Any cunning manoeuvres when buying Hardware?

[Oi_Oi_Savaloy]

Christmas is nearly upon us and my 9 year old boy wants the new farming simulator - trouble is the current game wont play on our ancient PC (5 years old and even then it wasn't a gaming pc) despite me upgrading the graphics board and throwing as much Ram at it as possible (8gb up from 4gb). I know, I know - waste of time trying to upgrade it.

So we're looking at Xbox Ones. I think you'd need £800 to £1,000 for a good gaming PC (to future proof it) but we don't have that sort of money right now. we can afford an xbox one however.

I use Amazon/ebay/John Lewis (like the guarantee for big consumables) but thought I'd ask the collective knowledge on here - where and how do you buy to get the cheapest deal. I'm not bothered on a 5 year warranty for an xbox.

I've seen bundles (in Argos!!) for £250.00 or so for a 500gb one with Fifa17 (of absolutely no interest to my boy but I might dabble in it if I ever get a chance!) but just wondering if there are other ways?

I still prefer keyboard and mouse to play games (that I simply dont get to play anymore, with 3 kids hogging everything).

I'm also looking for an Ipad (64 or 128gb preferably) for the wife - be interested to know if you're buying technique changes for that too.

Thanks in advance,

The Sav of the loy

[sjg]

https://www.console-deals.com/ list out all the bundles and you can pick which game(s) you want included.

iPad, either John Lewis (for the free extra warranty) or go to the Apple refurb store.

[T1berious]

Hi,

There are a lot of youtubers that do budget builds that will happily eat a console for breakfast and still be "upgradeable".

Pauls Hardware is pretty good and BitWit has very recently posted a budget build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQEwQ-sRUZU

I think you need to think about what titles you plan on playing in the next few months (BF1?) and go from there.

As long as you're happy playing AAA titles at high settings at 1080 you should be safely do it under £800 and still have a system you can upgrade when funds allow (SSD being a great, I'll do that later or go small 120Gb SSD for OS).

I tend to build and keep for years so I feel your pain

[Steven_RW]

Hi,

Here are a couple of other options for your thinking.

PS4 reconditioned. Comes feeling new and has a warranty. A colleague bought one for her partner and no issues.

The PS4 Pro is about to be released which, IMO will mean a vast increase in second hand PS4s on the market from people who will have looked after them but just want the more powerful model.

For example, Game are offering £175 for my PS4 and 5 games as a trade in against my pre-order PS4 Pro.

That is A LOT of machine for £175.

If I was to drop the games and sell it privately, maybe I'd get £150 as it is all boxed and mint. Again, £150 is a good price for an awful lot of machine.

ps - having been a pc gamer, I get the drive for a better system but all in, I do not sit here not enjoying the PS4 due to lack of frame rate. It looks great on my big tv and the value for money is awesome. I recall paying nearly £500 for my most expensive GFX card. In comparison to a whole system for £150 second hand..

Cheers,
Steven RW

Edited by Steven_RW on Tuesday 11th October 10:39

[bloomen]

I don't get who's going to upgrade to PS4 pros. The only real difference I can tell is 4k streaming and slightly better looking games. The boggo one can do VR and play blu rays.

hotukdeals is often worth keeping an eye on for deals, but they're such locusts that anything promising is usually burnt up in a few seconds.

[Oi_Oi_Savaloy]

Thanks guys - very much appreciated. I'm going to look into all of these things - I'm a pc gamer at heart (and still have my 4k spectrum for Elite!) but you've got to do what you've got to do.

THanks for the heads up onthe PS4 - never really considered it tbh.

And the Ipad refurb store - didn't know about that.

and hotukdeals and and and - sorry If I'm missed anyone else's contribution - I do fancy building my own spec pc tbh. But it's time you know?

[Steven_RW]

bloomen said:

I don't get who's going to upgrade to PS4 pros. The only real difference I can tell is 4k streaming and slightly better looking games. The boggo one can do VR and play blu rays.

hotukdeals is often worth keeping an eye on for deals, but they're such locusts that anything promising is usually burnt up in a few seconds.

I don't even have a 4k tv but I want the best framerate available and in the grand scheme of things, an extra £175 isn't "that" much cost. Modifying my car is my other hobby and £175 buys you one tyre. Maybe.

RW

Edited by Steven_RW on Tuesday 11th October 15:37

[ukaskew]

Definitely worth keeping an eye on HotUKDeals. Recently PS4s have been widely available at £149, and new XBox One S' have had some extremely good bundles. Even if you don't want the bundled games as long as you check they are physical discs instead of codes you can make a decent chunk back at CEX or somewhere.

[aww999]

Steven_RW said:

I don't even have a 4k tv but I want the best framerate available and in the grand scheme of things, an extra £175 isn't "that" much cost. Modifying my car is my other hobby and £175 buys you one tyre. Maybe.

RW

Edited by Steven_RW on Tuesday 11th October 15:37

This made me laugh, I'm in exactly the same position. I've no plans to change my 1080P screen, waan't too bothered about getting a PS4 as I still have a stack of PS3 games I enjoy in my limited gaming time. However, now there's a better PS4 I MUST HAVE ONE. Even though the one game I want most (Dark Souls 3) isn't on the list of "upgraded" games that get any benefit from it.

I agree with your point ref car modding as well, it makes most other hobbies (except for maybe buying multiple yachts and crashing them into each other for fun) look cheap!

[RizzoTheRat]

Assuming your old PC has standard case and ATX power supply, rather than being a shuttle or a funny shaped Dell, you might be able to do a reasonably upgrade for a sensible price. Places like Ebuyer and Scan sell motherboard/processor/memory bundles, and an OK spec graphics card isn't that expensive. Reusing your existing case/psu/drives/monitor/etc saves a fair bit over a new PC, and if you get a reasonably motherboard you've got scope to upgrade it again in later life with a quicker graphics card and/or processor.

[Steven_RW]

I reckon you just won't get some of the slow down in DS3 that you may get during the most intense full screen, boss fight big moments. For reference, having completed DS3 twice, I didn't feel the game suffered from frame rate. Even if it did lose a frame or two, I didn't come away caring.

....but I still want the shiny shiny new one. :-)

As for the PS3 chat, I collect for my PS3 but find myself more and more playing the PS4.

RW

[skeeterm5]

If you have Tesco clubcard points then worth checking their deals. I got my PS4 at half price by using the points.

S

[Oi_Oi_Savaloy]

Thanks for the further tips and advice (tesco points etc) guys - I do appreciate it.

Sadly the current pc is a small box type rather than a tower - that's why it was so hard to find even a remotely useful graphics card that would actually fit.

I know I could be a taller case and transfer everything but I don't think the power supply is anything to write home about - the only thing we'd really want to keep is the hard drive - and that's only for the photos and video/personal files. (I know - we still keep photos on a hard drive rather a cloud - so old fashioned!!)

[ajprice]

There are Battlefield 1 and Gears Of War 4 bundles as well as the FIFA bundle if you prefer that to football http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/xbox... . As said above, try a traded in PS4 or Xbox at CEX or Game now that the PS4 Slim / Pro and Xbox One S are out.