Cheapo Build

[marshalex]

Been asked to spec up a potential build for someone at work. Main use is for web browsing office and some occassional gaming by his younger son. looking to spend around £400. I had specced up the following:
i3 530
Asus P7H55-M
Coolermaster Elite 334
Corsair 400w PSU
Samsung Spinpoing F3 500GB
Corsair 4GB 1333MHz DDR3
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE
Windows 7 Home Premium x64

Comes in a little over £400.

Can anyone recommend anything else or even something on the AMD route, not really clued up on the AMD side of things as I used to be. Anything welcome!

[scaryjim]

I'm not sure I'd rely on integrated graphics for "occasional gaming", although it would depend on the exact games he wanted to play. Also for the purposes you mention I'm not sure you need more than 2GB RAM, and memory isn't as cheap as it used to be

On the AMD side I'd got for an Athlon II X2, and AMD 770 based motherboard, 2GB DDR3-1333, and a HD5670 to give those games a bit of oomph. That lot comes to just over £200, which should be less than the i3, motherboard and 4GB of RAM without noticably reducing the performance in general tasks and improving performance in games thanks to the better graphics...

[Pob255]

What Jim said, with the proviso of changeing the graphics card depending on your definition of "occasional gaming"

If you're just talking flash games and poggle then a decent IGP is enough.

For an amd build with a decent IGP swap the 770 chipset for a 785g or 880g

edit: if you do go mATX then you can also get a nice decent mATX case like the CM 340 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coole...X-Case-w-o-PSU

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can get the following system for around £400:

AMD Athlon II X3 445 ~ £63

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/235421

ASROCK M3A770DE ~ £52

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174597

Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3 1333MHz i5 Memory Kit CL9 1.5V ~ £35

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152979

OR

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Blu Memory Kit CL9 1.65V ~ £72

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/234975

Inno3D 9800GT Esave Edition 512MB GDDR3 DVI VGA HDMI Out PCI-E Graphics Card ~ £66

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169143

Corsair 400W CX PSU ~ £30

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150985

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache ~ £33

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146252

Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive ~ £13

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145450

Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower Case ~ £30

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172779

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium~ £79

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173791

The total comes to around £401 to £438 including free postage.

[Pob255]

Alternative to the casecom 6788
Thermaltake V3
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/234920

basically looks like they copied the interals of the Silverstone Precision PS03 and put the front bezel of the xigatek Asgard on it.

[marshalex]

all of these look pretty good. gaming i'm not to sure on as the guys current pc is stupidly old (a dell inspiron 2400 or something along those lines) and the games he plays seem to run ok on that.

ok just checked with who its for and games basically is things like spelling games etc (i.e. kiddies games). so which would be better, the i3 or the amd?

[marshalex]

just spotted this under the amd mobos and the 880g chipset
http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=37970

any good? seems pretty reasonable with usb 3.0 for £70

[slim01_1985]

ive been looking at a similar build for a friend of mine.

ive gone for something similar to the amd route

amd x3 445
4gb (2x2gb) ddr3 1333 ocz gold low voltage
asus m4a785td-v-evo

coolermaster 330 with coolermaster 460w psu

hdd 500gb wd caviar

windows 7



im using his old IDE cd drive, and also one of his old seagate barracude 180gb hdds - is this a bad idea? will it limit any speeds at all?


Also ive been an idiot, i went and bought the OCZ gold memory and ive checked on the asus qualified vendors list - the memory is not on there. Is it likely not to work? or not work to ddr 1333?

[slim01_1985]

oh yeah sorry, total price for all those parts was £300 + £90 for windows. £390 not bad for a 4gb ddr3 rig with 3 cores@ 3.1 ghz!! might even be able to unlock with my mobo, not sure yet

[Pob255]

no the memory should be fine, motherboard manufactures never test every type of memory.
The main worry is some of the more extreme types with very high speeds and/or very low timeings
Standard JEDEC settings are 1333mhz @ cas9 @ 1.5v, as long as you don't overclock almost any make/brand of memory is fine.

The main issues that used to occure with incompatibility was back when DDR2 double sided and high density chips where new.
I haven't seen memory compatability issues in a long time. (execpt on some of the very high end stuff)

[marshalex]

Alternative to the casecom 6788
Thermaltake V3
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/234920

basically looks like they copied the interals of the Silverstone Precision PS03 and put the front bezel of the xigatek Asgard on it.

thats a pretty sweet case, in fact i prefer that to the coolermasters at that price bracket. whats the psu like that comes with it? dabs have it for £60 with the thermaltake 450w psu. decisions decisions!
still unsure on what mobo to get as the 880g i listed above or one thats been out a bit longer.

[marshalex]

think this is pretty much what i've decided on. thoughts?

[slim01_1985]

hey marshal im really confused about your order - ive looked for exacylt he same ram... i cannnot find. or the stealthstream PSU - is that cos theyre out of stock? (im new to Scan, come here as im after the free postage, but seems they do actually have some better deals than ebuyr...

also is that copy of windows you have a FULL edition not an upgrade one?

Why is it i can never find these good offers on scan? lol

thanks for the ram advice dude - looks like our guy here is gettin the same stuff so ill post how ive got on with it.

[kalniel]

There's no RAM in his order from SCAN.

[slim01_1985]

There's no RAM in his order from SCAN.

oh well wheres it from then? hes photoshopped two images together?

[scaryjim]

Looks good for now. Did you get any idea of what kind of games his son wants to play? I assume your thought is that he could try them on the GPU and you can always add a discrete GPU later?

If so and you're looking at a motherboard with SB710 anyway, I'd seriously consider seeing if you can get a 785G / 790GX motherboard with sideport RAM for the same price, e.g. this ASRock from ebuyer - the sideport will really help speed up the integrate graphics (and the 790GX IGP is clocked faster, too!)