£200-£250 build?

Soldato
Joined
8 Oct 2009
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3,256
Location
United Kingdom
Hello chaps.

Looking for a little project to keep me busy over the next month or two. Going to teach myself how to build a pc, from scratch, on my own. Budget of £250 at the top end.

Ive got hardware experience already, me and a friend built my current pc over the course of a day but i would like to do a simple build on my own.

Nothing fancy, just an office PC for word processing, excel, etc. Maybe a few simple games which an integrated CPU/GPU could handle - any brands/specs welcome!
 
That is a really, really low budget but for learning yeah, can understand not wanting to splash a bomb on it lol.

Need to know if you have screen, keyboard, mouse, dvd drives etc etc
 
Ah yes sorry, screen, keyboard, mouse can be borrowed from elsewhere.

DVD drive? honestly not sure how practical they are for PC's these days, i only use mine to install a few select games.

Throw one in if you like, its only £10-15

So just the tower!
 
Ah yes sorry, screen, keyboard, mouse can be borrowed from elsewhere.

DVD drive? honestly not sure how practical they are for PC's these days, i only use mine to install a few select games.

Throw one in if you like, its only £10-15

So just the tower!

Do you have a preference? AMD or Intel?
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x "Primo 520a" AMD A55 DDR3 Ready Barebones (Socket FM2) £60.38
1 x AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD540KOKHJBOX) £49.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £43.99
1 x Avexir Blitz Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2GW) £39.95
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (OEM) £14.99
Total : £227.90 (includes shipping : £15.50).




Before anyone comments, Yes I know the PSU is low end, but for an educational build and for the low budget, it will do job.

The pre-built will help you along a bit, but you can still see how it is fitted etc, works out cheaper.
 
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Cheers incog, prefer Intel but for this type of purpose im honestly not bothered :)

Value over performance in this case!
 
Trinity would be fine:

dw76zq.jpg
 
HDD would be needed i think, i'll see if i can get one really cheap.

does the trinity have onboard GPU? even if its awful. As long as ive got 1080p monitor feedback thats all thats needed.
 
Trinity's onboard GPU is surprisingly good, to anyone not familiar with recent advances in onboard graphics.

1080p movie playback isn't a problem at all, and you can even play some console-grade games - eg skyrim can be played on medium (comparable to/better than an xbox 360), or even more modern/intensive titles like BF3... although I wouldn't expect to be above low settings on 1280x800.

It's more than adequate for day to day office or media use, and if you fancy playing the occasional game and aren't too fussed about amazing graphics, it'll do that too.
 
HDD would be needed i think, i'll see if i can get one really cheap.

does the trinity have onboard GPU? even if its awful. As long as ive got 1080p monitor feedback thats all thats needed.

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £33.5
Total : £38.50 (includes shipping : £4.16).



Trinity's onboard GPU is surprisingly good, to anyone not familiar with recent advances in onboard graphics.

1080p movie playback isn't a problem at all, and you can even play some console-grade games - eg skyrim can be played on medium (comparable to/better than an xbox 360), or even more modern/intensive titles like BF3... although I wouldn't expect to be above low settings on 1280x800.

It's more than adequate for day to day office or media use, and if you fancy playing the occasional game and aren't too fussed about amazing graphics, it'll do that too.

Also, if you are intending to play games on more than one occasions, i'd recommend getting a A85x board, not the A55. You can o/c the Black Edition too!
 
To buy everything you will need to do a "complete build" you can't really go wrong with this. OK its cheaper then cheap and uses some really nasty parts but what did you really expect for £200?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £43.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D2V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £39.98
1 x Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £29.99
1 x MSI GeForce N210 SILENT 1024MB GDDR3 "Low Profile" PCI-Express Graphics Card £23.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
1 x Swift 500W V2 Silent Power Supply £18.98
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black £17.99
Total : £230.48 (includes shipping : £10.50).

 
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To buy everything you will need to do a "complete build" you can't really go wrong with this. OK its cheaper then cheap and uses some really nasty parts but what did you really expect for £200?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £43.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D2V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £39.98
1 x Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £29.99
1 x MSI GeForce N210 SILENT 1024MB GDDR3 "Low Profile" PCI-Express Graphics Card £23.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
1 x Swift 500W V2 Silent Power Supply £18.98
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black £17.99
Total : £230.48 (includes shipping : £10.50).


£20 PSU!! Really??
 
There's no point chucking in a cheap graphics card when the onboard is probably just as good.

If you read again the OP doesn't mind using onboard graphics.

;)
 
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