Budget P.C. Help

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03-02-2010, 01:20 PM
sunday

Budget P.C. Help

Hello all,

Sorry to be a bore, but I've been trying to do some research into putting together a fairly budgetish P.C. for general office use, a spot of gaming (Football Manager!) and some audio editing etc. Nothing too extreme.

So my budget is around £350 but can maybe stretch to £400. I've been reading through threads and whacked together a potential system as below:

i50.tinypic.com/23ijg34.jpg

(Being new you'll have to stick that in a browser - sorry!)

Obviously I have a spare DVD drive and keyboard/monitor etc.

Any problems with the above? Can I be doing better anywhere in order to cut the price? I actually wanted the cheaper 500gb F3 Samsung but out of stock :(

Thanks
03-02-2010, 01:39 PM
CAT-THE-FIFTH

Re: Budget P.C. Help

The motherboard you listed needs a graphics card!!

This is what I would get:

AMD Athlon II X3 435 ~ £64

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176043

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case ~ £28

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151368

Asus M4A785TD-V EVO ~ £71

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169532

This has the HD4200 IGP which can run one monitor with analogue inputs and another with digital inputs at the same time. The IGP has 128MB of DDR3 RAM on the motherboard and the motherboard itself has an 8+2 VRM,VRM cooling and all solid capacitors.

4GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ~ £85

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179278

Samsung F3 1TB ~ £64

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

OCZ 400W StealthXStream PSU ~ £40

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505

This PSU is made by CWT.

Here is a comparison of the X3 435 and the X4 620:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/defau...x?p=112&p2=106

The total comes to around £352.

This cheaper Asrock motherboard would also do the job:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179183
03-02-2010, 01:51 PM
sunday

Re: Budget P.C. Help

Whoa, thanks for the quick turnaround.

Reading up on that system you seem to have improved things for me so thanks a lot!

Going to read up a bit more on each component and hopefully make an order soon. Anyone else have anything to add :embarrassed:
03-02-2010, 02:00 PM
CAT-THE-FIFTH

Re: Budget P.C. Help

I would go for the OCZ PSU:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/794

There is not point getting too cheap a PSU IMHO.

Also the Asus motherboard can take higher TDP Phenom II X4 processors.

This is why the 8+2 phase VRM and VRM cooling is important.

The motherboard can also be used for overclocking(you may have to add an aftermarket heatsink to the CPU though) and the PSU should be fine for a graphics card upto the level of an HD5770 or perhaps an HD4850 or GTS250.
03-02-2010, 02:11 PM
sunday

Re: Budget P.C. Help

Thanks, I've read enough of this forum to find that skimping on the PSU is not an option! I did find a good set of decent reviews for my initial Coolermaster case PSU/Bundle but under the circumstances I'm more than ahppy with your suggestion, indeed the higher power rating.

The motherboard looks a good choice, especially the (duh) addition of onboard graphics. And upgrading to the Phenoms (or future chips) would be something I'd be very interested in long term. Overclocking I'm not too sure about but we will see.

Regarding the initial choice of chip I guess I was sold by the marketing schtick of higher number = better chip. Thanks again.
03-02-2010, 02:20 PM
Domestic_Ginger

Re: Budget P.C. Help

Dropping my oar in; I think FM supports multiple cores, might be worth looking into asi haven not played it in a while. The comparison is fine but remember the 620 runs at 2.6 and the 435 at 2.9.

The AthlonII x3 440 will be out very soon if not now and will replace the 435. Its basically slightly tweaked.

If saving money is a priority how about taking 2GB and halving the HDD capacity? (I appreciate its easy to pick holes in others builds so no offence intended CtV)
03-02-2010, 02:24 PM
CAT-THE-FIFTH

Re: Budget P.C. Help

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger

Dropping my oar in; I think FM supports multiple cores, might be worth looking into asi haven not played it in a while. The comparison is fine but remember the 620 runs at 2.6 and the 435 at 2.9.

The AthlonII x3 440 will be out very soon if not now and will replace the 435. Its basically slightly tweaked.

Good spot on the X3 440 as it is meant to have slightly better power consumption too:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/defau...x?p=119&p2=112

It is also slightly faster and I have seen at a few retailers for around £70.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger

If saving money is a priority how about taking 2GB and halving the HDD capacity? (I appreciate its easy to pick holes in others builds so no offence intended CtV)

No offence taken!! The Samsung F3 500GB is not in stock at Ebuyer but I would get one to save some money on the build.

I have the F3 500GB myself and it is a nice disk for the price!
03-02-2010, 02:40 PM
sunday

Re: Budget P.C. Help

Yup I've heard great things about the F3 and ideally I would take the 500gb but as previously mentioned - not in stock atm. I have 2 external 500gb hard drives so a smaller hard-drive isn't a biggy for me.

I was under impression that DDR3 is very important and that 4gb would be a big boost over 2gb? Only saving £40/50 there? Think I'll be going for 4gb.

I will look into the X3 440, especially around the £70 mark. I was more concerned that the Athlon 2 X4 would be a big improvement on the X3 but obviously not the case.
03-02-2010, 03:09 PM
Domestic_Ginger

Re: Budget P.C. Help

The x3 is the same as the x4 but clocked higher with one less core. Value wise if the x3 is less than 3/4 of the 620 I think it would be a bargain. I like the tri core especially if it unlocks; Someone poseted an unlocked with L3 cache on another forum!

Twenty posts on scan gives free postage as you probably know already.

Not so sure about the ram; I have 4gb; I should check to see whether it uses it all or not.

Interestingly there is not supposed to be a great improvement between DDR2 and DDR3 in real world applications (or so I'm lead to believe). AM2+/DDR2 may provide some savings. AM3 is undeniably the way forward though; whether Bulldozer (released in 2011) will still be compatable with todays chipsets remains to be seen.

I can't find a better value motherboard than the Asus evo with onboard graphics that has cooled heatsinks. There is a mATX ASROCK one for 60 but it does not have mosfet cooling so should not overclock as well.

I would look at Pob's budget buy for the case.

Pardon the ramblings.
03-02-2010, 03:27 PM
CAT-THE-FIFTH

Re: Budget P.C. Help

I think that if AMD can release a 3.2GHZ Athlon II X4 for around £90 it would probably provide stiff competition for the Core i3 530 even in games which do not take advantage of multiple cores and no doubt be much faster in other applications too!!

The X3 720 had a larger die and sold for around the same price so I am surprised that AMD has not done this yet!!
03-02-2010, 04:09 PM
Domestic_Ginger

Re: Budget P.C. Help

I agree Catty. They seem to limit them on the thermal 'envelope' (sounded good). They speed them up until they hit the 95W 'envelope' and then package them. It may have something to do with the gash budget coolers they sell them with.

They would overclock very well too witha x16 multiplyer. I think alot of the OCs upto about 3.5 are FSB limited as much as by the CPU.
03-02-2010, 04:19 PM
CAT-THE-FIFTH

Re: Budget P.C. Help

If AMD could release an Athlon II X4 Black Edition it would be interesting to see how far they overclock!!

It seems AMD sets the default voltage of the Athlon II X4 too high:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...X4_620/11.html

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article978-page3.html

It seems around 30W could be saved off the load power consumption of the Athlon II X4 processors.
03-02-2010, 05:51 PM
Domestic_Ginger

Re: Budget P.C. Help

I fear if they release a AthlonII BE no-one will buy a PhenomII.

Interesting article on the power saving. I know I can shave 0.1V off quite happily on my 550. It won't work if I try 0.2; have not really faffed around with it much to find the max value. I can hit 3.6ghz on core voltage.
04-02-2010, 01:29 PM
sunday

Re: Budget P.C. Help

Quote:

Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

The motherboard you listed needs a graphics card!!

This is what I would get:

AMD Athlon II X3 435 ~ £64

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176043

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case ~ £28

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151368

Asus M4A785TD-V EVO ~ £71

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169532

This has the HD4200 IGP which can run one monitor with analogue inputs and another with digital inputs at the same time. The IGP has 128MB of DDR3 RAM on the motherboard and the motherboard itself has an 8+2 VRM,VRM cooling and all solid capacitors.

4GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ~ £85

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179278

Samsung F3 1TB ~ £64

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

OCZ 400W StealthXStream PSU ~ £40

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505

This PSU is made by CWT.

The total comes to around £352.

:mrgreen: Just thought I'd report back to say I just splashed out £360ish on the above system as recommended by the good man Cat. Thanks very much for the advice and I can't fault any of the reviews of the components. All ordered from ebuyer so I'll report back on Tuesday/Wednesday when I'm able to crank the motherflipper up.

Cheers!