Stepping on to the PC gaming ladder isn’t usually easy unless you have a line of credit that would make some first-world nations blush. But, there’s a cheaper way to get started, and one which pulls up some surprisingly strong results: go second hand.
We’ll show you how you can turn a second-hand computer into an excellent 200 gaming PC build. We’re not talking about a shiny, plastic, who-knows-how-thrashed second-hand gaming PC, though.
Picking up something that’s been battered in a teenager’s bedroom over the course of five years is not a good deal. But, you can get solid hardware, and a surprising bargain, by looking at enterprise-grade PCs. Here’s how you can turn your PC into a gaming computer for free.
The drive
Flipping that dull office PC into Beast Mode hinges on two components in particular, and we’d highly recommend buying both of these new. First, get an SSD, as it’s the perfect thing to improve the PC’s responsiveness and chop downloading times provided you’ve installed your games on it.
Western Digital’s 120GB version of the WD Green, for example, can be had for very little money these days and will offer up the perfect amount of pep if your boot Windows from it.
Graphics
Second on the upgrade list, and most important, is a GPU, and you’re picking from a limited list.
You won’t be able to throw in a GTX 1080 Ti – and neither would you want to, since you’d quickly run into hardware bottlenecks that would throw away most of its potential performance.
Card buying
Installing a bus-powered card isn’t difficult – it’s just a case of slotting it in, so we’ll leave that up to you and your machine – but buying the right one can be tricky. When you’ve got your size and power considerations locked down, get online, and get hunting for a deal that fits.
