gaming pc - quick question

[S3_Graham]

I've asked a few times in the past but finally getting round to sorting this out. Im looking at running CS:GO, BF4, Iracing ,Arma 3, DayZ etc. Those kind of games.

Im doing this on the cheap to being given an old pc and upgrade what I need to run these kind of games.

Motherboard and CPU are old so going to replace those. £160 I5 processor will be good enough right? £100 or so for a motherboard. The graphics card is a GTX280 I believe, will that run these kind of things?

Is it worth upgrading to a Solid state drive to assist in making it quicker?

completely noob questions and thin on detail but i've not really been given a full spec of it and i've been out of console gaming since the Xbox 360 was launched as my ex GF wouldnt let me have a desk in her dressing room - the 2nd bedroom!

[weyland yutani]

I bought a second hand 7950 graphics card last summer and with my i5 and 8GB ram I can play anything. I'd look for cheap 7000 series (ATI) or 600 (Nvidea) gpus, not the very latest gen but great performance. I don't have an SSD yet but they are supposed to be fantastic, but they wont make any difference to game performance beyond loading times.

[Bullett]

An SSD will help boot/load times are such but probably won't have much impact over a regular drive 'in game'

That GPU is the low point. I'd give it a go though, might works for the games you intend to play but don't expect fully shineys.

[Derek Withers]

Its worth checking to see if the old power supply will be up to adding more powerful hardware as well.

[Shaoxter]

£160 sounds too much for a CPU, you can get away with a non-K i5 for £130. £100 motherboard is definitely too much, you don't need any overclocking abilities.

That GPU is ancient, your best bet for a GPU on a budget is a lightly used one on ebay or some special clearance deal on a previous generation card.

[S3_Graham]

Thanks guys. Will give it a shot on the old card and then look into a second hand 7950 or something.

[S3_Graham]

result - mentioned it to a chap at work. Just bagged a brand new Radeon R280X for £100

[3sixty]

S3_Graham said:

result - mentioned it to a chap at work. Just bagged a brand new Radeon R280X for £100

Does he have any more?

[S3_Graham]

Ha, sadly not. Apparently he ran 2 GFX cards in tandem and one quit. This was sent as a replacement but the colours didn't match so he just upgraded to some mega spec thing.

Pilots with too much money. still... im not complaining!

Said he may have an old solid state drive laying about I can have too! Also just found my old Razer mouse, still works!

[Robatr0n]

Lucky bugger.

I can't really justify the expense but I've been looking into building myself a gaming PC now.

[S3_Graham]

going to sell off the 360 and the ps3 to recoup about £20 towards it.

[Calza]

S3_Graham said:

I've asked a few times in the past but finally getting round to sorting this out. Im looking at running CS:GO, BF4, Iracing ,Arma 3, DayZ etc. Those kind of games.

Im doing this on the cheap to being given an old pc and upgrade what I need to run these kind of games.

Motherboard and CPU are old so going to replace those. £160 I5 processor will be good enough right? £100 or so for a motherboard. The graphics card is a GTX280 I believe, will that run these kind of things?

Is it worth upgrading to a Solid state drive to assist in making it quicker?

completely noob questions and thin on detail but i've not really been given a full spec of it and i've been out of console gaming since the Xbox 360 was launched as my ex GF wouldnt let me have a desk in her dressing room - the 2nd bedroom!

I'm big on BF4 so can put in my 2p's worth..

i5 is perfect for current gen, K if you want to over clock. Motherboard it depends really on what you want, over clocking being the biggest one. £100 should do it for stock speeds though.

SSD won't affect games performance at all, but will impact load times. BF4 is horribly compressed (or something), I can load game/map a good 20 seconds quicker than a friend on a conventional HDD.

R9 280x is perfect, I average 70fps on 1080p ultra online (but obviously it can dip) with mine. Is it a stock cooler though or after market?

Also don't skimp on PSU, you need a decent 550w to run that.

[S3_Graham]

Calza said:

I'm big on BF4 so can put in my 2p's worth..

i5 is perfect for current gen, K if you want to over clock. Motherboard it depends really on what you want, over clocking being the biggest one. £100 should do it for stock speeds though.

SSD won't affect games performance at all, but will impact load times. BF4 is horribly compressed (or something), I can load game/map a good 20 seconds quicker than a friend on a conventional HDD.

R9 280x is perfect, I average 70fps on 1080p ultra online (but obviously it can dip) with mine. Is it a stock cooler though or after market?

Also don't skimp on PSU, you need a decent 550w to run that.

I5 ordered is: Intel 4690 3.5Ghz LGA1150
M'board is: Intel GA-Z97X-SLI

I have no idea on the PSU. Its my cousins old computer that my uncle is going to build up for me. I dont even know how much ram it has!

The full name of the GFX card is R280x 'top DC2 OC'. Does that last bit mean anything extra?

TBH when its all said and done I dont think i'll be saving a VAST amount over new. perhaps £2-300? All i'm getting free is a Case/PSU dont know about RAM, sound, network, Keyboard yet....

[Shaoxter]

Why have you gone for a Z97 board with a non-K CPU and one graphics card?

[S3_Graham]

ha. In all honesty... thats what I was advised! He's building it... im just supplying credit card!

I guess its overkill but means I can update at a later time.

[Calza]

The Top DC2 is the cooler (ASUS), and OC means over-clocked from the factory so all good there.

Please double check the PSU though, with a poor one the best result is losing performance.

[Shaoxter]

S3_Graham said:

ha. In all honesty... thats what I was advised! He's building it... im just supplying credit card!

I guess its overkill but means I can update at a later time.

True, but if you're getting that motherboard then you may as well pay the very small premium and get the 4690K.

[S3_Graham]

Shaoxter said:

True, but if you're getting that motherboard then you may as well pay the very small premium and get the 4690K.

ok. Please bear with me. Im a total noob.

What does the K give you? If its a huge deal or i'm missing a trick i'll call them tomorrow and try to intervene before they ship it out. Its an extra £16.

[Bullett]

Unlocked multipliers. That gives you the ability to overclock.

So you have paid more than you need for a mobo with the ability to overclock combined with a cpu you can't. So either upgrade the CPU to K or downgrade the mobo. I'd do the upgrade.

[Shaoxter]

S3_Graham said:

Shaoxter said:

True, but if you're getting that motherboard then you may as well pay the very small premium and get the 4690K.

ok. Please bear with me. Im a total noob.

What does the K give you? If its a huge deal or i'm missing a trick i'll call them tomorrow and try to intervene before they ship it out. Its an extra £16.

So a K processor gives you an unlocked multiplier meaning you can overclock the processor. You can get a 30% overclock pretty easily with this chip, meaning CPU-dependent tasks (e.g. video encoding) may run up to 30% quicker. However when it comes to gaming, the bottleneck is usually always with the graphics card so an overclocked CPU may not be of much help. If you decide to overclock you will need an aftermarket CPU cooler (you can get decent ones for £30).

A Z97 motherboard allows you to overclock and run multiple graphics cards, whereas a cheaper H97 does neither.

Therefore you either want a Z97 + K CPU + CPU cooler for extra performance which you may or may not notice or H97 + non-K CPU for value for money. Your combo will work fine, but it's non-optimal