Budget Powerhouse

[wakayoda]

Could you lovely people of this forum that we all dwell in spec me a £450 PC

Including

• CPU
• RAM
• MOTHERBOARD
• CASE
• PSU
• WINDOWS 7
• GPU

I've heard some talk of people saying that the OEM version of Windows 7 can be used after swapping components provided that Microsoft is contacted by phone? Hoping to cut costs by doing this. Ideally I would like this to be eventually upgraded to play BF3 even on lower settings. Always used AMD but open to anything. I have been looking around OCUK for a few days now but I have to keep cutting corners in certain areas to stick to/below budget.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Rik1254]

Are you a student, or have any close family that are students (I think it counts for year 7 and up)....can get some stupid win7 deals if you do.

Also, whats the computer being used for?
Office work +BF3 or just gaming?

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

OcUK GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
£109.99

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
£94.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599)
£79.99

Asus M5A87 AMD 870 (Socket AM3/AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard
£74.99

Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU)
£64.99

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
£27.98

Sub Total :

£377.45



Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout)

Shipping :

£11.25


Total :

£466.44

 

[wakayoda]

I'm soon to be a uni student so I should be able to get all the components together and then get Windows 7 for cheap. Just gaming primarily, got a laptop to use for all of the office based work. Got a HDD with Windows XP 32bit on so it'll be the upgrade edition for me

 

[stulid]

So you dont need a harddrive?

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

So you dont need a harddrive?

or DVD drive

 

[wakayoda]

Nope only need the components listed, got HDD, DVD drive, mouse, keyboard and monitor.

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

Nope only need the components listed, got HDD, DVD drive, mouse, keyboard and monitor.

Cool then I stand by my spec (until Stulid vastly improves it ofc)

 

[stulid]

Nope only need the components listed, got HDD, DVD drive, mouse, keyboard and monitor.

And are your HDD+DVD a IDE or SATA interface?

 

[wakayoda]

The DVD is a IDE and the HDD is a SATA, but I do have a Blu Ray drive that is a SATA so there is no need for any IDE.

 

[Jony27]

Cool then I stand by my spec (until Stulid vastly improves it ofc)

oh he will, just wait

 

[Reaper 392]

I'm soon to be a uni student so I should be able to get all the components together and then get Windows 7 for cheap. Just gaming primarily, got a laptop to use for all of the office based work. Got a HDD with Windows XP 32bit on so it'll be the upgrade edition for me

what uni are you going to, and will you be doing a course even vaguely related to computing?

some uni's offer windows 7 professional for free to their computer science students. if not then just go down the student deals route (~£40 for windows 7 home premium)

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

oh he will, just wait

Disables F5 key

 

[Reaper 392]

Cool then I stand by my spec (until Stulid vastly improves it ofc)

well, since you've specced him an AMD build stulid will find it really easy to improve it

 

[stulid]

The DVD is a IDE and the HDD is a SATA, but I do have a Blu Ray drive that is a SATA so there is no need for any IDE.

Excellent.

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

well, since you've specced him an AMD build stulid will find it really easy to improve it

Yeah I guess you can get an i3 2120 and a mobo within £450....

 

[Reaper 392]

hmm, not sure if i should go down the i3 route or i5 route.

these builds are assuming you are happy using windows XP until you get to uni


better graphics, worse processor
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti Twin FrozR II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £173.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £70.98
1 x Lepa W-Series 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply £46.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £37.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
Total : £448.93 (includes shipping: FREE).

gives you a motherboard that will allow overclocking if you decide to upgrade the processor (i3 2100 cant be overclocked) asnd a very good graphics card at the expense of a quad core processor


better processor, worse graphics
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £172.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Bare OEM £94.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £70.98
1 x Lepa W-Series 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply £46.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £37.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
Total : £447.94 (includes shipping: FREE).

quad core processor that can be overclocked (stock cooler so only up to ~4.2Ghz) but a worse graphics card.

i3 2100 vs i5 2500k:
(2500k is at stock speeds)
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=288

460 vs 560Ti:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/313?vs=330

*awaits stulids improvements*

 

[wakayoda]

I'm going to Glamorgan Uni to study Live Event Technology, so I may have to buy from a student deal site.

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

If you can afford to buy windows once you get to uni then go for one of the specs from Reaper personally I'd go for his 2nd option.

If you can't then obviously the spenditure is very different.

 

[Reaper 392]

I'm going to Glamorgan Uni to study Live Event Technology, so I may have to buy from a student deal site.

hmm, you might be able to get it free then. if your uni is registered with the MSDN you should be able to get free because your course will be in one of the technical departments (i thought it was just computing students, but its any technical department)