Assembled and tested by our expert technical team.
This system can be pre-installed with a genuine Microsoft Windows 10 operating system. Please select the operating system you require for your gaming pc from the drop down box above and it will be supplied and installed for you prior to shipment.
Why You Should Purchase This Z1 Gaming PC:
- Prebuilt and configured. Just turn it on and away you go! (Providing you have an Operating System installed)
- Up to 32GB Dual Channel DDR4 memory delivers fast load times
- Cooler: Standard Intel Cooler (Upgrade Available)
- RAM: DDR4 Dual Channel Kit - Options Available to Upgrade
- Hard Drive: Your Choice of Primary and Solid State Drive
- DVDRW: 24x DVDRW Included
- Sound: 5.1 HD Audio
- Network: Gigabit Lan
Similar deal posted here: 30 Quid cheaper slightly faster CPU. However spoke to Customer Service and this comes with the full size GPU rather than the mini.
I feel your pain, but to be honest, the answer is probably no but it depends on what games he's going to want to play. A £300 PC will probably still play Minecraft OK, but for things like GTA, your budget wont stretch, e.g. for a start you would need a better graphics card which will eat up over 2/3 of your budget :disappointed:
In all seriousness, you may be better to consider a console, its a one off purchase and fits in your budget (although I can feel the glares and daggers in the back from the PC master race for even daring to suggest such a thing!! :smiley:)
MeneerSmith to OdhranC
30 Oct 163#28
It is a fair point.
The only counter I have is that if you have assorted pc bits and pieces already available then you can get some good stuff quite cheap and make something really good compared to what you spend, especially on Black Friday.
Last year I grabbed a brix gaming for £170 total, including 8gb ram and small ssd, that runs gta V well. End of range stuff but still well under a third of what it was selling for. Based on some of the other offers last year you could get a decent ready to go i3/i5 for £230/£260 with no graphics card and even asda were dumping their stock like this for similar prices, £80 for a 750 puts you just above the £300 budget. They were older stock and only had 6gb though, ok but not great...like your £300 budget. :P
If you had parts and os you might be able to pick up a decent barebones for sub £200 this year too, but again older generation, and a 750 or 760 gtx for sub £80. If you have hdd/sdd then £30 for ram and use your own os. Who knows maybe the 960 might flop in price or the 780 and you get lucky.
Having realistic expectations is needed here: that £300 wont get you cutting edge performance but it will get you playing at medium, with the ability to upgrade to higher end graphics if they ever hit a realistic price.
If it is like last year stuff goes quick so you need to know precisely what you need and hit it fast.
edit: messed up the quote chopping!
All comments (76)
wifi300usb
29 Oct 16#1
defo add £2.99 to the 120gb SSD to replace the 1TB SATA :smile:
MBeeching to wifi300usb
29 Oct 16#11
Though that would make a secondary drive mandatory. If you installed GOW4 and Win 10 the OS would fail to install updates due to lack of space. 250gb minimum for SSD plus a mechanical (1 or 2tb)
Walgeon
29 Oct 16#2
This good? I'm not a PC expert, would like to buy a gaming player for my son
wifi300usb to Walgeon
29 Oct 16#3
go for 8gb ram rather than 6, also you want a 550w GPU or more really. Apart from that it's a very capable PC I just don't know the seller well - you might be better off with CCL and their 3 year warranty for piece of mind
HarryWykes123 to Walgeon
30 Oct 16#33
This is a good PC but would recommend going to more reliable websites like ebuyer of ccl online. Look for an i5 processor and a gtx 1060
lugsy3
29 Oct 16#4
AWD-IT are very good, just finished my latest build using their i7 6700k bundle and by far the cheapest around. I haven't tried pcpartpicker but wouldn't be suprised if the parts alone are close to this, let alone prebuilt with good customer service. Looks good deal op.
Edit: AWD-IT been around 10 years and gave me 3 years warranty on my parts.That psu will be fine for a 1060, these guys know their stuff.
GobbleTurkey
29 Oct 16#5
awd it is a great comp. bought a pc from them 3 years ago and it still runs solid
Walgeon
29 Oct 161#6
Thanks. Is there a ccl point you would recommend?
NotoriousC
29 Oct 16#7
seems like a sweet build. these guys are great. i bought my current pc from them a while back and havent really had a problem
adamskiidu_44
29 Oct 161#8
Can I just point out the 6gb Ram in the title is for the graphics card and cannot be changed. As for system memory, it comes with 8gb as default.
SnakeRaiden
29 Oct 16#9
So would this be a good PC to buy? I'm currently gaming on the PS4 but am planning on switching to PC very soon but just don't know whether to build it myself or buy a pre-built PC like OP's post.
lewisjohnsmith1992
29 Oct 16#10
ADMI really good guys, bought ours in June. Went to visit them in Stoke.
Waterboy8535
29 Oct 16#12
Definitely 240-250 minimum SSD, then a cheap 1tb storage drive. Other than that, it's a very good price. I'm running a self build very similar to that, but with a 480gb SSD, water cooled CPU and 16gb DDR3 RAM and it's fast and faultless.
marco67
29 Oct 16#13
I take it this could run Zwift at its highest settings? this could be my Christmas present from santa :smile:
MeneerSmith to marco67
29 Oct 161#16
Extreme setting says it needs a newer i7. You could probably run it with this build on extreme though. If it was me I would definitely get the 16gb ram update and the ssd in options.
OdhranC
29 Oct 16#14
looks cool. shame its way over budget for me. needing a gaming PC for my son but budget is half this at £300. any suggestions would be really helpful!
frakison to OdhranC
30 Oct 164#25
I feel your pain, but to be honest, the answer is probably no but it depends on what games he's going to want to play. A £300 PC will probably still play Minecraft OK, but for things like GTA, your budget wont stretch, e.g. for a start you would need a better graphics card which will eat up over 2/3 of your budget :disappointed:
In all seriousness, you may be better to consider a console, its a one off purchase and fits in your budget (although I can feel the glares and daggers in the back from the PC master race for even daring to suggest such a thing!! :smiley:)
MeneerSmith to OdhranC
30 Oct 163#28
It is a fair point.
The only counter I have is that if you have assorted pc bits and pieces already available then you can get some good stuff quite cheap and make something really good compared to what you spend, especially on Black Friday.
Last year I grabbed a brix gaming for £170 total, including 8gb ram and small ssd, that runs gta V well. End of range stuff but still well under a third of what it was selling for. Based on some of the other offers last year you could get a decent ready to go i3/i5 for £230/£260 with no graphics card and even asda were dumping their stock like this for similar prices, £80 for a 750 puts you just above the £300 budget. They were older stock and only had 6gb though, ok but not great...like your £300 budget. :P
If you had parts and os you might be able to pick up a decent barebones for sub £200 this year too, but again older generation, and a 750 or 760 gtx for sub £80. If you have hdd/sdd then £30 for ram and use your own os. Who knows maybe the 960 might flop in price or the 780 and you get lucky.
Having realistic expectations is needed here: that £300 wont get you cutting edge performance but it will get you playing at medium, with the ability to upgrade to higher end graphics if they ever hit a realistic price.
If it is like last year stuff goes quick so you need to know precisely what you need and hit it fast.
edit: messed up the quote chopping!
lugsy3 to OdhranC
30 Oct 16#31
You really will struggle with £300 budget to get a comparison to console. This is probably as cheap as it gets for decent frames per second gaming at 1080p for newer games eg battlefield 1. Even this price you need to add a 250gb ssd and also windows 10.
Black Friday may provide cheaper but the way the £ has been battered I will be surprised if it does.
I had a quick look last night and the parts alone are more with the peace of mind built already and warranty.
You could build cheaper with older tech but it will struggle with new games.
I think console is probably best for your budget to be honest.
Posted today and is the sort of deal I was talking about above. It is small form so probably of limited use but if it was regular desktop you would add own hdd, os, buy 4gb memory (under a tenner?), add a 750. Just under £300 for a system if you have old parts and a monitor, kb, mouse...
Problems are slow ram and older processor. Still very decent for its price. Same goes for the link below, £150 though and with 8gb ram and could fit a real graphics card...and has hdd and win 10. The deals are out there for decent sub £300 pc's.
That budget is super tight. You don't have any wiggle room there. A mid-range CPU will set you back more than half of your budget, and that's without any mention to a GPU. The only thing I can suggest is that some Motherboard/CPU combos come with a decent-ish built in GPU but these cannot be upgraded and will definitely not be worth their weight in 6 months time. £300 is not really a good budget for a gaming PC. I would say if you have the monitor already then the minimum you should be looking to spend - For 'Entry level' gaming would be at least £500.
This deal here is decent entry level - £600 and it's just running outdated CPU with a pretty average clock speed. You could always replace the i5 for an i7, increase the clock speed to over 4ghz and replace the PSU and this PC will be able to party with the mid-high end PC's
Dar22
29 Oct 16#15
I'm to lazy to check now but what would the cost be to build this yourself? Sometimes sourcing parts can work out a bit more. I built my last rig and sold it but now want another desktop for civ 6, trying to decide on a prebuilt system or not.
Any thoughts appreciated!
marco67
29 Oct 16#17
I will be running it on the latest Samsung 32 inch tv, I take it the graphics card can handle it?
Cheers for the advice about upgrade
cuthy2k
29 Oct 16#18
cracking deal!
Walgeon
29 Oct 16#19
Is it worth the 32gb upgrade for £99?
jacjacatac to Walgeon
30 Oct 16#24
RAM simply clips into place, so if they offer the tower without it and you can find it cheaper elsewhere; go for the alternative.
Obviously check the size first.
MeneerSmith to Walgeon
30 Oct 161#27
Depends on your use. I dont think anything even 'needs' 16gb. Any game that is, if you are doing graphics work then 32gb might be needed.
Thinking about it you should call them and make sure they give you 2x8gb ram so there are two slots left if you decide you need 32gb later on.
If you just mean is the +£99 for +24gb worth it then ddr4 memory is probably worth the cash.
JustExtreme
29 Oct 161#20
If it's a 4k tv then you'd want a better gfx card to be honest
Rude Russy
29 Oct 161#21
a gtx 1060 is not a 4k gaming card!
JustExtreme
29 Oct 16#22
Better off using a proper PC monitor either way.
wifi300usb
30 Oct 16#23
for me a second drive always goes without saying, the SSD is just for the OS really but yeah thanks
LetoKynes
30 Oct 16#26
Why are people recommending more than 8gb of RAM? Realistically most people won't need it
wildswan
30 Oct 16#29
good price considering i spend £429 on a 1070. i know this is a 1060 card but still a decent system for anyone wanting 1080p games
ivrytwr3
30 Oct 16#30
do i get this or do i wait for the Black Friday deals? :disappointed:
tony863
30 Oct 16#32
A point to note. This is excellent for the money..... However, BF1 recommends a minimum processor speed of 6700k or higher. This will easily play BF1 but if you think you can buy this tower and treat yourself to a newly released game, playing it at max settings.....think again. If there is an option to upgrade to 16gb RAM and an i7 processor.. It might be worth considering if the price isn't too much more. A decent gaming PC is realistically £800+.
Chad_
30 Oct 16#34
Now that someone mentioned Black Friday. With remaining realistic: do you guys think that there will be good deals on gaming laptops / pcs? Were there any last year?
MeneerSmith to Chad_
30 Oct 161#43
Yes and no. :smiley:
Yes there will be some good to great deals, no because very few of them will be good deals on current high end stock. Most decent deals will be on tech that is 2+ and even 4+ years old.
A lot of the new tech deals will be standard price reductions held back just for BF, like the way ssd's fell in price. Same for some old tech deals too, like kindle hdx's which were reduced from something like £199 to £139. The BF price will become the new selling point, like it did with both ssd's and kindles.
Brexit though could mess this right up but it is more likely that the price increases for brexit were hedged against and wont kick in until Jan next year so BF prices could look really good when viewed from brexit Feb 2017 prices.
The best deals will be on end of range and stock moved into clearance mode and these are not ideal for gamers. If I recall it correctly, last year most of the gaming deals were poo-poo'ed on here for old processors, poor graphics cards, only 6gb system ram, using older slower memory, no or low capacity ssd's with very expensive seller site upgrade options, and no doubt it will be the same this year.
Saying all that, there will be some good bargains but it is getting there fast enough to actually get them and not being price scammed by fake savings that are much lower than they appear. You need to know what you want and what the prices of it are now. Amazon are experts in the art of price scamming you on BF with things with 5% saving being made to look like massive deals even though they are nothing of the sort. Of course, 5% off might be a good deal but when it is presented as 60% of rrp and the only other sellers are 30% more in price on Amazon it looks to the suckers like a great deal.
Dont be a sucker and do your Black Friday homework to prepare. :P
GibsonSt19
30 Oct 161#35
Sorry, what's not reliable about AWD-IT?
thunderchimp
30 Oct 162#36
Roughly equivalent PC part picker list.
Note: the base clock of the i5 6400 is 2.7GHz. AWD are referring to the max turbo clock frequency when they say 3.3GHz.
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-10-30 09:18 GMT+0000
frakison
30 Oct 16#37
Agree, a "Frankenstein" PC could possibly come in on budget, but its not assured and parts may be a pain to find. One other thing I've noticed is that this does not include the operating system, so unless you have a spare licence, you need to factor in another £60+.
thepope20001
30 Oct 16#38
This is a great deal, I have myself just bought a PC for Awd who trade as ADMI.
You can't get the parts cheaper to build yourself on this PC or the one that I bought; AWD code 650010701.
They were very helpful on the phone; did say however they had been very busy over half term with kids orders, and all systems are built to order so may be a little wait. Will report back when I have it.
lugsy3
30 Oct 16#39
Anyone after windows 10 have a look at this thread Windows 10 £15.79, worked a treat for my new build, all activated fine.
kiora_nas
30 Oct 16#40
How long ago did you install it, wondering if in 6 months they will still work?
lugsy3
30 Oct 16#41
Last week, need to get another for another build in 2/3 weeks time and thinking the same, I don't see why not, deal is 2 months old.
jotei66
30 Oct 16#42
Great price and AWD are really good from my experiences with them, the customer service is pretty good with advisors who know their stuff. Bought a few things from them in the past.
I'm in the process or building a Rigg for my nephew & was either looking to buy a used "nearly new recently built" system (some great buys around with the older i5 4690k - as long as you know what your looking for) or I source parts and build with new i5 6th gen processor.
The only reservation my nephew had about this system was the motherboard (even though its budget, still a great little board) - but obviously AWD have to budget on some components ie motherboard & only a 430W PSU, but even when changing the cpu to the a i5 6000k, the hdd to 256G SSD & 1 TB Hard Drive for storage and just leaving the 8GB Ram (for gaming generally this is more than enough anyway (you can always upgrade later if required) - just under £750 budget - really good buy indeed.;0) ..thats excluding windows 10
davemanu
30 Oct 16#45
can anyone piece together a gaming system for £600 that I can self build please,I think I can build my self just unsure of what all works together thank you
jotei66
30 Oct 16#46
I ain't got time to make a list now as out & about, but visit pcpricepicker.com and check out completed builds within your budget .. good starting point. ;-)
jotei66
30 Oct 16#47
... and btw, pretty easy building your own.. plenty of vids / tuts out there on internet, ain't difficult at all = hardest part sourcing the components at the cheapest price you can get
Chad_
1 Nov 16#49
Thanks mate. Than I'll by probably this gear now since it's unlikely to be big saving on anything similar.
lundapapa
5 Nov 16#50
can anyone suggest a cheap 120 gb ssd for this system?
lundapapa to lundapapa
5 Nov 16#51
Ignore that, for a fiver you can a 120 ssd. may be 1tb hard drive can be your secondary drive.
sp4rky69
6 Nov 161#52
I see they do an upgrade option to go to a strix 1060, 1070 or strix 1070.
Using part picker the strix options should be far more than shown. The 1060/1070 strix should be £100-130 more than a base model, but its only £30.
iluvsafc
10 Nov 16#53
Any advice on this please - http://r.ebay.com/mn79Pp any good for the price, with this play BF1 at max settings? cheers
jez794
11 Nov 16#54
if you can afford it spend the £100 extra and get the awd-it, much better CPU and Graphics card.
scottyadamz1
11 Nov 161#55
They have changed the case to a gamemax falcon
maltikism
16 Nov 16#56
is this the overlook series i for clocked voltage CPU in ohms or the volts with a bios? and Linux
databar
19 Nov 161#57
Price gone up to £620 now..
zonecrew
21 Nov 16#58
Hi
Can somebody give me a bit of advice as I am a newbie when it comes to Gaming PC's. My son wants one for Xmas and this one is about the top of my budget and overall the reviews seem pretty positive? Is this still the best deal out there for this price range?
I have noticed that there is a possibility to upgrade certain components in this PC. I plan on upgrading the primary drive to 120GB as suggested on here, what about a secondary drive? Is this necessary and do they come any cheaper than what they ask?
What about RAM? Is it worth paying the £40 to upgrade to 16GB? And Liquid Cooling? Is this necessary?
My son is trading in his PS4 so he will want to play a lot of the games he plays on there. Any advice is welcome
thanks
jotei66 to zonecrew
22 Nov 161#59
Best deal out there for Price Range? ... tbh next to building a PC yourself (or buying a used nearly new gaming PC), this is a good deal for the money and a good gaming PC for your son.
Obviously the cpu cant be Overclocked (but its a great cpu) but I doubt you'll need that anyway. Which brings me to the liquid cooling - I wouldn't bother as your not going to be overclocking the PC - unless that is you plan changing the CPU in the future to a "K" unlocked model, (i5 6600K) in which case I guess it maybe a good buy as the Corsair H100 pretty good, I have one and its a good price as an add on to be fair. BUT bare in mind if you want to change the CPU in the future (to say get an overclocking version) you would also need to really upgrade to a better motherboard too (like a Z170X).
In a nutshell, if you ain't interested in Overclocking, dont bother with the liquid cooler, maybe just stick with standard cooler (free) or the Arctic Freezer aftermarket cooler (if you want that extra cooling)
With regards to RAM - personally I game quite a lot and I dont really think you need more than 8GB, but if you have the budget, go for it, extra RAM always a bonus - but for gaming, 8GB will do you fine.
I would advise 120GB SSD for your Operating system (primary drive) and a 1TB Seagate as secondary (for all your games & applications) and the price they ask for the seagate to be fair is pretty good, so go for it.
Hope it helps buddy - I'm sure someone else may add additional advice etc
I've just built my nephew a gaming PC with a very similar spec & hes a gamer, even although only 12 ;0)
steve_bezerker to zonecrew
22 Nov 16#60
My advice is hold out for Black Friday/Cyber Monday and then splash out - chances are you'll pick something up fairly cheap. Also if there is a computer fair near to you they will sell you a better PC for a better price. Overall this PC is ideal for entry level gaming so it depends on the types of games your son is going to want to play on this machine.
Liquid cooling is not necessary on this machine, as the core temp should be low enough already, i'm fairly certain this case comes with lots of air cooling in the form of up to 3 LED fans.
This PC will play MOST games and I have to stress that it is just Most. The problem with this computer is that it isn't really future proof and the CPU could be a lot better but for the price you are paying you are getting a decent deal. It's safe to assume that most AAA titles that are released next year and beyond will start to struggle on this machine and force your son to turn the graphics down to medium.
When the new intel CPU's drop in a few weeks time you can expect the price of computers to fall in general since you'll be able to pick up what the market consider outdated CPU's for reduced prices (Notably the 6th Gen Intel CPU's (6770K) (5890K) and a Z170 motherboard)
Edit: If you want to upgrade this machine in the future you would definitely need to buy a new PSU. 450W just won't cut it for PC gaming.
2nd Edit: If you want more RAM speed it's acceptable but for the added price probably not worth it. You would notice speed increases in boot times (Especially if you got a SSD) and general processing speeds - gaming would not perform any better with an extra 8GB.
zonecrew
23 Nov 16#61
Thanks guys!
Your posts have been very helpful. I'll hold out for another week and see what comes up an take on board your recommendations. If you happen to stumble across a great deal in the meantime please send me a PM on here
adamwilko007
24 Nov 16#62
Hi why is there going to be a drop on the cpu's soon?
steve_bezerker
24 Nov 16#63
Hi Adam. It's because the AMD Zen releases and since Intel have a monopoly over the market and the Zen is the first real challenge to Intel they will be forced to drop their prices to compete otherwise there will be a lot of interest in the Zen.
faz1964
25 Nov 16#64
Worth doing the graphics card upgrade to the Nvidia GTX 1070 8gb for £139.99?
gem_boss
25 Nov 16#65
has anyone found a better deal for similar machine this Black Friday?
Will fitting a new ssd invalidate the
Warranty.
Want to fit the crucial 500gb that's on amazon now @£80
dutis18 to databar
29 Nov 16#72
contact them
Wenger786
28 Nov 161#69
This looks good value.
I just need a new PC for MS office and browsing, but might do some development work, so the quad monitor support is attractive.
Wondering if i should opt for :
1. 256 SSD + 1TB Seagate
2. Extra 8GB RAM=16GB
3. no OS. Install Wiindows through the lpsting in first comment ( Windows 10 £15.79) ?
4. win 7 or 10?
keloid
29 Nov 16#70
did anyone get this deal?
any good?
jez794
29 Nov 16#71
definitely go for an ssd and install your own windows, I did and was up and running in no time.
Wenger786
30 Nov 16#73
pretty sure the AWD-IT website said they are fine with modifications.
dutis18
30 Nov 16#74
can't be to sure.:smiley:
Wenger786
30 Nov 16#75
"Adding certain internal components may not necessarily void a PC's warranty, however any issues which may arise from the addition of 3rd party components are not covered by the PC's warranty"
"Our extensive 3 Year warranty includes labour cover, fault finding and repair/upgrade over a 3 year parts cover period with return costs covered for the initial 6 Months of product ownership of your PC or Ccmponent bundle, whether required for fixing faults or even installing future upgrades!
This means that even if a fault develops after your 3 year parts cover period has expired, our engineers will still try and fix it for you, or at least, diagnose the cause and advise you of required component upgrades.
You can then take advantage of our low component prices and have our expert technicians perform the upgrade for you.
Also unique to ADMI and included in our warranty is Remote Desktop Support which can effectively diagnose up to 90% of non-hardware issues, without the need of returning the item. (Your PC must have the ability to power on for this aspect to be used).
We understand our customers require the peace of mind provided by extensive warranty cover. That's why we developed our Platinum Protection Plan, provided with any AWD-IT or ADMI PC and/or component bundle, which covers each component against any hardware fault for a full 3 Years from the date of delivery. In the unlikely event of a fault occuring during the this time, we will swap the part for replacement - for the first 6 months at no return cost.*
* Exclusions to cover:
- Software issues or faults caused by accidental damage are not covered under the warranty.
- PC repairs/modifications not performed by ADMI Limited will void the warranty.
- Damage incurred due to poor packaging when an item is returned to us is not covered. If being returned for a refund, a charge will apply to replace damaged parts. We strongly recommend customers keep the original packaging to prevent damage upon return.
(Adding certain internal components may not necessarily void a PC's warranty, however any issues which may arise from the addition of 3rd party components are not covered by the PC's warranty)."
![Fresh Breakfast Meat Box (Using code) @ Campbells Meat [Haggis / Lorne Sausage / Bacon / Black Pudding & More]](/images/topics/208684_1.jpg)
![[Xbox One] Q. u. b. e: Director's Cut on Deals with Gold](/images/topics/208716_1.jpg)
Opening post
Assembled and tested by our expert technical team.
This system can be pre-installed with a genuine Microsoft Windows 10 operating system. Please select the operating system you require for your gaming pc from the drop down box above and it will be supplied and installed for you prior to shipment.
Why You Should Purchase This Z1 Gaming PC:
- Prebuilt and configured. Just turn it on and away you go! (Providing you have an Operating System installed)
- Up to 32GB Dual Channel DDR4 memory delivers fast load times
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 4K VR Ready Graphics
- Play the latest gaming titles at the highest detail
- Quad Core Intel I5 3.3Ghz processing performance
- 1080p & 4K Ultra HD Support
- HDMI & DVI Support
- Quad Monitor Support
- Future Proof and Upgradeable
System Specification
- Case: Kolink Refractor
- Power Supply: Corsair 450W PSU
- CPU: Intel Core I5-6400 Quad Core 3.3Ghz
- Motherboard: Gigabyte H110M Motherboard
- Cooler: Standard Intel Cooler (Upgrade Available)
- RAM: DDR4 Dual Channel Kit - Options Available to Upgrade
- Hard Drive: Your Choice of Primary and Solid State Drive
- DVDRW: 24x DVDRW Included
- Sound: 5.1 HD Audio
- Network: Gigabit Lan
Similar deal posted here: 30 Quid cheaper slightly faster CPU. However spoke to Customer Service and this comes with the full size GPU rather than the mini.
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/intel-i5-6500-3-6ghz-gtx-1060-6gb-ddr5-vr-gaming-pc-599-awd-2490995
Top comments
In all seriousness, you may be better to consider a console, its a one off purchase and fits in your budget (although I can feel the glares and daggers in the back from the PC master race for even daring to suggest such a thing!! :smiley:)
It is a fair point.
The only counter I have is that if you have assorted pc bits and pieces already available then you can get some good stuff quite cheap and make something really good compared to what you spend, especially on Black Friday.
Last year I grabbed a brix gaming for £170 total, including 8gb ram and small ssd, that runs gta V well. End of range stuff but still well under a third of what it was selling for. Based on some of the other offers last year you could get a decent ready to go i3/i5 for £230/£260 with no graphics card and even asda were dumping their stock like this for similar prices, £80 for a 750 puts you just above the £300 budget. They were older stock and only had 6gb though, ok but not great...like your £300 budget. :P
If you had parts and os you might be able to pick up a decent barebones for sub £200 this year too, but again older generation, and a 750 or 760 gtx for sub £80. If you have hdd/sdd then £30 for ram and use your own os. Who knows maybe the 960 might flop in price or the 780 and you get lucky.
Having realistic expectations is needed here: that £300 wont get you cutting edge performance but it will get you playing at medium, with the ability to upgrade to higher end graphics if they ever hit a realistic price.
If it is like last year stuff goes quick so you need to know precisely what you need and hit it fast.
edit: messed up the quote chopping!
All comments (76)
Edit: AWD-IT been around 10 years and gave me 3 years warranty on my parts.That psu will be fine for a 1060, these guys know their stuff.
In all seriousness, you may be better to consider a console, its a one off purchase and fits in your budget (although I can feel the glares and daggers in the back from the PC master race for even daring to suggest such a thing!! :smiley:)
It is a fair point.
The only counter I have is that if you have assorted pc bits and pieces already available then you can get some good stuff quite cheap and make something really good compared to what you spend, especially on Black Friday.
Last year I grabbed a brix gaming for £170 total, including 8gb ram and small ssd, that runs gta V well. End of range stuff but still well under a third of what it was selling for. Based on some of the other offers last year you could get a decent ready to go i3/i5 for £230/£260 with no graphics card and even asda were dumping their stock like this for similar prices, £80 for a 750 puts you just above the £300 budget. They were older stock and only had 6gb though, ok but not great...like your £300 budget. :P
If you had parts and os you might be able to pick up a decent barebones for sub £200 this year too, but again older generation, and a 750 or 760 gtx for sub £80. If you have hdd/sdd then £30 for ram and use your own os. Who knows maybe the 960 might flop in price or the 780 and you get lucky.
Having realistic expectations is needed here: that £300 wont get you cutting edge performance but it will get you playing at medium, with the ability to upgrade to higher end graphics if they ever hit a realistic price.
If it is like last year stuff goes quick so you need to know precisely what you need and hit it fast.
edit: messed up the quote chopping!
Black Friday may provide cheaper but the way the £ has been battered I will be surprised if it does.
I had a quick look last night and the parts alone are more with the peace of mind built already and warranty.
You could build cheaper with older tech but it will struggle with new games.
I think console is probably best for your budget to be honest.
Posted today and is the sort of deal I was talking about above. It is small form so probably of limited use but if it was regular desktop you would add own hdd, os, buy 4gb memory (under a tenner?), add a 750. Just under £300 for a system if you have old parts and a monitor, kb, mouse...
Problems are slow ram and older processor. Still very decent for its price. Same goes for the link below, £150 though and with 8gb ram and could fit a real graphics card...and has hdd and win 10. The deals are out there for decent sub £300 pc's.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201696829992?clk_rvr_id=1116892323652&rmvSB=true
edit: something like this at 300 is ok, if you get an offer at 250 accepted then even better:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lenovo-Ultra-Fast-Quad-Core-i5-Gaming-PC-8GB-500GB-GTX-750Ti-2GB-GDDR5-Computer-/252514286593?hash=item3acb063c01:g:3JUAAOSwMtxXwG8w
Ready to go and under 300, not top quality but ok if you have no parts or just cant be assed messing about.
This deal here is decent entry level - £600 and it's just running outdated CPU with a pretty average clock speed. You could always replace the i5 for an i7, increase the clock speed to over 4ghz and replace the PSU and this PC will be able to party with the mid-high end PC's
Any thoughts appreciated!
Cheers for the advice about upgrade
Obviously check the size first.
Thinking about it you should call them and make sure they give you 2x8gb ram so there are two slots left if you decide you need 32gb later on.
If you just mean is the +£99 for +24gb worth it then ddr4 memory is probably worth the cash.
Yes there will be some good to great deals, no because very few of them will be good deals on current high end stock. Most decent deals will be on tech that is 2+ and even 4+ years old.
A lot of the new tech deals will be standard price reductions held back just for BF, like the way ssd's fell in price. Same for some old tech deals too, like kindle hdx's which were reduced from something like £199 to £139. The BF price will become the new selling point, like it did with both ssd's and kindles.
Brexit though could mess this right up but it is more likely that the price increases for brexit were hedged against and wont kick in until Jan next year so BF prices could look really good when viewed from brexit Feb 2017 prices.
The best deals will be on end of range and stock moved into clearance mode and these are not ideal for gamers. If I recall it correctly, last year most of the gaming deals were poo-poo'ed on here for old processors, poor graphics cards, only 6gb system ram, using older slower memory, no or low capacity ssd's with very expensive seller site upgrade options, and no doubt it will be the same this year.
Saying all that, there will be some good bargains but it is getting there fast enough to actually get them and not being price scammed by fake savings that are much lower than they appear. You need to know what you want and what the prices of it are now. Amazon are experts in the art of price scamming you on BF with things with 5% saving being made to look like massive deals even though they are nothing of the sort. Of course, 5% off might be a good deal but when it is presented as 60% of rrp and the only other sellers are 30% more in price on Amazon it looks to the suckers like a great deal.
Dont be a sucker and do your Black Friday homework to prepare. :P
Note: the base clock of the i5 6400 is 2.7GHz. AWD are referring to the max turbo clock frequency when they say 3.3GHz.
PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/NyHjWX
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/NyHjWX/by_merchant/
CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£170.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£49.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: *Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£32.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.99 @ Novatech)
Video Card: *Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Mini Video Card (£230.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: *BitFenix Nova ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: *Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.99 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: *Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer (£13.73 @ BT Shop)
Total: £617.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-10-30 09:18 GMT+0000
You can't get the parts cheaper to build yourself on this PC or the one that I bought; AWD code 650010701.
They were very helpful on the phone; did say however they had been very busy over half term with kids orders, and all systems are built to order so may be a little wait. Will report back when I have it.
I'm in the process or building a Rigg for my nephew & was either looking to buy a used "nearly new recently built" system (some great buys around with the older i5 4690k - as long as you know what your looking for) or I source parts and build with new i5 6th gen processor.
The only reservation my nephew had about this system was the motherboard (even though its budget, still a great little board) - but obviously AWD have to budget on some components ie motherboard & only a 430W PSU, but even when changing the cpu to the a i5 6000k, the hdd to 256G SSD & 1 TB Hard Drive for storage and just leaving the 8GB Ram (for gaming generally this is more than enough anyway (you can always upgrade later if required) - just under £750 budget - really good buy indeed.;0) ..thats excluding windows 10
Using part picker the strix options should be far more than shown. The 1060/1070 strix should be £100-130 more than a base model, but its only £30.
Can somebody give me a bit of advice as I am a newbie when it comes to Gaming PC's. My son wants one for Xmas and this one is about the top of my budget and overall the reviews seem pretty positive? Is this still the best deal out there for this price range?
I have noticed that there is a possibility to upgrade certain components in this PC. I plan on upgrading the primary drive to 120GB as suggested on here, what about a secondary drive? Is this necessary and do they come any cheaper than what they ask?
What about RAM? Is it worth paying the £40 to upgrade to 16GB? And Liquid Cooling? Is this necessary?
My son is trading in his PS4 so he will want to play a lot of the games he plays on there. Any advice is welcome
thanks
Obviously the cpu cant be Overclocked (but its a great cpu) but I doubt you'll need that anyway. Which brings me to the liquid cooling - I wouldn't bother as your not going to be overclocking the PC - unless that is you plan changing the CPU in the future to a "K" unlocked model, (i5 6600K) in which case I guess it maybe a good buy as the Corsair H100 pretty good, I have one and its a good price as an add on to be fair. BUT bare in mind if you want to change the CPU in the future (to say get an overclocking version) you would also need to really upgrade to a better motherboard too (like a Z170X).
In a nutshell, if you ain't interested in Overclocking, dont bother with the liquid cooler, maybe just stick with standard cooler (free) or the Arctic Freezer aftermarket cooler (if you want that extra cooling)
With regards to RAM - personally I game quite a lot and I dont really think you need more than 8GB, but if you have the budget, go for it, extra RAM always a bonus - but for gaming, 8GB will do you fine.
I would advise 120GB SSD for your Operating system (primary drive) and a 1TB Seagate as secondary (for all your games & applications) and the price they ask for the seagate to be fair is pretty good, so go for it.
Hope it helps buddy - I'm sure someone else may add additional advice etc
I've just built my nephew a gaming PC with a very similar spec & hes a gamer, even although only 12 ;0)
Liquid cooling is not necessary on this machine, as the core temp should be low enough already, i'm fairly certain this case comes with lots of air cooling in the form of up to 3 LED fans.
This PC will play MOST games and I have to stress that it is just Most. The problem with this computer is that it isn't really future proof and the CPU could be a lot better but for the price you are paying you are getting a decent deal. It's safe to assume that most AAA titles that are released next year and beyond will start to struggle on this machine and force your son to turn the graphics down to medium.
When the new intel CPU's drop in a few weeks time you can expect the price of computers to fall in general since you'll be able to pick up what the market consider outdated CPU's for reduced prices (Notably the 6th Gen Intel CPU's (6770K) (5890K) and a Z170 motherboard)
Edit: If you want to upgrade this machine in the future you would definitely need to buy a new PSU. 450W just won't cut it for PC gaming.
2nd Edit: If you want more RAM speed it's acceptable but for the added price probably not worth it. You would notice speed increases in boot times (Especially if you got a SSD) and general processing speeds - gaming would not perform any better with an extra 8GB.
Your posts have been very helpful. I'll hold out for another week and see what comes up an take on board your recommendations. If you happen to stumble across a great deal in the meantime please send me a PM on here
Warranty.
Want to fit the crucial 500gb that's on amazon now @£80
I just need a new PC for MS office and browsing, but might do some development work, so the quad monitor support is attractive.
Wondering if i should opt for :
1. 256 SSD + 1TB Seagate
2. Extra 8GB RAM=16GB
3. no OS. Install Wiindows through the lpsting in first comment ( Windows 10 £15.79) ?
4. win 7 or 10?
any good?
http://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-z1-intel-i5-6400-3.3ghz-gtx-1060-6gb-ddr5-vr-gaming-pc.html
"Our extensive 3 Year warranty includes labour cover, fault finding and repair/upgrade over a 3 year parts cover period with return costs covered for the initial 6 Months of product ownership of your PC or Ccmponent bundle, whether required for fixing faults or even installing future upgrades!
This means that even if a fault develops after your 3 year parts cover period has expired, our engineers will still try and fix it for you, or at least, diagnose the cause and advise you of required component upgrades.
You can then take advantage of our low component prices and have our expert technicians perform the upgrade for you.
Also unique to ADMI and included in our warranty is Remote Desktop Support which can effectively diagnose up to 90% of non-hardware issues, without the need of returning the item. (Your PC must have the ability to power on for this aspect to be used).
We understand our customers require the peace of mind provided by extensive warranty cover. That's why we developed our Platinum Protection Plan, provided with any AWD-IT or ADMI PC and/or component bundle, which covers each component against any hardware fault for a full 3 Years from the date of delivery. In the unlikely event of a fault occuring during the this time, we will swap the part for replacement - for the first 6 months at no return cost.*
* Exclusions to cover:
- Software issues or faults caused by accidental damage are not covered under the warranty.
- PC repairs/modifications not performed by ADMI Limited will void the warranty.
- Damage incurred due to poor packaging when an item is returned to us is not covered. If being returned for a refund, a charge will apply to replace damaged parts. We strongly recommend customers keep the original packaging to prevent damage upon return.
(Adding certain internal components may not necessarily void a PC's warranty, however any issues which may arise from the addition of 3rd party components are not covered by the PC's warranty)."