What do you think of this system for £350

This is much better build for same money, more powerful onboard gfx, quad core cpu, faster RAM, havent bothered putting in wireless card or mb/mouse, just add them again yourself, the retail heatsink will be fine, no need to spend money on aftermarket HSF and TIM, the PSU bundled with the case is as good if not better than that GX you included

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £75.19
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £62.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £46.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.99
LiteOn IHAS124 - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM drive - Serial ATA £11.74
Total : £309.88
 
powelly2010 said:
pretty much got it summed up there, except the case

what is it with coolermaster elite 430 crap, tbf i think it's the fugglyest case i have ever seen. i would go for this case if it was me. nice, snappy, good looking, and im sure you girlfriend dosn't need a sidewindow to show her hardware lol :p

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-044-OP&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=505
Click to expand...

Its a reasonably priced case with good cooling, when selecting the case/psu combo its extremely good value, there are others in same range, incl the Silverstone PS02/03 and Zalman Z7 but you also have to remember that appearance is subjective and just cos you dont like it doesnt mean no one does, I would suspect the majority of people put their cas under their desk and hardly ever see it anyway tbh
 
95thrifles said:
This is much better build for same money, more powerful onboard gfx, quad core cpu, faster RAM, havent bothered putting in wireless card or mb/mouse, just add them again yourself, the retail heatsink will be fine, no need to spend money on aftermarket HSF and TIM, the PSU bundled with the case is as good if not better than that GX you included

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £75.19
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £62.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £46.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.99
LiteOn IHAS124 - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM drive - Serial ATA £11.74
Total : £309.88
Click to expand...

This is spot on, also the Coolermaster Elite 430 case is fantastic for the price,

All black interior.

A hole in the motherboard tray to get access to the rear mounting brackets of a cooler.

PSU at the bootom of the case away from hot air-flow.

Fantastic out of the box cooling and plenty more fan mounts to add more.

And it will fit a ATI 5970 card in there.
 
stulid said:
This is spot on, also the Coolermaster Elite 430 case is fantastic for the price,

All black interior.

A hole in the motherboard tray to get access to the rear mounting brackets of a cooler.

PSU at the bootom of the case away from hot air-flow.

Fantastic out of the box cooling and plenty more fan mounts to add more.

And it will fit a ATI 5970 card in there.
Click to expand...

Does she really want a windowed case though? Gfs can be fussy!
 
scubes said:
could you not get a better system of ocuk for the same price???..
Click to expand...

Haha! No.

They put a premium on each item, and then add around £75 for putting it together for you.

95thrifles spec is where its at - not even Stulid could better it :p
 
I definitely agree with "95thrifles" A bit silly on my part not looking at the AMD alternative's. I went in with "Intel" only in mind. Only for the reason it's all I've ever built for myself over the years. I had no idea how much cheaper the AMD cpu's were. Very happy with the spec quoted. I do love the Coolermaster cases, done a few builds with them before. I have the CM-690-II ADVANCED personally and used the 330 elite before also. The psu mounting at the bottom is a revelation if you ask me.

It does look a lot better than the OCUK value one offered as an alternative.

Just going to have a gander at what I could maybe change and then get it ordered on Friday.
 
95thrifles said:
This is much better build for same money, more powerful onboard gfx, quad core cpu, faster RAM, havent bothered putting in wireless card or mb/mouse, just add them again yourself, the retail heatsink will be fine, no need to spend money on aftermarket HSF and TIM, the PSU bundled with the case is as good if not better than that GX you included

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £75.19
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £62.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £46.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.99
LiteOn IHAS124 - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM drive - Serial ATA £11.74
Total : £309.88
Click to expand...

What would you think of changing the board and cpu to these and keeping everything else as stated.

Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard [GA-H55M-UD2H]

CPU; Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-312-IN
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-233-GI
 
the AMD would be quicker in properly multi-threaded programs, but the i3 would be fine for all the uses stated in the OP. both systems I would expect to feel snappy and responsive, as in my opinion every DDR3 system I've ever used does, even compared to when I had my DDR2 dominators at 1066C5.

out of the 2 I would probably go AMD as the system could take a phenom x6 at a later date for other uses (encoding or whatever), whereas H55 is pretty much i3 (or clarkdale i5) only; although it could take an i5 760 or i7 860 or whatever, it wouldnt take well to OCing

that and 4 cores>2 cores + schizophrenia (don't mean to offend any sufferers by comparison to hyperthreading)
 
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TrojanWhore said:
the AMD would be quicker in properly multi-threaded programs, but the i3 would be fine for all the uses stated in the OP. both systems I would expect to feel snappy and responsive, as in my opinion every DDR3 system I've ever used does, even compared to when I had my DDR2 dominators at 1066C5.

out of the 2 I would probably go AMD as the system could take a phenom x6 at a later date for other uses (encoding or whatever), whereas H55 is pretty much i3 (or clarkdale i5) only; although it could take an i5 760 or i7 860 or whatever, it wouldnt take well to OCing

that and 4 cores>2 cores + schizophrenia (don't mean to offend any sufferers by comparison to hyperthreading)
Click to expand...

To be honest, after looking at comparisons between the two processors. The I3 blows it out the water. She won't ever be utilising the 4 cores. Doesn't play any serious games.

She won't ever want to upgrade the cpu either, once it's in that'll be it.
 
Buchanan0204 said:
To be honest, after looking at comparisons between the two processors. The I3 blows it out the water. She won't ever be utilising the 4 cores. Doesn't play any serious games.

She won't ever want to upgrade the cpu either, once it's in that'll be it.
Click to expand...

If that's the case, better off getting the Pentium G6950 - a cheaper i3 without onboard gpu :)
 
Buchanan0204 said:
Can you expand on this please?
Click to expand...

i3 has an onboard "graphics card" so to speak. So its a CPU and a very weak gpu - thats why its more expensive.

The G6950 is the "bare chip", so its just a cpu, and doesn't have on it.

Quick bit of googling will tell you all you need to know.
 
Cookeh said:
i3 has an onboard "graphics card" so to speak. So its a CPU and a very weak gpu - thats why its more expensive.

The G6950 is the "bare chip", so its just a cpu, and doesn't have on it.

Quick bit of googling will tell you all you need to know.
Click to expand...

Can you send me the link to the alternative cpu you are referring too?

I can't seem to find it?
 
95thrifles said:
This is much better build for same money, more powerful onboard gfx, quad core cpu, faster RAM, havent bothered putting in wireless card or mb/mouse, just add them again yourself, the retail heatsink will be fine, no need to spend money on aftermarket HSF and TIM, the PSU bundled with the case is as good if not better than that GX you included

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £75.19
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £62.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £46.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.99
LiteOn IHAS124 - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM drive - Serial ATA £11.74
Total : £309.88
Click to expand...

bargain!
 
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