Small Form Factor Gaming PC

topgazza

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2006
Messages
15,798
Reaction score
4,039
Points
3,163
Location
Near Basingstoke
Not looking at anything top of the range or high spec. Just something to play Halo type games at 1080p. I tend to play solo games not group or online streaming. Ive tried speccing PCs up but thought I would ask here if anyone has any recommendations as to pre built for a casual gamer ?
 
Given the GPU availability at the moment and the fact that you only want to game on it I would seriously consider the Xbox series s. Combined with the game pass ultimate upgrade trick you can get the console and three years gaming for less than £400. Best bang for buck at the moment, and that's coming from a PC gamer too.

HTH
 
You could check if the games you play are on GeForce Now, if so then any low end small PC should suffice. Ethernet connection to router would be best of course with such a service.

Minisforum sell a mix of mini PC's some of which you could use for low end gaming, they ship international.

Youtube ETA prime has looked at a lot of these mini PC systems some cheap or expensive, it might at least give you an idea of the products performance.
Some examples
Asrock Jupiter X300
Minisforum HM50 the HM80

If its real old games you might get away with office mini PC's and such or look on ebay for small form factor pre built's.
 
Have to say I agree with the suggestion to get an Xbox series s, or even a series x (although that's probably overkill if you just want to game at 1080p). There's nothing can match it in terms of vfm especially combined with game pass ultimate
 
Thanks guys. Good advice
Never thought about the X Box. I had a PlayStation a few years ago and never got used to the controller. I’m so used to using a mouse which, arguably, is more responsive at moving and pointing ?
 
Thanks guys. Good advice
Never thought about the X Box. I had a PlayStation a few years ago and never got used to the controller. I’m so used to using a mouse which, arguably, is more responsive at moving and pointing ?

If you describe yourself as a casual gamer a controller will be absolutely fine. Honestly you'd have to spend probably £700 (at least in the current climate) on PC bits to get anything like something that will match the performance of a series S with raytracing etc. Of course you could use a keyboard and mouse on an xbox if you felt the need to, it's an option at least. As said a series S with 3 years xbox live and gamepass ultimate should be about £350 and you get all MS first party studio games included in that for the next 3 years (Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Bethesda games e.g Starfield next year, Fable, EA play games etc etc). It's a no brainer for a casual gamer really tbh
 
There's a Series S just been posted for sale in the classifieds for £215 , daft money really when you think about it
 
I’ll check that out Andy. I really didn’t get on with a controller though. Maybe I didn’t persist enough as I found juggling movement and shooting with any smoothness really hard
 
I’ll check that out Andy. I really didn’t get on with a controller though. Maybe I didn’t persist enough as I found juggling movement and shooting with any smoothness really hard

It's maybe just a case of getting used to it, console games are more forgiving when it comes to shooting accuracy but as I mentioned if it really does become an issue you can always use a keyboard and mouse on the xbox.
 
Thanks guys. Good advice
Never thought about the X Box. I had a PlayStation a few years ago and never got used to the controller. I’m so used to using a mouse which, arguably, is more responsive at moving and pointing ?

Issue with xbox is while hardware is cheap the games are not. The subscription of game pass is good value for money though.

Also old games are only partially supported from Xbox OG and Xbox 360 era its not the complete library.

If you like the wide variety of stuff on Steam, old games on GoG then Xbox is a bad pick in my opinion as it doesn't have the same library but AAA stuff is covered on Xbox. If you care at all about precision aiming you don't want to be using a gamepad, only some games on Xbox work with keyboard/mouse.
 
Looking at those Minisforum PCs and they are quite impressive. Customs duties and vat might be an issue though
 
What's your realistic budget? Anything under £600 get a console.
 
I was thinking up to £750 ish.
 
I was thinking up to £750 ish.
I've put this together. Leaves you about £200 for the GPU (which won't get you much unfortunately)
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£172.80 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI B450I GAMING PLUS MAX WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (£99.43 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£72.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£83.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT H210 Mini ITX Tower Case (£70.79 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £562.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-06-27 13:46 BST+0100


You could get a 2600 but it is out dated now. And obviously look at second hand.
 
Wow delvey, I didn’t expect that. Much appreciated. I was about to start that process.
GPUs are a serious problem I know. But will look around. I have a 4K Samsung monitor but 1080p will do for a GPU. I think second hand is my only realistic option given supply and price of new. I’ll get an HDMI switch so I can move between my Mac Mini M1 and the PC but apart from that it looks good
I have great options now
 
I was thinking up to £750 ish.
If you could up nearer to a grand you could get the latest Intel enthusiast Nuc. It’s only got a 2060 card in it but if you are gaming at 1080p then that’s plenty. Ballicom tend to do them cheaper than anyone else I’ve seen but stock is low everywhere. I love the connectivity on mine and use it as my main PC these days sat on my desktop.

 
Thanks
Lovely looking and very neat design. Too much though when specced up.
Very nice mind you
 
Thanks
Lovely looking and very neat design. Too much though when specced up.
Very nice mind you
Yes why I suggested Ballicom. I used the linked seller and when spec‘d up to 16Gb/512 NVMe it came to 1200 or so which I paid happily for a day one release. Ballicom had the same spec ready made at a grand a couple of weeks later. But they are hard to get hold of for all the reasons that we know.
 
£977 for my spec at Ballicom. But no stock as you say :(
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom