 to ship to me, so I'll assume that it's total value is about $80, and another $20 for a hard drive bringing it to $100.. It's a nice office PC for 1 bill. low profile cards being non existent or expensive make it not worth it for gaming. A LP GT 1030 will cost about $100 on it's own.

This 7010, 8gb/ 250gb I5 3470 is $124 for the mini tower variation.https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optip...=item4430c0ac75:g:LksAAOSwFURcF~Hg:rk:17:pf:0 A 1030-1050 TI or RX 550/60 would fit right in and work out of the box, probably max 720p in most titles and would do 1080p with settings turned down
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That's a chunk in shipping. :eek: Still, if you're going for the 1030, here's one for under $50:
https://www.cdw.com/product/EVGA-GEFORCE-GT-1030-2GB-GDDR5-BSTK/5346300?pfm=srh

But I wouldn't get a 1030 since a used lp 1060 is easy to get for $100 once you find one since no one wants/needs them. That would be a lot faster than the 1030.

No doubt, the Dell gives you a lot more headroom, but you still need to get an ssd and then a gpu. It will end up being more expensive, but still the bang for buck ratio getting you more performance for more money. But this slope is a hard one to stop climbing once you start and the next thing you know, you've spent $400. :D
 
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SamirD said:
That's a chunk in shipping. :eek: Still, if you're going for the 1030, here's one for under $50:
https://www.cdw.com/product/EVGA-GEFORCE-GT-1030-2GB-GDDR5-BSTK/5346300?pfm=srh

But I wouldn't get a 1030 since a used lp 1060 is easy to get for $100 once you find one since no one wants/needs them. That would be a lot faster than the 1030.

No doubt, the Dell gives you a lot more headroom, but you still need to get an ssd and then a gpu. It will end up being more expensive, but still the bang for buck ratio getting you more performance for more money. But this slope is a hard one to stop climbing once you start and the next thing you know, you've spent $400. :D
Click to expand...

But a used LP 1060 won't fit in a sff desktop. They can only take single slot lp cards. 1060 was never available as a single slot.. The Zotac 1050 mini/ 1050 TI mini are really the fastest single slot Nvidia cards and they still command a value

Don't 'need' an SSD, and if you do, they are $30.. The computer is $124. free shipping. That's a $75 headroom just to break $200... This https://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-Radeon...171296&hash=item36436bc70f:g:piwAAOSwk4RcBIxm RX 580 would be killer in the 7010. Even with a 120gb SSD it would be hard to break $300. There are enough deals to get an 80+ white power supply to power a 580 in that price, although the 560 will run out of the box

The only thing with the Optiplex MT's and the Precision MT's is the graphics card is limited to 6" or so as it would over run the ram slots otherwise
 
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matt167 said:
But a used LP 1060 won't fit in a sff desktop. They can only take single slot lp cards. 1060 was never available as a single slot.. The Zotac 1050 mini/ 1050 TI mini are really the fastest single slot Nvidia cards and they still command a value

Don't 'need' an SSD, and if you do, they are $30.. The computer is $124. free shipping. That's a $75 headroom just to break $200... This https://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-Radeon...171296&hash=item36436bc70f:g:piwAAOSwk4RcBIxm RX 580 would be killer in the 7010. Even with a 120gb SSD it would be hard to break $300. There are enough deals to get an 80+ white power supply to power a 580 in that price, although the 560 will run out of the box

The only thing with the Optiplex MT's and the Precision MT's is the graphics card is limited to 6" or so as it would over run the ram slots otherwise
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That can be an issue depending on the motherboard layout. Most of the SFFs I've seen these days have enough room for them while back in the day it was more of a problem.

I agree that the 7010 is definitely a better starting point, and that rx580 is pretty killer (especially at that price), but it's still a matter of the same price/performance ratio and at a higher price, you get a higher performance. I think we both have tweaked all we can out of these two systems--it's a matter of a budget call instead. And if there's more budget, that Ryzen setup is pretty killer too since just the memory bandwidth will open up some speed.
 
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I would agree the Ryzen 2200G can be a killer system ( 11% faster than 3770 per benchmarks ). Also have to factor in a Windows license as well ( Dell and HP both will at least activate Win 7 ). And if you look the memory price is not factored
 
matt167 said:
I would agree the Ryzen 2200G can be a killer system ( 11% faster than 3770 per benchmarks ). Also have to factor in a Windows license as well ( Dell and HP both will at least activate Win 7 ). And if you look the memory price is not factored
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Hmmm...I'm not seeing it faster, but slower:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-3-2200G-vs-Intel-i7-3770/3186vs896

But you're spot on with the windows license and the memory not adding into the total cost of that system. I guess our builds are still top in terms of price/performance. :D
 
Yup. But it gets even better.. 1440P under $400


$125 Dell Optiplex 7010 MT- https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optip...=item4430c0ac75:g:LksAAOSwFURcF~Hg:rk:17:pf:0
Gigabyte 1070 mini- $240ish with shipping- https://www.ebay.com/itm/GIGABYTE-G...=item1a6a83d544:g:6h0AAOSwjMtcFbgq:rk:23:pf:0
EVGA 500W bronze power supply- $30 ( Almost all smaller Bronze PSU's are $30 on EVGA site right now )

Comes up to about $395. Recommend SSD but not really required. A different PSU being $10 cheaper or so will allow it to fit in the budget

Adata 120gb SSD- $21 https://www.ebay.com/itm/ADATA-Ulti...h=item5d81b04a4b:g:BkAAAOSwn6RbtUh-:rk:2:pf:0
 
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It's pretty amazing the type of systems that can be built right now for cheap. I think the days of the older gen processors being sufficient are going to come to a close in the next year or so, but it's amazing that a 3rd gen processors is still good enough for gaming when we're already into the 9th generation. (y)
 
Who knows. Bulldozer allowed this to happen by letting Intel get complacent

I7 3770 single thread is 2,068 via passmark. I7 8700 is 2,627. Total is 9,288 and 15,139 respectively. If the 3770 had 2 more cores/ threads to match 8700 it would be similar all together. Ivy bridge I7 still has a few years I think.
 
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