College/uni build - absolutely no gaming whatsoever

[Time Bandit]

Hi all,

Would appreciate comments, criticism and suggestions for the following build:
Use = college and uni work so no gaming allowed (ahem - well maybe a little)

Matx for slightly smaller footprint
i3 seems to offer decent upgrade path

Already has 1650x1080 monitor, 500W OCZ PSU and W7 home.

• i3 2120 3.3GHz*(89.99 - Novatech)
• Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 (SCAN - 87.22)
• MSI 6770 (74.98 - dabs)
• Fractal design arc mini (54.99 - Ebuyer)
• Corsair 2x2GB 1600MHz (SCAN - 22.99)
• LG GH22NS70 (SCAN - 13.79)
• Seagate ST31000524AS sata III 1TB (SCAN -86.52)

Give or take 'Today only offers' comes to about £430.

Main question - is Z68 OTT for this one? Not likely to OC this incarnation but might be useful for next CPU upgrade.

Also post flood HDD prices are a bit painful still - perhaps opt instead for smaller HDD and pair it with SSD (Agility 3/crucial4)?

Keeping under £450 would be a bonus!

Thanks for your input.
TB

[ik9000]

z68 is IMO the only sensible option for allowing max flexibility for the future provided you have the budget for it now. If every penny counts then really think about what you want.

H61/H67 no discreet GPU - onboard only. Quicksync available. Overclocking possible on some boards.
P67 discreet GPU only, no onboard GPU access, therefore no Quicksync. No overclocking possible.
Z68 discreet GPU and onboard GPU accessible (dependent on Mobo). Has quicksync, and overclocking possible. ie - it does everything you would want.

see pob's post #6 below - I've made a hash of this.

[ik9000]

A guide to setting up small SSD and HDD combo for best performance without overfilling the SSD can be found here - note their suggestion to do it before installing other stuff (I forgot and it took me longer than it otherwise would):

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how...ia_storage_ssd

[ik9000]

Hi all,

Would appreciate comments, criticism and suggestions for the following build:
Use = college and uni work so no gaming allowed (ahem - well maybe a little)

Matx for slightly smaller footprint
i3 seems to offer decent upgrade path

Already has 1650x1080 monitor, 500W OCZ PSU and W7 home.

• i3 2120 3.3GHz*(89.99 - Novatech)
• Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 (SCAN - 87.22)
• MSI 6770 (74.98 - dabs)
• Fractal design arc mini (54.99 - Ebuyer)
• Corsair 2x2GB 1600MHz (SCAN - 22.99)
• LG GH22NS70 (SCAN - 13.79)
• Seagate ST31000524AS sata III 1TB (SCAN -86.52)

Give or take 'Today only offers' comes to about £430.

Main question - is Z68 OTT for this one? Not likely to OC this incarnation but might be useful for next CPU upgrade.

Also post flood HDD prices are a bit painful still - perhaps opt instead for smaller HDD and pair it with SSD (Agility 3/crucial4)?

Keeping under £450 would be a bonus!

Thanks for your input.
TB

Have you seen this in Scan's Today Only?



Allowing for selling off components you didn't want you could hit your budget and have a much better spec at the same time.

[ik9000]

If you don't want to get the bundle, you can save some money by looking at BitFenix for the case. Eg the Merc Alpha/Beta (dif no of fans) is circa £30 from ebuyer.com and gets good reviews. You'll probably want to add one or two more fans, but the BitFenix spectre range such as included in the case are *quiet* and cheaper than a lot of the alternatives which is another win (I don't work for them - just a happy punter)

[Pob255]

z68 is IMO the only sensible option for allowing max flexibility for the future provided you have the budget for it now. If every penny counts then really think about what you want.

H61/H67 no discreet GPU - onboard only. Quicksync available. Overclocking possible on some boards.
P67 discreet GPU only, no onboard GPU access, therefore no Quicksync. No overclocking possible.
Z68 discreet GPU and onboard GPU accessible (dependent on Mobo). Has quicksync, and overclocking possible. ie - it does everything you would want.

Not quite correct,
you can use a discreet gpu on the h61/h67, but you cannot overclock
P67 no ondie gpu but you can overclock . . . if you have a k series cpu

You can still use quicksync on H61, H67 or z68 with a discreet card by using Lucid's Virtu software, if it didn't come with your motherboard you can download it here http://www.lucidlogix.com/driverdownloads-virtu.html
In fact Virtu is the only way you can still use it with a discreet card, because otherwise the ondie gpu is turned off when a card is detected. (even on the z68)

For case have a look at the Fractal design core 1000 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/fract...e-case-w-o-psu this is probably the best current cheap mATX case.
Now granted it's not perfect, These are the issues I know of:
- At only 175mm wide it's too narrow to fit a 120mm fan based tower cpu cooler (although an i3 will not need one), max height for cooler is 135mm (Zalman CNPS5X-Performa or Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro will fit and be great on an i3)
- The vertical drive bracket can only take 2 drives and the lower of the 2 will conflict with a graphics card if it has side facing power connectors or is wider than standard card. (You can fit a 3rd drive if you use one of the 5.25" bays with an adaptor of course.)
- Cable management, no cables behind the motherboard tray, it's an old style top mounted psu case so cable management is done in the old way, tuck unused power cables into the 5.25" bay and run needed cables to the front, but there's no drive cage to tie them too.
- Side mounted front connectors, ok I'll admit this is personal to me, the power button, audio sockets and usb sockets are all on right side of the bezel, not the front or top. I've never liked that as a position for them.
Far for ideal but still the best sub £30 mATX case currently, you don't want to put a high end gaming system into it, but you're not planning too so that's not really an issue.

Good review of it here http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/F...re_1000/1.html

[dave87]

What are you studying? That may also give us a pointer as to its impact on spec.

Speaking as a History & Politics graduate, I found two screens invaluable during my studies - particularly for reviewing and editing essays/source materials/notes etc. If you are doing something similar then it may be worth considering

[scaryjim]

What are you studying? That may also give us a pointer as to its impact on spec.

This. Without knowing the workload it's a bit pointless speccing up a build. You'll end up with something generic and general purpose that will do the job, but it might not be the best for the job.

For instance, with that budget you could get a lower end Phenom II X6 if you have a heavily threaded workload (like video manipulation, for instance). Or you could get a cheaper CPU plus a decent GPU if you're doing workloads that can be accelerated by CUDA / OpenCL.

Or if you're literally just typing essays a lower spec build plus two monitors, or even a cheapish laptop plus a spare monitor, might do the job better (and possibly save you money!).

At £400 - £500 you've got quite a lot of options...

[doyll49]

What are you studying? That may also give us a pointer as to its impact on spec.

Maybe a notebook is better option???

Just a thought.

[Time Bandit]

Thanks for the advice - I've not done an i3 build before, so feeling my way a bit. Hopefully the following will answer some of the questions.

It's not me doing the studying - but the majority of the use will be teenagers doing science/maths A levels and undergrad science (most likely bioscience)/medicine (tbc).

There are already laptops available and and perhaps a notebook for carting around etc. From my own experience, I found it quite nice to have a dedicated workstation with a half decent desktop and peripherals. Two screens might be nice sometime, but might have to make do with the 16 x 10 for now which I find OK for working on a couple of documents side by side.

The workstation is in a multipurpose living space so I wanted to get something with an understated look and didn't mind paying a little bit extra for a decent case (one which won't cut your hands to ribbons on the sharp edges - especially in a smaller build). Cases are obviously a bit of a personal thing, but I will have a look at the cheaper Fractal one you mentioned - I do like having space to run cables behind motherboard though. Has anyone managed to trash the sockets with ports on the side? I tend to have towers on the left and I can see myself yanking headphone plugs out on a regular basis!

Thanks for the run down on the Intel chipsets, I don't know much about quick sync, but from the bit I just read, it looks an attractve feature - both in terms of SSD caching and the odd bit of video re-encoding to stick on mobile devices.

WRT to AMD build, I was thinking initially of Athlon II X3/880g but on balance I thought the upgrade path for SKT1155/Z68 with the current range of i5,i7 processors (and Ivy Bridge round the corner) was somehow clearer. I don't know if this is controversial, but it seems less clear than with AM3+ and FM1, the success of the AMD apus and bulldozer (and piledriver?) all seem to depend to some extent on how the software developers can adapt to the new architecture.

Phew, sorry long post - I've been away all day!

[Time Bandit]

At £400 - £500 you've got quite a lot of options...

Yep! I just had a fab geekend - unfortunately Mrs TB just doesn't get it at all.

[ik9000]

The workstation is in a multipurpose living space so I wanted to get something with an understated look and didn't mind paying a little bit extra for a decent case (one which won't cut your hands to ribbons on the sharp edges - especially in a smaller build). Cases are obviously a bit of a personal thing, but I will have a look at the cheaper Fractal one you mentioned - I do like having space to run cables behind motherboard though. Has anyone managed to trash the sockets with ports on the side? I tend to have towers on the left and I can see myself yanking headphone plugs out on a regular basis!

£31.09

http://www.ebuyer.com/289023-bitfeni...rc-100-kkx2-rp



http://www.ebuyer.com/289021-bitfeni...rc-100-kkx1-rp

[Pob255]

one other case to consider is the Silverstone Precision PS07B http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...icro-atx-black it's no cheaper than the Arc mini, more of alternative.

[Time Bandit]

Thanks for the suggestions, some nice cases there that I hadn't considered previously - I'll check out the reviews.

[ik9000]

Thanks for the suggestions, some nice cases there that I hadn't considered previously - I'll check out the reviews.

starter for 10: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4913/b...uch-can-39-can

[whobi]

For £400-450 ish scan always seem to have a 2500k bundle on today only. wait until you see a case you want and then buy the bundle?

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/index.aspx