eBay Experience?

Crizzy · 4 Jul 2021 at 19:13

I've been approached by a family member asking for advice on what can be had for a £300 budget that will play most modern games.

To be fair this is a bloody difficult ask and I advised it was tricky and the only options would be refurb/2nd hand, if at all. I advised they may be better off with a console, but they seem adamant that a PC is what they need

I think my only options are going to be eBay really. So with that I wanted to ask what are people's thoughts on using this popular auction site for PC components? Is it just a minefield that's best avoided or can I get some decent bargains if I shop with people with decent feedback?

BallistixOnZ490 · 4 Jul 2021 at 19:16

I have a £250 PC.

Not going to be possible with todays prices though.

Pentium G4560 for £40 and Radeon 550 for £50 being the main things in it. It could run most games on low settings up to last year including Baldurs Gate 3, doubt it will handle any of the high end stuff today.

I hope they didn't mean a monitor as well though.

For a full min spec gaming PC today, you aren't going to even find a better second hand CPU than the current £80 I3 10105F for much less.

Asrock B560 board <£100, micro atx tend to cost the least.

Dare to make do with only 8 Gb ram? 16 Gb isn't even enough for Anno 1800

SSDs and cases are cheap, but maybe £40 each for a 512 Gb and decent micro atx case.

Even a 7700K isn't worth paying £50 for today compared to the latest I3, and I've already looked extensively for one and everyone still wants over £100 for them.

Crizzy · 4 Jul 2021 at 19:22

Thanks, yeah no need for a monitor thankfully.

I'll take a look at the suggestions, thanks :cool:

EsaT · 4 Jul 2021 at 19:40

For that price there's nothing which will run modern heavier games, except at ancient resolution/Hollywood slideshow fps with everything cut down.

Just for start there really aren't budget second hand CPUs with modern core counts.
Some old six core Intel HEDT CPU would be best attempt for that.

Crizzy · 4 Jul 2021 at 19:44

Yeah I get that, I've done a few for the family recently but this one is going to be painful at best.

whatalegend123 · 5 Jul 2021 at 11:00

i think it depends how you qualify modern games. and what they want to play.. if they are only spending £300 on a pc i doubt they are going to be dropping £50+ on new games every couple of months ?

varkanoid · 5 Jul 2021 at 11:57

Crizzy said:
I've been approached by a family member asking for advice on what can be had for a £300 budget that will play most modern games.

To be fair this is a bloody difficult ask and I advised it was tricky and the only options would be refurb/2nd hand, if at all. I advised they may be better off with a console, but they seem adamant that a PC is what they need

I think my only options are going to be eBay really. So with that I wanted to ask what are people's thoughts on using this popular auction site for PC components? Is it just a minefield that's best avoided or can I get some decent bargains if I shop with people with decent feedback?

do a search for pc's in that price bracket that are within easy reach of your home. Then you can go see it in action before you part with your cash if they allow it, plus you can collect it and dont have to trust the shipping to ensure its not damaged. You might be lucky and get one with a GTX 1060 or a GTX 16xx but its going to be tough at the price.

Deleted member 77746 · 5 Jul 2021 at 11:58

You won’t get a PC for £300 that can play top end games not a chance unless someone’s giving it away. That would be a low end ish system.

The_Arbiter · 5 Jul 2021 at 12:10

Does that budget include monitor and/or peripherals?

Just tell them straight, it ain't gonna happen.

While you might achieve some AMD Vega build, is it really worth the hassle unless they plan to upgrade from it? Which will just limit options even more when taking into account quality of components.

BallistixOnZ490 · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:27

Its funny how you can get 8c 16t Xeons for <£50 on ebay, but the least anyone wants for a 7700 non k is £80.

The clock speeds on those xeons also make them unsuitable for gaming, very low frequencies on them.

This is cheaper and better than second hand 4c chips https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...ocket-lga1200-processor-retail-cp-69g-in.html

Joxeon · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:42

An Xbox series S and game pass would probably be a better option.

Phemo · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:58

Members market on here could be a good shout, or Facebook marketplace if you're feeling brave. You can get a half reasonable system for good money if you wait for the right parts to come up along with a bit of luck.

Back in March I knocked together a PC for a mate's son - got an i5 7600K, Asus Z170 board and MSI GTX 970 for £150. Then got a cheap case, power supply, 16GB Corsair DDR4, 500GB M.2 SSD and an EVGA PSU for about £240. A pretty good system for £390. Case, PSU, RAM and SSD were all new parts and the rest were 2nd hand so I could've saved even more if I'd done it with more used parts.

You can get some great deals on Facebook marketplace - it's literally the only reason I even still have an active account.

Cadder · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:02

Console is the best value for money.
Stay away from PC purchases until 2022

Sparx · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:20

You won't get a decent PC to play the latest games for £300, even 2nd hand... I think £400-500 and on the 2nd hand market still you might scrape something.

Definitely better off with an XBS console, or save up some more and increase the budget if want something that performs well and will last.

Buy cheap, buy twice is something I see all too often.

ExoMale · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:47

FB or gum is a good shout aside from ebay.

you can buy a pretty good used system for that much, just dont expect to max anything.

it wont be relevant to you as its within my radius, but on fb mp there is a custom system with 8th gen i5, 8gb ram, 1tb hdd, 1050ti, psu is probably ok whatever it is, thats for £200, another system ive seen has ryzen 2600, 8gb ram, 1tb hdd, 1050ti and looks like a 500w 80 bronze aerocool psu which is up for £300, so really its just the case of looking around and not jumping at the first one you see.

Cadder · 5 Jul 2021 at 18:46

ExoMale said:
FB or gum is a good shout aside from ebay.

I have looked at a few on FB marketplace near me and they seem well dodgy. "High End Gaming PC" for £250ish had a photo of it with a GPU but they mention somewhere in the description they removed it to sell separately. It's a minefield at best.

Crizzy · 5 Jul 2021 at 22:25

Thanks for the comments everyone, really helpful.

varkanoid said:
do a search for pc's in that price bracket that are within easy reach of your home. Then you can go see it in action before you part with your cash if they allow it, plus you can collect it and dont have to trust the shipping to ensure its not damaged. You might be lucky and get one with a GTX 1060 or a GTX 16xx but its going to be tough at the price.

This is a great idea, found a local 1050ti machine so going to keep an eye on it. :cool:

sanaxe1 · 6 Jul 2021 at 10:54

just checked gumtree local to me and there are a lot of 750ti PC's for around £300. Seen the odd 1050ti system at £300 as well but your looking at PC's with no upgrade paths such as Gen 4 intels and DDR3.

Crizzy · 6 Jul 2021 at 13:26

Yes there do seem to be things about.

I do agree with you all that a console is a better shout, but it's fallen on deaf ears unfortunately!

LionOfJudah · 6 Jul 2021 at 17:28

i bought a ryzen 5 pc fully assembled with windows pro on it from ebay for about £380. this is base unit only.