How effective is a low budget gaming rig?

We had two previous posts about making a low budget gaming solution out of a refurbished office machine paired with entry level gaming card. How good is such a combination in current games? Up until some time ago, I wouldn’t even have considered such a solution. Then I literally stumbled upon Tech Deals, a great YouTube channel that had this very combo tested and benchmarked. Have a look at the videos below and be amazed. I know I have been.

$250 i5-2400 + Radeon RX 460

$250 i5-2400 + Radeon RX 460/GeForce GTX 1050

$150 i5-3450

Are you convinced yet? Then you might want to start hunting for your own bargain deal. Of course, prices and availability here in Europe are not at the level you can find in the USA. That doesn’t mean though there are no bargains to find.

Here is a list for an eBay search, with the following criteria:

– CPU: i5-2400, i5-2500, i5-3450 or i5-3470
– Buy Now format
– located in the European Union
– maximum price of 300 euro (above that it’s not worth it anymore as a bargain).
– in ascending order of price + shipping to your location

eBay search for i5-2400, i5-2500, i5-3450 or i5-3470

Happy hunting!

Deal Alert – i5 desktops for a bargain

There is a hot deal going on on eBay right now, with a number of HP Pro 3400 and 3500 desktops. What’s so hot about them? These machines still have a lot of computing power inside their cases. Pair them with a video card that doesn’t need external power, like GTX 1050 or 1050 ti and you get a beast of a machine, capable of running almost everythign, over 60fps at 1080p.

Even more so, these machines are in mini tower format. This means that you can fit any video card inside

Here are the deals:


HP PRO 3500 – Core i5-3470 @ 3.20GHz – 4GB RAM – 320GB HDD – Windows 8.1 PRO | eBay

Current price: £129.99 / Approximately EUR 150.09


HP Pro 3400 – Core i5-2400 @ 3.10GHz – 4GB RAM – 320GB HDD – Windows 7 PRO | eBay

Current price: £119.99 / Approximately EUR 138.55