£500 Budget gaming PC build

[InfiniTea_and_Biscuits]

Hi,

I am looking at upgrading my second Machine, which is over 5 years old and has got to the point where it has slowed down and is too low spec to play what we want to on it. Initially I was going to look at just upgrading it a bit but I think it is so old the whole thing would need upgrading, so I figured it would be better and easier to start anew.

However I do not really have much idea about the current state of hardware, especially the best bang-for-buck budget components, so I was hoping someone in this wonderful community may be able to assist.

My budget is: £500
I live in: UK
Operating system: Will need to be purchased in the budget - Windows 10 Home
Monitor: Not Needed
Gaming resolution: Single Monitor 1920 x 1080
Peripherals?: Already have them all
Will you do overclocking?: Nope, would prefer longevity and reliability over speed
What are you planning to do with the PC?: A variety of games, mostly multiplayer ones so they need to run well although graphical fidelity is not a high priority.

Currently regularly played on it (when it works) - World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online, SWTOR, Secret World, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Payday 2, Endless Space, Civ 5, Age of Wonders 3, EUIV

A key game we want to play but the current machine cannot run is Warhammer Vermintide and in the future Overwatch, Stellaris and no doubt many other MMO/FPS/Strategy/4X multiplayer games.

so looking at Vermintide's minimum spec as a baseline minimum for the new machine it would need at minimum:

• Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q9500 @ 2.83GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 940
• Memory: 6 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5770 /w 1GB VRAM

although ideally closer to the recommended if the budget allows, but looking at prices for these components i doubt it:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.00 GHz or AMD FX-9590 @ 4.7 GHz
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD GPU Radeon R9 290

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer,

[H3ll0J3ll0]

you are not playing much demanding games which is really nice for your budget but you are right you wont hit the recommended specs you listed,
when you are on a low budget there are two ways of making your dollars worth more, buying used and overclocking, and before you say anything about overclocking. The reliabillity when overclocking doesnt change, you might get bluescreens but that is part of the processo, if you get a bluescreen you lower the clock/up the voltage and try again. When it comes to longevity it doesnt matter because unless you are going to mine bitcoins with them they will be obsolete before they die, especially cheaper and less powerfull stuff. So my recommendation, buy used and overclock until your cooling cant handle it anymore and use common sense when buying stuff if its distance ask for proof of it working + a handwritten note.
Search for linus tech tips scrapyard wars on youtube if you want a funny series with some tips.

With that said if you dont want to buy used here is my proposition:
Here is the "cheapo build" it turned out better than i though but if you are willing to spend 50£ more you'll get better quality components(next link)
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/ZGj6wP
Here is what i would recommend its a really great build
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/dndyMp

[InfiniTea_and_Biscuits]

[QUOTE="h3ll0j3ll0, post: 29650, member: 11587"]...
With that said if you dont want to buy used here is my proposition:
Here is the "cheapo build" it turned out better than i though but if you are willing to spend 50£ more you'll get better quality components(next link)
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/ZGj6wP
Here is what i would recommend its a really great build
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/dndyMp[/QUOTE]

Thank you very much for the advice, Those builds look good and i think i can stretch to the slightly more expensive for the extra quality.

One thing i notice is that these do not include the OS, so this will add another £85. However I realized one area i can save is I still have my old GTX 650ti 2GB from my previous upgrade on my main machine, so I figure I can use this in the short term and spend an extra £50-£80 across the rest of the build to upgrade it a bit.

I have come up with the following from your build - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/QWGrkL

I upgraded the case a bit (the one you had selected was only available from merchants that would be expensive postage for a single item and looking at all the top rated budget cases I preferred the one i ended up with even though it is double the price).
I also upgraded the PSU to be a more efficient and more significantly a modular one, hopefully making it a bit easier to manage construction and cable management.
If this is a huge mistake or if the money would be significantly better spent on the components (motherboard, CPU, RAM) let me know or if I am missing something obvious that makes this modified build a bad idea please tell me

[H3ll0J3ll0]

Hi, i was going to write this in a pm but i cant since you have limited your profile on the forum. but i generally like your way of thinking the 650ti could work for now but it would be a serious bottle neck. I two suggestions, you can buy the windows 8/7 and then upgrade for free, it saves you 10£ and the other suggestion i have to take via pm because of forum rules(.

[InfiniTea_and_Biscuits]

Sorry, I think I have enabled PMs (Conversations?) on my profile, when i signed up I didn't know if I was actually going to use this account other than for web-sub so just disabled everything.

If the graphics card is the only bottleneck in the system I think I will be okay with that for the time being, I should be able to buy a replacement after the Christmas season so it should not be more than 4-6 months relying on the old card.