Budget £600ish PC

[Mehta23]

Hiya all...My cousiong is looking to build a PC, so I thought I'd get some advcie for him on here:

CPU: i5 3750K (will overclock in the future) + CM Hyper 212 cooler?
Mobo: Gigabyte DS3H
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
SSD: Kingston or Sandisk 60GB
GPU: used 560Ti or a 570
RAM: Kingston HyperX 8GB
PSU: Thinking 600W.... Corsair CX600? Either CX600 V2 or the CX600M
Case: Zalman Z11 Plus.

Thoughts?


Edit: I don't know if 60Gb is enough for a SSD (if we can even afford it) but this looks interesting : "Whatever drive you end up buying, plan on using only about 75% of its capacity if you want a good balance between performance consistency and capacity." http://www.anandtech.com/show/6489/playing-with-op

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Do you have an OS??

If this a gaming PC,try to spend a decent amount on the graphics card. As long as you have a reasonable CPU,you will find the graphics card is more of a bottleneck.

[Mehta23]

More of a desktop that would primarily used for Office use and Web browsing, and that can handle games too (Borderlands, TF2,Batman AC etc)

I think he wants Win7 64bit Ultimate.... Could he dual boot that and Hackintosh?

Is a 570 not enough? Anything from a 660 onwards is way too expensive for the budget... I was told no more than ⅓ of the budget should be spent on the GPU- ⅓ of 600 is £200. However, we needed a monitor (£80) and when i totted up the prices I'm pretty sure it came to £600

[mikeo01]

You could get away with a 550W power supply, could be ample with an i5 paired up with something. Or 600W for future headroom.

XFX 550W
Thermaltake 600W

For £120 on a graphics card you could get a HD 7850, which is probably best bang for buck at the moment. Comes with free game deals if you look around too.
If that is too much you could look at the GTX 560 and GTX 560 Ti, they aren't the best graphics card, but they seem to do well at Directx 11.1 type games
GTX 570 are quite expensive, depends on much you want to spend on a graphics card and type of gaming, what resolution?


SSD wise I asked around about that and most people say 60GB is quite small, but if its going to be used mainly for office tools it'll be fine.
Sandisk Sanforce based (Cheapest)
Or Crucial M4 or Samsung 830/840 series Marvell (Faster, and more reliable range as far as controllers go at the moment)

[Mehta23]

I like it too. So much in t i might be a little jealous of it compared to my CM storm Enforcer whose panels don't even align properly :-(

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The CX range is not that well priced in the UK IMHO.

Have a look at build I suggested in this thread:

http://forums.hexus.net/desktops/275...y-good-pc.html

Its not really overclocking capable,but the GPU is more important to spend money on for a gaming build, as it is a bigger bottleneck.

I would get this HDD and this DVD drive instead of the SSD:

http://www.ebuyer.com/319639-seagate...ve-st1000dm003

http://www.ebuyer.com/410561-liteon-...ive-ihas120-04

Edit!!

Forgot you need a monitor,and the build has no OS included.

With those two,you will be looking at a slower build,since at least £150 of the budget will be used.

Hence,I am not sure how the build in the OP can cost £600!!

How much is the GTX570??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That is off Ebuyer,and is not suited for overclocking but still is over budget.

[Mehta23]

The CX range is not that well priced in the UK IMHO.

Have a look at build I suggested in this thread:

http://forums.hexus.net/desktops/275...y-good-pc.html

Its not really overclocking capable,but the GPU is more important to spend money on for a gaming build, as it is a bigger bottleneck.

I would get this HDD and this DVD drive instead of the SSD:

http://www.ebuyer.com/319639-seagate...ve-st1000dm003

http://www.ebuyer.com/410561-liteon-...ive-ihas120-04

Edit!!

Forgot you need a monitor,and the build has no OS included.

With those two,you will be looking at a slower build,since at least £150 of the budget will be used.

Hence,I am not sure how the build in the OP can cost £600!!

How much is the GTX570??

I already have a copy of Windows. The monitor has been purchased from Amazon for £80.

A 570 ranges between £100-250. I have seen some newish ones on eBay go for ≈£120.

That is the HDD I'm looking to get. Ebuyer.com sells it for £48 with a promo code.

That dvd drive looks ok, otherwise we were looking at a Asus one for £16.

Also, I can't remember if I included the SSD in the OP price calculation....

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I already have a copy of Windows. The monitor has been purchased from Amazon for £80.

A 570 ranges between £100-250. I have seen some newish ones on eBay go for ≈£120.

That is the HDD I'm looking to get. Ebuyer.com sells it for £48 with a promo code.

That dvd drive looks ok, otherwise we were looking at a Asus one for £16.

I would go for the build I suggested in post 7.

[Mehta23]

The one from the other thread?

Also, why did you suggest a dvd drive over a small SSD.

The £600 isn't exactly strict, but the closer the better.

You could get away with a 550W power supply, could be ample with an i5 paired up with something. Or 600W for future headroom.

XFX 550W
Thermaltake 600W

For £120 on a graphics card you could get a HD 7850, which is probably best bang for buck at the moment. Comes with free game deals if you look around too.
If that is too much you could look at the GTX 560 and GTX 560 Ti, they aren't the best graphics card, but they seem to do well at Directx 11.1 type games
GTX 570 are quite expensive, depends on much you want to spend on a graphics card and type of gaming, what resolution?


SSD wise I asked around about that and most people say 60GB is quite small, but if its going to be used mainly for office tools it'll be fine.
Sandisk Sanforce based (Cheapest)
Or Crucial M4 or Samsung 830/840 series Marvell (Faster, and more reliable range as far as controllers go at the moment)

It'd be a 23inch 1080p monitor probably looking to play on medium-high settings. I didn't lnq much about amd cards.... I'll look around the 7850 then :-P

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The one from the other thread?

Also, why did you suggest a dvd drive over a small SSD.

The £600 isn't exactly strict, but the closer the better.

To get within budget you would need to drop the SSD,and get the HDD and DVD drive. The person in the other thread had HDDs and a DVD drive,so could re-use them.

For around £600,an HD7870XT and a Core i5 3470 would do very well in many games.

The HD7870XT is around HD7950 3GB or GTX660TI 2GB level at 1920X1080.

[Mehta23]

I don't think there's anything that can be reused :-( (anything worth reusing either)

[kkxlynx]

what about any other periphals like keyboard, mouse, speakers etc?

That build looks decent for every day use and perhaps steam games.
I would go for pretty much everything but...
That RAM is for a laptop not a PC - just to say!
Not sure if your cousin wants a 120gb SSD Sandisk from ebuyer for £50

Don't get the corsair!
Have a look at a OCZ ZS Series 550W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply from SCAN
Or if in budget an XFX is deffo worth getting.

Does the PSU need to be modular or non modular and what are the required watts and amps?

Try to look at a better GPU!
I think you could squeeze in a 7870 from SCAN!

In terms of RAM - have a look at a Crucial Ballistix!
Seeing as the one you mentioned, was for a laptop.

The Zalman Z11 plus is a great case, although you may consider getting an additional USB 3 port(s) as there are only two on the top and you may require more.

You may want to look at after market heat sink cool fans, as well as a wireless adapter for internet if it is not a wired connection. Be careful to stay in budget, is my BIG tip!

[Mehta23]

Building process began today. We started with a out of cade test build but there is no input into the monitor. Also noticed the fans on the PSU/GPU/CPU run for a bit, stop and then continue...

Tried the paperclip test on the psu which ran well when nothing else was plugged in.

Any idea where the fault could be?

[Mehta23]

Help? Anyone?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What are the parts??