Hello everyone.
Okay so I need a recommendation for a basic pc that will run Mario Kart Double Dash and Super Mario Sunshine at 720p. That's it. My budget is very tight so ready made/refurbished pc's or laptops are good too.
I have between £200-300 to spend on this.
Thanks in advance.
I can't really help you much with used components, but for new components, if you don't need anything immediately then it might be wiser to wait a few weeks for the release B450 motherboards or Pentium Gold CPUs (with the sole exception of DDR4 RAM － that stuff's expensive, so if you see a good deal on fast 2x4GB DDR4
such as this then you might want to get it anyway.
Basically B450 motherboards would provide guaranteed out-of-the-box support for the Ryzen 2200G (otherwise
AMD can loan you a free boot kit to update your BIOS) while the Pentium Gold CPUs (particularly the G5400) would be cheaper than the Pentium G4560 but would provide the faster iGPU of the Pentium G4600 as well as having a better upgrade path into the future).
Nevertheless, if you want to buy the stuff now, then consider one of the following two CPUs & motherboard combinations:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel - Pentium G4600 3.6GHz 2core/4thread Processor (£57.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - B250M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£63.73 @ YoYoTech)
Total: £121.72
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz 4core/4thread Processor (£77.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - A320M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£57.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £135.98
If you want to overclock the CPU, then get this instead (note the Pentium G4600 will still be faster in Dolphin even with the 2200G overclocked since Dolphin doesn't really care for more than 2 cores, but the Ryzen 2200G has a much faster integrated GPU for rendering at high resolutions or playing PC games and such):
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz 4core/4thread Processor (£77.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£69.26 @ More Computers)
Total: £147.25
And regardless of which CPU + motherboard you go for, the following components are what I personally feel are ideal. Note that the RAM I chose seems to be on sale, so you may want to get that sooner rather than later (especially since RAM is stupid expensive right now). Also storage is kind of small, but will still be enough for the OS, a couple programs, and a couple GameCube games (especially if you use Linux instead, such as Ubuntu LTS 18.04 when it releases sometime this month), and adding a secondary mechanical hard drive after-the-fact is really easy (much easier than upgrading your primary drive with an OS and stuff to an SSD).
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£79.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital - Green 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£31.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Zalman - ZM-T3 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£25.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: be quiet! - Pure Power 10 400W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply (£45.87 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £183.84
If you don't plan to play more demanding games or play at higher resolutions something like a mobile 3rd gen i3 and its integrated HD Graphics with 2 sticks of RAM are barely enough to play your games in 720p. However I'd still recommend you to get something better. A desktop 2nd gen Intel Core i3 should be enough. A new Intel Pentium G4600 is more than enough but you can use its iGPU.
Don't go out and buy something like a Radeon R5 230. For new cards I'd recommend you a Nvidia Geforce GT 1030. If you want to save money by buying used components get at least an AMD Radeon HD 7770 or a Nvidia Geforce GTX 650. They're cheap on the used market and they're good for emulating GameCube and Wii games.
For storage I'd recommend you a SSD for the OS and a mechanical Hard Drive for your games. If you don't use Windows 10 you could leave out the SSD. I don't know how much storage you'll need. So I can't recommend specific models.
And for RAM just go with 8GB (Or even 4GB if the prices are too high for you)
If you can find a cheap PC with a 2nd Gen i3 or better and it only has an iGPU just buy a good graphics card (in some cases you'd also have to buy a new power supply). And please avoid any small form factor PCs as they can't be easily upgraded if they're upgradable at all.
(04-08-2018, 04:45 AM)peskyplumbers88 Wrote: [ -> ]For new cards I'd recommend you a Nvidia Geforce GT 1030.
Keep in mind that the integrated graphics on a Ryzen 2200G would be just as fast, particularly when using Vulkan.