Project Princess - Super Budget Build

Soldato
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5 Mar 2006
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Another completely insane "why would you do that?!?" build from me! :D

Firstly - apologies for any rubbish pictures, I've always planned to do a build with amazing shots but I've just finished working as a photographer and sold my entire kit. Plus I haven't got a clue how to render so it's all doing to be dodgy photoshops!

I've decided to do a build with my daughter as part of our Youtube channel. With her being so young there's no point spending a fortune as she only needs things like the CBeebies and Disney websites and some basic games (she loves Rollercoast Tycoon and Worms) so outright power isn't an issue.

Obviously I could just go out and buy a basic system... but where's the fun in that?!

My initial plan is to build a fully working base unit for under £250. I'm only slightly over that with this lot -

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 750 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750-1GD5/OC) £79.99
1 x be quiet! SFX Power 2 300W '80 Plus Bronze' SFX Power Supply £37.99
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £35.99
1 x AMD Athlon 5350 2.05GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) £35.99
1 x Silverstone SST-SG05W-Lite Sugo USB 3.0 - White £25.99
1 x MSI AM1I AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) Mini ITX Motherboard £24.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury Black 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Single Channel Kit (HX316C10FB/4) £19.99
Total : £260.89 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



I've gone with AM1 mainly because it's as cheap as they come and I've got the MSI AM1 board in a cupboard somewhere already :D

I've done my research and the Athlon 5350 is roughly the same performance as a Q6600 - I'm fine with that level of performance given the tiny power usage and stupidly low cost.

I'll be doing this one in stages as funds are tight with it being almost Christmas but the initial build should be done in a couple of weeks and then I'll be adding extras (such as the GPU) a little while after. The case will be turning up next week (nabbed the last one on TWO!) so I'll take it from there.

I've also discovered that my spare AM3 waterblock fits it...
 
Associate
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This looks good, I'm going to be doing a build for my daughter over christmas and new year, cost of this is good, though she's 7 so maybe worth throwing a few more quid into it so she can play some more games.
 
Soldato
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I'm just waiting on the PSU to turn up and I'll make a start. Ended up getting a 300w Seasonic SFX unit dirt cheap. Evidently you can get cheap, low powered CPUs and boards but the PSU's to fit SFF cases are still high powered and expensive - gap in the market there if anyone from OCUK reads this ;)
 
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16 at the moment, as people say, life goals right here like.
Defiantly wont stop gaming, and I found out my girlfriend has played wow for years 3 months after meeting her, what a surprise.
Love the idea of introducing them at a young age, my 7 year old brother is very very good with computers and tablets.
Will be getting him a PC in a few years me thinks!
 
Soldato
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...and I found out my girlfriend has played wow for years 3 months after meeting her, what a surprise.

Marry her.

PSU turned up today so I'm going to do a little test run with everything and check it all works then Emily's going to be helping me build it properly either over the weekend or early next week. There will be a video :D

I've also ordered pink spray paint...
 
Soldato
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It's alive!

The test run is all completed, I'm just installing a copy of Windows at the moment. So far, so good - it's pretty much silent other than the occasional HDD sound.

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Here's my £15 PSU - Seasonic 300w, brand new and a decent make for SFX units. Should be fine with my tiny processor and a 750ti.

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1tb WD HDD stolen from an old laptop I got rid of ages ago. It won't be fast but then neither is any of the rest of it! I do intend to swap it out for a cheap SSD when I've got the money to spare.

And also horrible, green 2Gb RAM. I'll be changing that for something prettier and hopefully 8Gb soon.

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Cable management fail :(

Only the test run but I'm not sure how nice I'll be able to go it - may resort to braiding ;)

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By my calculations, with the HDD coming from an old laptop and Windows free with Dreamspark I'm in it for <£115 at the moment and I've got a fully functioning PC.

Tomorrows job is to paint it!
 
Associate
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Newcastle, England
Marry her.

PSU turned up today so I'm going to do a little test run with everything and check it all works then Emily's going to be helping me build it properly either over the weekend or early next week. There will be a video :D

I've also ordered pink spray paint...

Hehe, nice thing to find out must admit!!
Bear this in mind, she is not your sterotyped wow player, basically shes tall blonde beautiful and skinny lol :p

What you thinking of painting pink??
 
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