The worst pc ever devised?

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desktop noob

Member
So, just to align you to my expectations, I have decided to get a desktop to replace my 4+ year old HP laptop(the battery life has reduced to 15minutes and its getting sloth like at start up and its longevity perhaps exemplifies my frugality, bare that trait in mind). I've been using that for my uni work for the past 3 years and the shift online has highlighted the weakness of the old thing. And as it seems I may not be moving around on campus as much the portability is no real benefit either. I study Product Design, so as far as work is concerned I need something that can cope with large folio documents and photoshop/illustrator software, ideally i would also be able to run a bit of CAD software(solidworks) too but there are remote desktop facilities available to me.
The other side of my coin is the gaming, I have a steam account, I know cool right? but the extremes of my fun will be Age of empires or some TF2, real casual fun, and that's about it.
My initial, all be it naive, budget was £500, this spec pushed that to just over £600 including some extras. I'm thinking its a good start for me and there's room to upgrade in future if I want to get serious in anything.
So thoughts, what can I expect from this spec?
And thanks in advance or if you just made it this far :)
(oh and id be willing to spend a tad more if you can persuade me)
Case
PCS SPECTRUM RGB MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i3 Quad Core Processor i3-10100F (3.60GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte B460M DS3H V2 (rev. 1.0) : LGA1200, DDR4, USB 3.2
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ RX 550 - HDMI, DP, DVI - DX® 12
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W CV SERIES™ CV-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
 
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Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Realistically the way prices are at the moment you aren't going to get anything over than a throwaway system at that budget, also i'd advise you to give the attached thread a read, especially the bit about AMD v intel

Please read before posting:- Collaboration of Helpful Hints

NB: These forums are not an official support channel. None of us work for PCS, we're all either customers or techies who just like to help out where possible. For any official support, you need to contact PCS directly either through your PCS account, or via the contact details on the main...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk
 
AgentCooper

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
@Martinr36 is right. I enjoy the challenge of speccing up a build where every penny counts but for at the moment you’re looking at around a grand for a low end 1080p build or about £1200 for one that will offer scope for upgrades in future. But even both of those would have compromises in that I’d prefer not to make.

If you’re seeking a decent custom build, you’ll have to save up a fair bit more. Your other alternatives would be to look at a pre-built system or checking out the second hand market.
 
D

desktop noob

Member
AgentCooper said:
@Martinr36 is right. I enjoy the challenge of speccing up a build where every penny counts but for at the moment you’re looking at around a grand for a low end 1080p build or about £1200 for one that will offer scope for upgrades in future. But even both of those would have compromises in that I’d prefer not to make.

If you’re seeking a decent custom build, you’ll have to save up a fair bit more. Your other alternatives would be to look at a pre-built system or checking out the second hand market.
Click to expand...
i dont think i need 1080p
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
desktop noob said:
what does a throwaway system mean for you though? might be too late to change to AMD now, placed the order a while ago
Click to expand...
Throwaway means it's not upgradeable at all, so you'd be stuck with it as it is.

given that it's such low end components on top of that, the useable lifetime of the system would probably only be a couple of years max.

And performance would be very poor even when it was brand new for the uses you're expecting.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
desktop noob said:
so i've managed to make a pc that cant even run on a monitor?
Click to expand...
It will run, but to get it to be over 30fps (60fps is considered the very minimum for gaming), you'd have to reduce settings substantially and it would not look good at all. Kind of defeats the object of PC gaming entirely.

It's just not possible at all at the budget you've set to get anything worthwhile, we're just coming down of the most expensive period in PC parts ever in human history.
 
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desktop noob

Member
i did look at second hand market but im just very confused by all the different types and was scared id get something bad, my budget was still the same. ok i can hold of getting the desktop for a while, think ill just cancel the order for now, thanks
 
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SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
desktop noob said:
i did look at second hand market but im just very confused by all the different types and was scared id get something bad, my budget was still the same
Click to expand...
It's not something we can comment on on this form as it's purely for PCSpecialist systems, but you could always get advice from an open forum like Toms Hardware on what components would be suitable and what cost.

Second hand is always risky, you're likely out of warranty and unfortunately there are a lot of less than honest people out there selling dud goods. But at that budget I think it's your only option. You also have to factor in the hardware needs to be able to support windows 11, otherwise again, you'd have to buy a whole new one in 2025 when windows 10 support ends.

If i were you though, I'd just bite the bullet and save up a bit more to 900 - 1000, and that will afford you a decent upgradeable entry level 1080p system that would accept upgrades and last 7 - 10 years.
 
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desktop noob

Member
SpyderTracks said:
It's not something we can comment on on this form as it's purely for PCSpecialist systems, but you could always get advice from an open forum like Toms Hardware on what components would be suitable and what cost.

Second hand is always risky, you're likely out of warranty and unfortunately there are a lot of less than honest people out there selling dud goods. But at that budget I think it's your only option. You also have to factor in the hardware needs to be able to support windows 11, otherwise again, you'd have to buy a whole new one in 2025 when windows 10 support ends.

If i were you though, I'd just bite the bullet and save up a bit more to 900 - 1000, and that will afford you a decent upgradeable entry level 1080p system that would accept upgrades and last 7 - 10 years.
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could you suggest a spec for that entry level one then please so i can think it over, i do have that much money available. and do you think prices will go down when the current crises calms down?
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
desktop noob said:
could you suggest a spec for that entry level one then please so i can think it over, i do have that much money available. and do you think prices will go down when the current crises calms down?
Click to expand...
This is already making more compromises than is worthwhile just to try to keep it around £900, this would be a very entry level 1080p 60Hz system. It's using a last gen processor and I've cut back storage to keep under £1000.

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 16 to 19 working days
Price: £994.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/eq05tUCS3X/
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Prices are set to start improving on GPU's, but really, things aren't going to return to some semblance of normality until covid has dissipated and logistic shipping runs are back to normal. Likely next year we'll see prices returning more in line with what we were used to before covid.
 
D

desktop noob

Member
SpyderTracks said:
Prices are set to start improving on GPU's, but really, things aren't going to return to some semblance of normality until covid has dissipated and logistic shipping runs are back to normal. Likely next year we'll see prices returning more in line with what we were used to before covid.
Click to expand...
ok thats great thanks, any reason for going for an SSD drive for storage over hard drive?
 
D

DarTon

Well-known member
If you don't want to stretch to something close to £1,000 and gaming isn't exactly the priority (and it seems you requirements are quite broad based), I'd be looking at outlets that deal with cancelled/returned corporate orders. Technically these are "refurbished" machines since the box may have been delivered/opened but they are basically new and under full guarantee.

To be honest though, even via that route, you've missed the best opportunity to get a cheap prebuilt desktop machine. The ideal time for that was 4Q20 when second lockdown caused a slew of cancelled orders. Right now, as people go back to the office, demand has reappeared for desktops and oversupply is in laptops.
 
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