Build with 20"-22" monitor for £300

[Bonebreaker777]

Seems to be slightly impossible for myself, but any suggestions?

Requirements:
mATX/ATX - whichever
HDD - at least 500GB
CPU - AMD 4x core/Intel 2x core, no games whats-o-ever
GPU - Integrated is just fine
Case + PSU - whatever doesn't look like a pile of turd and can carry the configuration
Optical drive - DVD-+RW just fine
Monitor - Anything from 20" to 23" is fine, just to be watchable and fullHD
Memory - 4GB at least (more would be better)

Intentions: no games, EVER! Just classical home work, movies, music, DVD archiving, etc.

[Bonebreaker777]

Well I can see not many people were interested in this sub budget system so I will just post what I managed to aquire.

mATX/ATX - Casecom CM-431 Shiny Black MicroATX Case (the future owner wanted something distasteful like this, so I had no choice)
HDD - Recycled 80GB 2.5" WD 5400RPM HDD + 3.5" 40GB 7200 MAXTOR HDD
CPU - AMD A8-Series A8-5600K
GPU - HD 7560D
Case + PSU - Enermax ENP350AGT NAXN 350W
Optical drive - Samsung SH-224BB
Monitor - 21.5 AOC E2250SWDAK (dopy future owner didn't told me he had a 2.1 speaker system already so...)
Memory - 2 x Crucial 2GB DDR3 1600Mhz Ballistix Tactical Memory Module CL8 (8-8-8-24) 1.5V
MoBo - Asrock FM2A55M-DGS

Will report back how did it went

[Pob255]

Sorry I didn't see this one, looks ok
the enermax NAXN are not great, ebuyer no longer have the huntkey 300w 80+ gold rated psu which would of been my suggestion.
Case . . . yuug! the sub £20 casecom cases are nasty, their high end ones (well higher end for casecom) are good for the price but the cheap ones are nasty.
Should of pushed for a Fractal design core 1000 or Ace Ecco 250 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ace-e...oofing-w-o-psu

[Bonebreaker777]

Sorry I didn't see this one, looks ok
the enermax NAXN are not great, ebuyer no longer have the huntkey 300w 80+ gold rated psu which would of been my suggestion.
Case . . . yuug! the sub £20 casecom cases are nasty, their high end ones (well higher end for casecom) are good for the price but the cheap ones are nasty.
Should of pushed for a Fractal design core 1000 or Ace Ecco 250 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ace-e...oofing-w-o-psu

Easier said that done. For the PSU I made the call cause for the amount of money offered the longest warranty.

The case is CHEAP and it is NASTY. And very light, as made of paper. And certainly twists like made of paper too. I suggested to go for a Core 1000 or Ecco 250 but I couldn't stretch the budget any further.

The PC is up and running. The CPU runs happily at 4.2Ghz boost. The IGP was left at default. The memory was more that willing to run at 1866 Mhz at 9-9-9-25 @ default voltage. Both CPU and memory tested for 12h. The default cooler is capable of cooling the chip. OS will be recycled from a old office machine.

300w 80+ gold? I haven't even seen a thing like that this year at either of the major IT retailers. Is it good?...Well, it doesn't really matter anymore

At request I can do some more tests if required, but I doubt that many people will go for a machine like this

[Bonebreaker777]

Warning. DON'T trust the AMD box cooler, least in case of A8-5600k.
In a well ventilated case (120mm + 90mm FAN intake and 90mm + PSU exhaust) the box cooler couldn't keep the CPU away at stock speed from throttling for more that 5min under prime95.
Saad!!!

[Pob255]

ebuyer was the only place that stocked it afaik, I got one, it's a nice psu, it's not massively loud although it's not silent ether.
It was probably a bit more expensive than the Enermax ENP350AGT NAXN 350W, around £38 if I remember correctly.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4069/h...0w-80plus-gold

I'm not sure I'd trust that stock cooler ether, been a few bad reports about the A8-5600k on stock cooling, still you shouldn't need anything major.

[Bonebreaker777]

Well I just installed a additional FAN and will see how it will behave under moderate / silent CPU FAN control.
And will exchange the stock thermal paste as well.

[Bonebreaker777]

Fixed the temperature problem. Surprisingly it wasn't a temperature problem at all. It was the all-around-known temperature reading for AMD problem.

Looks like it is fixed. But the new problem was THROTTLING under full load. And recently I stumbled upon this > AMD A-Series “Trinity” Accelerated Processing Units Can Drop Clock-Speed Under High-Loads.

I am just wondering why I haven't really read about this before around.

[c12038]

Here you go

Ebuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/443462-zoostor...p-pc-7873-0450
http://www.ebuyer.com/387049-e2050sn...black-e2050snk

hope this helps

[scaryjim]

I am just wondering why I haven't really read about this before around.

Probably because, as AMD said in reply to the article, it's a situation that will occur incredibly rarely in consumer-market use cases. Thankfully, most review sites don't run HPC benchmarking workloads when testing a consumer product. TDP ratings are intended to ensure that motherboard power delivery components and CPU cooling solutions can perform adequately for the demands of the processor. A processor that intelligently manages its TDP state to ensure that it won't operate outside the design specifications of other components is plain sensible!

[Bonebreaker777]

Probably because, as AMD said in reply to the article, it's a situation that will occur incredibly rarely in consumer-market use cases. Thankfully, most review sites don't run HPC benchmarking workloads when testing a consumer product. TDP ratings are intended to ensure that motherboard power delivery components and CPU cooling solutions can perform adequately for the demands of the processor. A processor that intelligently manages its TDP state to ensure that it won't operate outside the design specifications of other components is plain sensible!

Would it change drastically if I would say underclock the iGPU?

[Pob255]

Well from what that says it shouldn't be a problem, it only occurs with synthetic benchmarks (eg prime 95) but not in normal use.

Test it in normal use and see if you get clock drops

[Bonebreaker777]

Sod it, turned out to be that the dodgy BioStar MoBo is responsible for all the faults, some IC dead or something like that, been subject to RMA procedure at the moment and the owner just went ahead and purchased a AsRock FM2 mobo, which works like a charm now.
Where you can actually turn off the Load-thingy!!! And OC on default voltage at 4Ghz. Etc. iGPU clocking away happily at 500Mhz. All cool. Now.