Gaming on a Budget.

Rain (R250 p/m) + Second hand Xbox One S (R3000) + 3 years of GamePass (R1950) gives you access to a full list of games seen here (More added every month)

Yes I went there. Just opted to replace Xbox one with a Series S (R7000) instead. Oh and loads of sales all the time with games often hitting R200 and below.

Just download off-peak & play offline during peak.

Edit: If you more into PlayStation, a second hand console goes for about R4000 and loads of people that is willing to swap games. You dont have to buy all of the games new.


I had a similar budget problem last year when I was looking at "updating" my i5/Nvidia 1060 gaming rig and found that just a GFX card alone would overshoot it. So bought a Xbox Series S instead.

Hooked it up to my 4K TV and I can not be happier. Coming from no console games to having loads in my library was easy with Gold's(Included in GamePass) help as well with its 4 free games per month. Sure the console renders at 1080p and up scales to 4K but at 3 meters away on a 58" TV it rocks... well it looks way better than my old crappy 24" 1080p monitor I am use to.

Yeah cant go more budget than a console and still stay current with some added future proofing.
 
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|tera| said:
Games are more expensive on a console. Cost and data transfer (bandwidth). I don't like hacking/modding consoles either.

As I said. I have no performance issues on the games I play. So there's no issues with getting max FPS. Not that I care about it either.

Don't have uncapped. Don't have Fibre.
Don't have the dosh for a gazillion games.

I won't pussyfoot. Many games are sourced on the high seas.
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Games aren't that much more expensive on console then pc. Yes there are a lot of specials on pc, but you can do game pass on Xbox and get access to hundreds of free games. Also look at second hand games for the console.
 
Soul Assassin said:
I suppose on PC you do have the "free" game aspect but you can buy second hand console games for cheap as chips.

I checked on Carbonite and I saw a PS4 Pro with 20 games for 6k that will keep you busy for a long time and the games will look nicer and run better than with a 10 year old GPU.

You didn't mention the resolution but some of the games you listed I doubt very much saw much more than 20FPS.
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What is cheap as chips?< R100?
 
Barbarian Conan said:
What is cheap as chips?< R100?
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All the GamePass stuff, the monthly free games, you go to your local Cash Crusaders and you can buy month old games that someone played through once for ~R200 and there definitely are trading groups if you check Facebook Marketplace etc where you just list your games, someone will list theirs and you say okay I haven't played those 5 and they say I haven't played these 5 and then you R60 Pargo them and then you just keep going.
 
|tera| said:
So this is just a general overview of how you could get into PC Gaming without breaking the bank.

I'll start with my current specs and then my recommendations.

Intel i7 2600K CPU
1TB 7200 HDD
GTX670
8GB DDR3 RAM
Windows 10 64bit

Recommendations:
At least 16GB RAM, DDR 4 preferred
A GPU with More than 3GB RAM
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decent, the GPU is what wrecks budgets now though, my graphics card died 2 weeks back, the system was so old I had to replace a bunch of things just to support modern GPUs better ... but my god I was not prepared for the price of GPUs!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

so I am ending up with what I'd consider "budget" gaming as well:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
2 x 8gb DDR4 RAM
GTX 1650 super (literally the only semi-newish thing in stock under 10k :( )

biggest recommendation I'd make to your type of setup (and any setup for that matter) is an SSD for your primary partition, big impact to overall system performance
 
Consoles are not replacements for gaming PCs.
It is a different beast for mostly different games and a different experience.

If could choose only one, I would choose my old i7 2600K + R9 290 and 16GB RAM over a PS5 / Xbox Series X any day.

The i7 2600K is sufficient for 60hz gaming, and I suspect it will be for a while still.
I do think you want at least 16GB RAM. DDR3 modules are still being sold, so you could easily upgrade.

There's nothing wrong with playing older games, or playing newer games on reduced settings.
Hell, as a kid I knew that around 22fps things got dicey. 30fps was the holy grail. And I enjoyed games more back then than I do now.
You don't need a lot to have a lot of fun.

Edit: If you really want to, you can also get Gamepass on your budget PC, but I would rather save that money and have almost R2000 after a year for a nice GPU upgrade.
 
Ok, so I'm going to recommend my pc specs as well, seeing that we're talking about budget gaming builds:

i3- 7100 (either get an i3 like mine or higher, maybe 9th gen i5 if you can push it)
8GB DDR4 RAM
1TB HDD 7200RPM
GTX 750 Ti 4GB OC (if you can get a cheap GTX 1050 ti, get that and you shouldn't worry about 1080p, but with prices as they are....)
128 GB SSD (optional but recommended)
And of course Win 10

With this build you should be able to play these:
|tera| said:
What I'm able to play, without any issues (examples):
NFS Heat
CP2077
Days Gone
SW Jedi Fallen Order
Tomb Raider Series
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And most (70 - 75%) modern titles but on lowest/medium settings on 900p max or 1080p if this build far exceeds the recommended spec of the game you're playing.
|tera| said:
Any RTS
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Game recommendation time: Star Wars Empire At War, Company of Heroes (all of them) as well as Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War (all of them except 3)
|tera| said:
Recommendations:
At least 16GB RAM, DDR 4 preferred
A GPU with More than 3GB RAM
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I definitely agree with this as well
|tera| said:
Saints Row 4
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For some reason, when I see the game or hear about it, I always remember the first or second level (I can't remember specifically) which has you escape a spaceship with ****in "What is Love" blasting in the background. Memorable af
|tera| said:
. Older Games I wasn't into a few years ago. There's a ton of Games that I'm heading back to.
Click to expand...
Same, it's funny how people always gravitate back to the games they love no matter how old they are. Regardless of backlog lol
 
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AlphaJohn said:
3 years of GamePass (R1950) gives you access to a full list of games seen here (More added every month)
Click to expand...
While GamePass and Origin Access, etc is nice and everything, you are in essence renting those games. And what if you can't pay GamePass or whatever that month/year cause of money issues, then you sit without games for a month/year. I'd personally rather opt to wait for steam sales (or sales on whatever console you are playing on) and buy some games knowing that you can download and play them without thinking of if you paid this month or not. I do now and then get Origin Access if I want to try out a specific EA game before buying on Steam, but that's pretty much it.
 
PrimeSteak said:
While GamePass and Origin Access, etc is nice and everything, you are in essence renting those games. And what if you can't pay GamePass or whatever that month/year cause of money issues, then you sit without games for a month/year. I'd personally rather opt to wait for steam sales (or sales on whatever console you are playing on) and buy some games knowing that you can download and play them without thinking of if you paid this month or not. I do now and then get Origin Access if I want to try out a specific EA game before buying on Steam, but that's pretty much it.
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Last time I checked people also buy the games at a discounted rate with Game pass, so your assumptiopn is very much wrong. Game Pass is wonderful. Can play games using the subscriptiona nd if you like it you can buy a lisence for it outright using the game Pass discount.
 
PrimeSteak said:
While GamePass and Origin Access, etc is nice and everything, you are in essence renting those games. And what if you can't pay GamePass or whatever that month/year cause of money issues, then you sit without games for a month/year. I'd personally rather opt to wait for steam sales (or sales on whatever console you are playing on) and buy some games knowing that you can download and play them without thinking of if you paid this month or not. I do now and then get Origin Access if I want to try out a specific EA game before buying on Steam, but that's pretty much it.
Click to expand...

GamePass for 3 years mentioned above also gives you access to specials:
  • Like I deals with gold where I got WRC 5, 6 & 7 for R170 last week.
  • Never mind the GamePass discount on all the games they host or
  • The 4 games you get free every month with included Gold membership (4 Games per month for 3 years = 144 games)
Also there is weekly sales, nevermind the holiday sales that mimic Steam's

Edit: Fixed Sale link
 
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Really depends on what you want to play.

I play older games so PC specs hardly matter except on CSGO where I'm stuck on 48Hz due to the laptop monitor even though I get well over 100 FPS at 1080P. Could get another screen but eish, not that cash-flush at the moment.

Other than that I play CIV 5 and CIV 6 and occasionally I'll play a football manager game or dungeon crawler type game.
 
Yeah. Rain is as useless as water vapour here.

Actually water vapour has more use.
So there's no way that will work.

I'm sorted with my PC. Just sharing :)
 
Since we are just dropping specs xD

G4560 - waiting for this to arrive, was shipped via Postnet today (Carb PIF)
TB250-BTC Mobo (got from different Carb PIF)
8GB G-Skill DDR4 2133 (Donated by my cousin)
Cooler master something or another chassis ( Donated by my cousin)
500GB HDD
FSP 550w PSU I bought with ebucks from takealot that was delivered today xD
Nvidia 450GT 1GB I bought for R350 from Carb

Hoping to run Minecraft at 720p
Perhaps some Fortnite on lowest settings


​

 
Can someone please tell me if my budget PC will play games?

Ryzen 7 3700X
16GB DDR4-3200
MSI nVidia GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio
MSI X570A-Pro
512GB nVME
Asus VG27WQ1b 27" 1440p 165Hz
 
UrBaN963 said:
Can someone please tell me if my budget PC will play games?

Ryzen 7 3700X
16GB DDR4-3200
MSI nVidia GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio
MSI X570A-Pro
512GB nVME
Asus VG27WQ1b 27" 1440p 165Hz
Click to expand...

Maybe minesweeper if you are lucky, will offer you R5k for the setup
 
AlphaJohn said:
Rain (R250 p/m) + Second hand Xbox One S (R3000) + 3 years of GamePass (R1950) gives you access to a full list of games seen here (More added every month)

Yes I went there. Just opted to replace Xbox one with a Series S (R7000) instead. Oh and loads of sales all the time with games often hitting R200 and below.

Just download off-peak & play offline during peak.

Edit: If you more into PlayStation, a second hand console goes for about R4000 and loads of people that is willing to swap games. You dont have to buy all of the games new.


I had a similar budget problem last year when I was looking at "updating" my i5/Nvidia 1060 gaming rig and found that just a GFX card alone would overshoot it. So bought a Xbox Series S instead.

Hooked it up to my 4K TV and I can not be happier. Coming from no console games to having loads in my library was easy with Gold's(Included in GamePass) help as well with its 4 free games per month. Sure the console renders at 1080p and up scales to 4K but at 3 meters away on a 58" TV it rocks... well it looks way better than my old crappy 24" 1080p monitor I am use to.

Yeah cant go more budget than a console and still stay current with some added future proofing.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it makes very little sense to drop 7K on a "gaming" PC. If you can get a proper gaming device for less than that plus play most of the latest titles.
 
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