Cheap as possible MicroATX

[Attila the Bun]

I'm trying to spec a new rig for my brother as cheaply as possible.

I've come up with this but would be more than happy if somebody like Cat the Fifth would give some pointers.

It will be used for surfing, playing & storing music & films. No game playing other than the odd solitaire type stuff.

I've tried to aim for something that is upgradable and won't be too out of date in 6 months, but the overiding factor is cost.

http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/a5...4944c552c106d3

As always any advice is most appreciated.

[Cheapy]

You can get 4Gb or memory for a £1 more so may as well take that.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-%...-9-9-9-24-150v

Could look into ditching the graphics card and go for intergrated graphics on the motherboard with the 880G chipset. If you get one thats AM3+ cheap enough that would offer you more of an upgrade route in the future.

Could also look at a lower wattage power supply to save some more money.

Just some ideas to play about with.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Llano is coming out next month and it seems ideal for your purposes. OTH,I cannot say how availability will be at launch though.

I would try to get an AM3+ motherboard as it would mean you could upgrade to a Bulldozer CPU down the line.

However,a few retailers seem to be stocking AM3+ motherboards ATM.

[Attila the Bun]

You can get 4Gb or memory for a £1 more so may as well take that.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-%...-9-9-9-24-150v

Hadn't noticed that.

Could look into ditching the graphics card and go for intergrated graphics on the motherboard with the 880G chipset. If you get one thats AM3+ cheap enough that would offer you more of an upgrade route in the future.

That's a good point...I was thinking of getting a AM3+ board as an upgrade on my rig so I could possibly use my AM3 880 for his build although it isn't microATX I could use the smallest ATX case I could find.

Could also look at a lower wattage power supply to save some more money.

I could but as there is little difference in price at this end of the scale I just aimed for a quality brand.

[Attila the Bun]

Llano is coming out next month and it seems ideal for your purposes. OTH,I cannot say how availability will be at launch though.

I would try to get an AM3+ motherboard as it would mean you could upgrade to a Bulldozer CPU down the line.

However,a few retailers seem to be stocking AM3+ motherboards ATM.

I agree...Llano does seem to fit the picture. But have you seen any prices for Llano being bandied about for the UK market as yet?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I agree...Llano does seem to fit the picture. But have you seen any prices for Llano being bandied about for the UK market as yet?

No prices ATM although it should be no higher than a socket 1155 Core i3.

[Attila the Bun]

No prices ATM although it should be no higher than a socket 1155 Core i3.

Possibly less if AMD want to hit INTEL where it hurts...in the wallet

[Homeking]

There's 3 boards that could come under your "cheap as possible" criteria and save a tenner.

ASRock N68-GS3 UCC:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...-AM3-DDR3-mATX

Biostar A780L3L 760G:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/255208

Asus M4N68T-M LE V2:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/246637

Unfortunately cheap as possible doesn't really mean value for money in the long term now that AM3+ is being released.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Possibly less if AMD want to hit INTEL where it hurts...in the wallet

A Core i3 2100 and an HD4670 or HD5550 would cost around £140 to £150 so if the equivalent Llano CPU was around £100 to £110 then it would be cheaper overall!!

[Attila the Bun]

There's 3 boards that could come under your "cheap as possible" criteria and save a tenner.

ASRock N68-GS3 UCC:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Pr...-AM3-DDR3-mATX

Biostar A780L3L 760G:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/255208

Asus M4N68T-M LE V2:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/246637

Unfortunately cheap as possible doesn't really mean value for money in the long term now that AM3+ is being released.

Very true...I shall await the 11th with great interest

[Attila the Bun]

A Core i3 2100 and an HD4670 or HD5550 would cost around £140 to £150 so if the equivalent Llano CPU was around £100 to £110 then it would be cheaper overall!!

Is a HD4670 or HD5550 the equivalent GPU power that Llano is going to produce then?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is a HD4670 or HD5550 the equivalent GPU power that Llano is going to produce then?

The top end quad core has 400 shaders whereas the lower end quad core has 320 shaders. The dual core has 160 shaders. However,Llano uses a different socket which is called FM1. AFAIK,the second generation Llano being released next year will use a CPU based on Bulldozer.

[Attila the Bun]

Worth the wait then

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Of course it could be July until you have full retail availability though. It depends if is a paper launch or one with a decent level of stock.

[Pob255]

Save a few pennies LG dvd rw http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lg-gh...sata-black-oem and personally I prefer them as they tend to be less noisy.

The 760g chipset has onboard graphics, not great but if this is just an internet/office type pc then it's fine, if it does become an issue a better gpu could be added later.
Again while it might not be the newest all singing and dancing hardware the 255 is a good solid basic cpu.

Case, personally but at the same time there's not much range.
If you can squeeze a bit more money then one of the InWin EM series is good, http://www.scan.co.uk/products/inwin...-with-400w-psu
Reasons,
- rear 120mm fan slot (note: scan listing as 2x92mm is wrong, it's 120mm in the rear and 92mm in the front, but comes with no fans)
- 190mm wide , more width to play with and very few cpu cooler restrictions if you wish to add one later.
- removable hard drive cage, idea here is you could put the hard drive in the 3.5" external bay remove the 3.5" hard drive cage that then opens the length up for a long graphics card
-0.8mm secc, ok I'm not 100% on this but it's one of their older models and it's over 2kg heavier (6.8kg vs 4.5kg Asus TM-B11 0.5mm secc) 0.8mm thick steel however does add a lot more strength to a case over 0.5mm

insides of the TM-B11


If you want really small mATX then the Xcase ones are worth looking at
http://www.xcase.co.uk/Mini-Micro-Ca...e-xcase-mm.htm
http://www.xcase.co.uk/product-p/case-x-case-x1501a.htm
Although they require an mATX psu, off hand I don't like the look of their psu offerings much.
This is probably your best bet for an matx psu http://www.scan.co.uk/products/350w-...-sfx-micro-atx

[Attila the Bun]

Strangely enough I changed to the LG after reading what you said in a review.

A discrete GPU is not an issue so I've decided (Thanks for the suggestion Cheapy) I'll go for an AMD 880 chipset mobo like this offering from Gigabyte http://www.ebuyer.com/product/218935 which has plenty of graphics power for his requirements. It also means I can up the ante on the CPU a tad.

I agree about the case Pob, so I thought I would look around and this one http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160917 from casecom fits the bill and it will take an standard ATX PSU.

After I re-jigged the list I got a very "fit for purpose" machine for £239. And , if I wait for bulldozer I might see a reduction in the CPU and mobo prices.