£450 "spec me a rig"

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hey,
I'm trying to build my girlfriend an adequate PC, so trying to get the absolute best bang-for-buck machine i can get. It's primarily for studying but occasional gaming also! I've got £450 to play with but can stretch an extra £80 IF ITS NEEDED (think the max is £450 unless you see something awesome).
I'll be needing the complete tower, monitor (22" preferably), keyboard, mouse & speakers.
Hope you can help,
Cheers,
Matt
 
Done two specs, with and without an OS.

The i3 2100 CPU is very fast - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2120-2100.html

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£483 with free delivery

Gaming is going to be poor with this as you will have to rely on the i3 2100 inbuilt HD2000 graphics, but the motherboard does have a good range of display outputs.

I haven't specced a rubbish "Blaze" mouse and keyboard either.


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£497 with free delivery

Without an operating system you can get a ATI 5770 card which is a good match for the monitor and the PSU that comes with the case.
 
Includes windows
Tri core athlon, 800 chipset board with graphics on board 4Gb DDR3, 500Gb HDD, 22" monitor etc. £480 + del.

Iiyama ProLite E2208HDD 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £114.98
Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
Options applied to the above product:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £29.99
AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 450 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £59.99
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £56.98
Silverstone Precision PS03B Midi Tower Case - Black £40.84
Logitech Wireless MK520 Desktop (920-002606) £34.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £26.39
Lepa N-Series 400W Power Supply £24.98
Logitech S-220 2.1 Speaker System - OEM (980-000022) £19.99
Sub Total : £397.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £24.45
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £84.48
Total : £506.87
 
sorry, i don't need an OS :)
with that in mind, your suggestions are good but perhaps without the OS now i can get slightly higher gfx! :D
or perhaps go with an i5, or is the difference not worth it from the i3?

edit: also i get free shipping too so that can stretch it as far as possible!
 
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I've tried to keep the costs as close to the £450 mark as possible.

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK V-Line 221V2SB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £99.98
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £91.99
1 x MSI GeForce GT 430 OC Twin FrozR 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £53.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £44.99
1 x MSI H61M-P23 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £43.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £28.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
1 x Logitech Ultra-Flat Keyboard (967653-0120) £12.98
1 x Logitech S-150 2.0 USB Speaker System - OEM (980-000029) £11.99
1 x Microsoft Ready Basic Optical Mouse Black - Retail (3EG-00003) £10.99
Total : £490.78 (includes shipping : £19.10).

£467.86 with free delivery

Or an i5 build, but you lose the GPU:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2300 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £137.99
1 x OcUK V-Line 221V2SB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £99.98
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £44.99
1 x MSI H61M-P23 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £43.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £28.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
1 x Logitech Ultra-Flat Keyboard (967653-0120) £12.98
1 x Logitech S-150 2.0 USB Speaker System - OEM (980-000029) £11.99
1 x Microsoft Ready Basic Optical Mouse Black - Retail (3EG-00003) £10.99
Total : £481.28 (includes shipping : £17.85).

£459.86 with free delivery
 
thanks for the suggestions so far, definitely going with these:

OcUK 22" Monitor
Cooler Master Elite 430 Case (with psu works out cheaper than the case & psu i was speccing), and better quality!
 
The BeQuiet PSU I specced is much better than the one that comes with the 430. The BeQuiet will allow you to upgrade the GPU to a much higher specced one at a later date and is more efficient.
 
Jordan97 said:
The BeQuiet PSU I specced is much better than the one that comes with the 430. The BeQuiet will allow you to upgrade the GPU to a much higher specced one at a later date and is more efficient.
Click to expand...

oh really? i always thought BeQuiet were cheap crap, maybe i'm wrong :D
 
Oh no! BeQuiet are a reputable brand and are reliable. They may not be up the top with Antec and Corsair, but I'd much rather go for a BeQuiet over a Cooler Master.
 
OuIt6.png


here's my setup so far as per recommendations, skimped on the mouse keyboard while i check graphics cards (to decide whether that £80 is worth going into), otherwise i'll just bump those up to make it £450 and she can always get a graphics card at a later date!

has anyone got a link to the benchmarks of the i5-2300 graphics?

i'm trying to find one but not found any, for a comparison of graphics cards and how well the onboard performs!

I'm also debating whether the XFX 5770 is a good call to be added!
 
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Looks good! However, if you went with that HDD simply because it says SATA 6GB/s, then it is not worth it. There is no difference whatsoever between SATAII and SATAIII because it does not change the speed at which the HDD rotates. SSD's however are a completely different story.
 
Jordan97 said:
Looks good! However, if you went with that HDD simply because it says SATA 6GB/s, then it is not worth it. There is no difference whatsoever between SATAII and SATAIII because it does not change the speed at which the HDD rotates. SSD's however are a completely different story.
Click to expand...

went for it purely because of the price, and i'm an anti-seagate person :)
 
Ha, fair enough.

Now about that GPU. You will see a big increase if you went with the 5770. In this review they compare the SB graphics with a 5570 and that doubles the FPS. Seeing as the 5770 is faster than a 5570, it will be a massive upgrade.
 
cheers for the review link i'll check it out!
I've basically said to her we can get it without the graphics card, if it's not up to scratch then we'll spend the reserve money and get it (free shipping yay).

now to see if i can get the mouse/keyboard slightly better for very little extra
 
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Im sorry but some of these specs in here are awful.

A GT 430 is slow as hell.

you need a sub woofer and decent peripherals that work and respond.

A Xigamatek Asgard is nasty, thin and will rattle and flex.

A i3 2300 is plenty fast enough for your use and will allow a better GPU and other parts.
 
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I have a spec but I'm on the iPad right now, basically from what has been specced and the requirements, I've specced and athlon 2 250, nforce mobo, 4gb ram, cooler master case/pus combo, DVD drive, ocuk 22" monitor, gigabyte mouse/keyboard, 500gb hdd, and a 560ti!

I think for what it will be used for an athlon 2 will be great, and is very easy to overclock, I got mine to 3.8 easily and coupled with a 560ti will blitz most games out now.
 
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