Which cpu?

[EndlessWaves]

I'm sort of in love with that case btw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gad98utK640 it's the same one, so not the smallest, but not too big, it uses an atx psu and it's a great price for what it is.

That case is available under other brands, for example Raijintek sell it as the Metis in a variety of colours.

(it still looks huge to me, but whatever floats your boat)

EDIT2: the fact that the Athlon 5370 + motherboard is only £70 is very tempting, 8gb of ddr3 over her current 3.5gb ish ddr2 (4gb but xp) and an ssd should give it a bit of a kick over her current setup.

You can get an H81 board and a Celeron G1840 for the same £65-70 and in the worst case it's the same speed as a 5370, in the best case it's well over twice as fast.

Unless having 40-50W maximum power consumption instead of 70-80W is important there's just no good reason to go for the 5370.

An A8-7600 would be a reasonable choice if your DDR3 isn't 1.35v.

[Bagnaj97]

I must admit I discounted skylake because of ddr4 costs, at least last time I looked at it.
Also I need to double check but I think I've got some ddr3 I can use so a skylake build adds in the cost of ram.

unfortunately if I do have ram then that's going to shift the price difference closer to £70

There's a DDR3 version of the same Motherboard - https://www.amazon.co.uk/H110I-PLUS-.../dp/B018ZPGWN0

It depends what DDR3 you have though. According to Intel it shouldn't be more than 1.35v, anything higher could shorten the life of your CPU. 1.5v is probably fine though (you could try undervolting it too). Asus Qualified Vendors List for that motherboard even has 1.65v memory listed, but I wouldn't run it! http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...ry_qvl0415.pdf

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My main worry is the long-term stability at 1.5V - if it was fine Intel would have qualified the memory controller at 1.5V!!

[Bonebreaker777]

Most RAM modules can function at the default 1600Mhz @ 1.35V with loose timings without compromising stability.