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Thread: Building a PC for... £150

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    Building a PC for... £150

    So I need to (attempt to) build a PC for someone who is on a very very limited budget of £150 or so. They use their PC for facebook/other internet stuff, some casual games (Peggle, Flash games, Zuma, Bejeweled), word processing. That kind of thing. But they want it to be snappy for doing those things. What I've currently got from Scan:

    memory £22 (4gb DDR3-1333)
    processor £44 (Pentium Dual Core e5700)
    motherboard £33 (Gigabyte GA-G41MT-S2P)
    case/psu £25 (ColoursIT 4672 Case+PSU)

    [take old IDE hard drives from another PC)

    = £124

    + dvd writer drive? £13 (or take from another PC)

    = £137

    + new SATA hard drive? (750gb) £29 (WD Caviar Green)

    = £153 or £166 (with DVD drive)

    I know it's not wise to go with a ColoursIT case+PSU combo. It's probably going to be pretty crappy... but a decent power supply is gonna throw this project way over budget, and a 500w Crappy power supply should still be OK for powering such a baseline system, right?

    A lot of these prices are from Today Only deals on Scan (for yesterday, which is when I made the list), so the prices may be slightly higher now.

    If you can think of any other money saving tips then go ahead and suggest them The cheaper the better really, as long as it's gonna run Windows 7 (which we already have a spare Home Premium copy) along with the aforementioned casual games and stuff. We also have a monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers, so that stuff doesn't need to be included.

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150


  3. #3
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Unless I was literally building from spare parts, I'd just get something off the shelf for that budget.

  4. #4
    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    From ebuyer:

    Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3 1066MHz £12.11
    Biostar A780L3L 760G £33.99
    AMD Athlon II X2 250 £43.96
    Black Micro ATX Case £13.98
    Antec Basiq Power 350W £27.45

    Total cost without Optical drive / HDD = £131.49

    2GB RAM should be enough for day to day usage: you're trying to hit a very tight budget so don't over-spec anything. This way you get the better graphics of a 760G chipset (the HD3000 graphics are the same basic chip as HD3200 in the 780G, but lower clocked and without UVD), and you can fit in a decent PSU - Antec's Basiq range aren't as good as their other PSUs but they're still decent quality. There's room in the budget for a new SATA hard drive, and you could reuse a DVD drive from elsewhere (or beg / borrow one, most people have a couple of spares lying around ).

    If you stretch the budget out a little, you could go with this ASUS 760G motherboard, which for a couple of quid extra has support for Bulldozer CPUs when they're released, or even spend an extra tenner on an Athlon II X3...

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    Re: Building a PC for... £150


  6. Received thanks from:

    scaryjim (29-08-2011)

  7. #6
    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Good spot CAT. Less than a fiver extra on top of my build.

    Although I think you're probably right with the emachines nettop, tbh

  8. #7
    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    • scaryjim's system
      • Motherboard:
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      • CPU:
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      • Memory:
      • 2x 4GB DDR4 2666
      • Storage:
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      • Graphics card(s):
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      • PSU:
      • Battery/Dell brick
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      • Dell Inspiron 5570
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10
      • Monitor(s):
      • 15" 1080p laptop panel

    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    The other option would be to post in the Hexus wanted's section and see if anyone has any spare parts they could swing you on the cheap...

  9. #8
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Regarding the PSU this one has got good reviews:

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/300w-...t-fan-matx-oem

    Edit!!

    It seems Novatech have got a few OCZ StealthXSteam 400W PSUs in stock for around £33. They were better in some ways than the Corsair CX400W.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 29-08-2011 at 11:26 PM.

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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Good luck getting a Windows license as part of that £150.

  12. #11
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Quote Originally Posted by directhex View Post
    Good luck getting a Windows license as part of that £150.
    "as long as it's gonna run Windows 7 (which we already have a spare Home Premium copy)"

  13. #12
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    I think the emachines nettop + an extrenal dvd would be the best bet
    the combo of Athlon Neo K325 and 9200 is a nice pairing.

    ps the onboard graphics of the 760g are weak, even under heavy flash I'd look at the 880g instead, although not as cheap.

  14. #13
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      • PSU:
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Interesting ideas, especially with the eMachines nettop. The only concern I'd have for something like that is future upgradeability, and I guess worries about replacing spare parts myself. I'd rather have the ability to do that... however, in terms of value it's pretty awesome that you can get a decent comp like that for just £130.

    I'm going to look into the suggested motherboards. I had a pretty good idea that I'd want to go with a Pentium Dual Core rather than the Athlon II 250 after looking at some benchmarks but if the motherboard (and integrated GPU) with the Athlon setup is superior it might be worth going for it.

    I had no idea you get get a case so cheap! The Antec Basiq Power 350w + cheap case combo is something I'm liking as the PSU in my original build plan was something I was a bit concerned about!

    Thanks again guys, you never fail to be truly epic at this stuff!

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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Quote Originally Posted by deleted post
    Not sure if you are interested in 2nd hand parts, but I will very soon have almost an entire system going spare for cheap . . .

    <deleted>

    Plus a branded optical drive. Not sure what brand, but it's OK.

    I am not sure where you are in the UK, but if your interested, let me know and we can talk about a deal.
    You need 100 posts before you can post in the classifieds section and sell items over Hexus
    Last edited by peterb; 31-08-2011 at 11:27 PM. Reason: Remove identity of original post

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    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
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    • CAT-THE-FIFTH's system
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    An advantage of the nettop is that is has a warranty and if something goes wrong Ebuyer will handle it.

    You can even get the warranty extended to three years too for around £22:

    http://www.ebuyer.com/264803-emachin...y-sv-wpcmf-a02

  17. #16
    The late but legendary peterb - Onward and Upward peterb's Avatar
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    Re: Building a PC for... £150

    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post

    Quote Originally Posted by deleted post
    <---snip

    I am not sure where you are in the UK, but if your interested, let me know and we can talk about a deal.
    You need 100 posts before you can post in the classifieds section and sell items over Hexus
    As he says - not on HEXUS until you meet the criteria for using For Sale - starting point is 100 posts!
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