Dad's £450 budget - wants PC and MONITOR

carpmaster

carpmaster

carpmaster

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Can you guys help me out with this one?

Old man is being a bit tight - and wants to replace his ageing P4 system with something that won't struggle to open Wordpad.

I tried to get him to increase the budget to around £650 (nice i5 system and decent monitor) but he thinks that's too much..........

So for a budget of around £350 PC system and £100 monitor (23ish inches?) what can you guys come up with?

Points you will need to know.....

1) Doesn't game on the machine at all. Not much photo / video stuff except downloading videos / uploading photos and looking at them!

2) Ideally I want to build his system around a Corsair Carbide 300R which eats into the budget by £60 - but I have one of these and it's superb.

3) Needs to be 100% reliable as it's me who will get the phone call if it goes wrong!
 
If that's all he does then £450 is ample. Bear in mind you save ~£150 by not having to buy an expensive gfx card.

Exactly what does he do on it though? If it is literally just Word documents and looking and uploading photos then he'd probably be better off, and happier with a laptop. He can look at his photos in front of the TV then. Get a ~£400 laptop which has two HDD bays and replace one bay with an SSD for the OS for snappiness.

My laptop cost £500 4 years ago and with my recent SSD purchase it boots up into a working environment (that means thunderbird has opened and checked for email) in less than 30 seconds, opens word and what not within seconds and I can even game (CSS gmod etc on lowest settings).

Is there going to be any components you can salvage at all, fans PSUs, HDDs?
 
 
Does he have a good sized HDTV in the lounge? We could spec a HTPC perhaps? If you want a desktop this maybe?

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK E2250SWDA 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £99.95
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £83.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black £59.99
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £56.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.98
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
1 x Logitech MK120 Desktop Set (920-002552) £15.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £453.84 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
Thanks for all the replies so far. Just to answer the questions raised

- He has a keyboard & mouse he can re-use
- He has a genuine XP home copy - but would be good to get him on W7
- He literally uses it for email, browsing, PDFs, torrents and watching / downloading (large - sometimes a few gig each) videos
- He has a 1.5tb external drive which I get him to save all his files on, so really just want to setup a new pc with SSD (programmes & OS only)
- USB 3 might be nice as he might want to upgrade the external drive soon
(has a lot of files stored PLUS he carries it downstairs to plug in & watch films on the TV. I've tried to convince him on networking / home plug / media centre but he's not interested!
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung S23A350H 23" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black £113.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £83.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black £59.99
1 x ASRock H61M/U3S3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro Motherboard £47.99
1 x Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £34.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
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
Total : £433.32 (includes shipping : £17.85).




Now you need to break it to him that the case is out of stock :p.

I wouldn't use the Gigabyte boards specced earlier, they use Etron USB 3.0 controllers and they're rubbish. The ASRock uses ASMedia which is a lot more reliable and better 3.0 speeds.

Couldn't fit Windows 7 in, it makes the total ~£520.
 
carpmaster said:
Thanks for all the replies so far. Just to answer the questions raised

- He has a keyboard & mouse he can re-use
- He has a genuine XP home copy - but would be good to get him on W7
- He literally uses it for email, browsing, PDFs, torrents and watching / downloading (large - sometimes a few gig each) videos
- He has a 1.5tb external drive which I get him to save all his files on, so really just want to setup a new pc with SSD (programmes & OS only)
- USB 3 might be nice as he might want to upgrade the external drive soon
(has a lot of files stored PLUS he carries it downstairs to plug in & watch films on the TV. I've tried to convince him on networking / home plug / media centre but he's not interested!
Click to expand...

It seems laptop is out of the question. If you want to get him an SSD then he does ideally want Windows 7 for TRIM support. Home Premium will be fine. As for the SSD 120GB will be more than enough, you might even consider getting an 80GB one if you want to really eek out the budget.

I'd like to check with the knowledgeable ones here that on-board graphics can cope fine with 1080p playback. If this is the case then the setups these people will give you will be perfectly fine for your pa.

As for downloading, regardless of the size of the file, it will simply be as quick as your internet is so no problems there. So as long as your Dad doesn't clutter up the PC it will run smooth for the forseable future.

Also if you do get an SSD, i recomend reason this guide so you really get the most out of it.

http://www.overclock.net/a/windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds-by-sean-webster
 
Right, changed the build to Llano, for the GPU acceleration for HD playback. Also remembered the onboard Intel has the annoying 24 fps bug which can make videos appear to slightly stutter. Changed the case as well since I reread your post and it's actually you that wants the silly expensive case. With your free delivery that knocks it to £24 over your budget. The PC is still enough for your dad's usage, and maybe some light gaming if he feels like it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung S23A350H 23" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black £113.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £83.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x MSI A75MA-P35 AMD A75 (Socket FM1) DDR3 Motherboard ** FREE NEXUIZ GAME ** £43.99
1 x AMD A4-3300 2.50GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor (AD3300OJGXBOX) £41.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £34.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
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
Total : £473.89 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
Last edited:
 
I'm not sure why you think a system for your dad would warrant using a Corsair case?

I'm mystified actually, surely a unbranded box would make more sense.

All a system for your dad needs is a container not a gaming case!
 
BenQ G2255 21.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black
AMD Bulldozer FX-4 Quad Core 4100 Black Edition 3.60Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail with FREE Dirt Showdown PC Game **£10 Cashback**
Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black
Corsair Force Series 3 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F60GB3A-BK)
MSI 760GM-P23 FX AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard ** FREE NEXUIZ GAME **
OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply
Sapphire HD 6450 HM 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11190-04-20G)
OcUK Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

454£ in total (also get £10 cashback with CPU and 2 free games). My two cents. Seems better than some of these celeron builds..
 
Eames said:
I'm not sure why you think a system for your dad would warrant using a Corsair case?

I'm mystified actually, surely a unbranded box would make more sense.

All a system for your dad needs is a container not a gaming case!
Click to expand...

+1

and wouldnt a micro atx case suffice?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Fractal Design Array MiniITX Case - Black (with 300W SFX PSU) £149.99
1 x OcUK E2250SWDA 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £99.95
1 x Corsair Force Series 3 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F60GB3A-BK) £52.99
1 x MSI H61I-E35 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £49.99
1 x Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £34.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/4G) £23.99
Total : £426.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
A £150 case/psu combo.

Some people have no sense of perspective, this is a system for his dad...just get him some ICUTE generic tat.

His dad isn't going to appreciate a nice case, he will just see it as a box containing pc stuff.
 
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