Budget Gaming PC

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Tiger Ed
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Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 1:37 am
Location: Waterford Rep of Ireland

Budget Gaming PC

Post by Tiger Ed » Mon Jan 11, 2021 1:24 pm

Hi chaps
I'm planning on a return to flying after a long break (due to illness) and need some advice on purchasing a budget PC.
Prior to my break I used an old laptop that to be honest is not up to the task so I wish to buy something dedicated to flight sims. Unfortunately I have no understanding of gaming PC's (I'm old and definitely not one of the tech savvy generation)
GHz, ram, 9th,10th gen, liquid cooled cupcake circuits, motherboards, brother boards and next doors cat board are well above my tied old brain (Ok I made some of the tech stuff up) Worst of all is I have only a small amount of cash to trough at this so a budget Pc is my only option. I need some help.

Recently I drove an hour to Cork City to a shop dedicated to gaming only to be treated like an idiot and all but told by the guy behind the counter to come back with a sh#t load of money and he would sell me a computer that NASA would be proud of. being patronized is not the word and I am still smarting from it
All I want is a PC that will handle Cliffs of dover its addons and a couple of other games. I want to return to the ACG community as after such a long illness and with this covid crap combined with living in a very rural part of Ireland flying with you guys would be a tonic. I want good advice from people I can trust that aren't out just to sell me something I probably dont even need. Can any of you point me in the right direction and give me the advice I need. (Warning patience will be needed as i know nothing)
I look forward to you replies and Advice Tiger Ed
P.S Would used or Refurbished be an option.

Konaber
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Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Konaber » Mon Jan 11, 2021 1:30 pm

Hi TigerEd,

first things first:
- what is your budget?
- do you just need a PC or other peripherals, too?

Cheers
Konaber

Tiger Ed
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 1:37 am
Location: Waterford Rep of Ireland

Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Tiger Ed » Mon Jan 11, 2021 4:45 pm

Sorry I should have told you my budget, it around 500/600 euro. I would like to get a monitor on that too but I know that's asking a lot

Konaber
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Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Konaber » Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:32 am

What would be the go-to site for parts in Ireland?

500/600 € should be sufficient (without a monitor), but all of the sites I looked just had "out of stock" GPUs -.-

Tiger Ed
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 1:37 am
Location: Waterford Rep of Ireland

Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Tiger Ed » Tue Jan 12, 2021 6:57 pm

Thank for your reply
To be honest I don't know, apart from the shop in Cork City that was so rude to me. I would think most people would buy online. The idea of parts scares me to death, I think self build would be throwing me in the deep end (with weights around my ankles)

Spigot
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Location: West Yorkshire

Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Spigot » Tue Jan 12, 2021 7:40 pm

Quick session on partpicker ie gave me these which are in the sort of ballpark I would recommend.

https://ie.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Ljjbh

https://ie.pcpartpicker.com/list/s4jjbh

The first I would say is a minimum realistic system for if you wanted BoX to run on low-mid settings - I know you mention Cliffs but ACG is far more active on the Great Battles series and I would say should remain under consideration. There are now some more western front assets and the next pack to release is Normandy. Cliffs would of course also run fine, and the specs recommended for Tobruk are actually pretty similar to those for BoX. The second system is cheaper (although both are pushing/a little over your budget) but includes what is now a fairly old GPU, a low quality PSU and only 8GB of RAM which is marginal for a modern PC - even a very budget one. It would probably run stuff on low but I would expect some chugging if on multiplayer.

The CPU cooler might be OK to drop but the default intel one is absolute rubbish and I don't know how hot an i3 would run under gaming loads. Case would include 2 fans which would probably do you. As Konaber said GPU stocks are low all round at the moment, with no real date for improvement. If you can wait it may be worth seeing what changes soon, as new intel CPUs and some more GPU availability/new models may push some other prices down towards your budget. Also worth noting there may be parts you can find which PC partpicker didn't but it would take some more legwork.

Building a PC is definitely daunting, but there are a lot of videos online and once you have a good idea what to do it isn't all that complex. Getting a pre-built system will almost definitely cost more, a quick check on the two sites partpicker was using shows either comparable systems for more money or cheaper ones which I would say fall below min specs for both il2 games. Best example here but the price is still higher without the better cooler.

https://www.custompc.ie/intel-gaming-pc ... cs_ireland

Konaber
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Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Konaber » Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:35 pm

305 bucks for a GTX 1650 is ridiculous. It should be half of it.

I would look into the used market, someone who is replacing his ~3 year old PC maybe. (Mine is 3 years old and is running BoX/Cliffs in non-VR without issues).

Spigot
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Location: West Yorkshire

Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Spigot » Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:20 am

Agreed completely, but I think it's a symptom of the lack of availability all round. For the price it's still the best one I could see, being the next one down but they're old now. Waiting out until stuff becomes available again may be the best option for now.

Tiger Ed
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Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 1:37 am
Location: Waterford Rep of Ireland

Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Tiger Ed » Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:35 am

Thanks for the reply
I don't think I'm competent to build my own gaming PC and the cost is beyond my budget as I would need a monitor as well. A friend of my nephew has recommended a Stormforce Onyx Ryzen 5 3400G 8GB 1TB Radeon RX Gaming PC. I would appreciate your opinion on this
After Spigot mentioning it I have just looked at IL-2 Great Battles and it looks brilliant, Would I have to buy battle of stalingrad or Tobruk first and if you are all flying that, that's what I want. And could someone explain what BoX is.

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Donkey
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Re: Budget Gaming PC

Post by Donkey » Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:50 am

Having just googled it, that Stormforce is using onboard graphics, which is never a good thing.

As the others say, it may well be worth looking on a site like gumtree to see if anyone is selling a PC secondhand.

With regards to building one yourself, I would urge you to consider it. If you don't feel confident, and assuming you have a smartphone or a tablet and decent enough internet at home to support video calling, one of us could even spend an afternoon talking you through the build as you do it. Once it's built installing windows is very straightforward, and again someone could handhold you through that.

IL2 Great Battles has multiple theatres - Battle of Moscow, Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Kuban, Battle of Bodenplatte etc... So is often referred to simply as "BoX" - short for Battle of X. I.e BoX is the same as IL2 Great Battles.
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