Building a PC - Budget £1500-£1800

PhysicsMan94

PhysicsMan94

PhysicsMan94

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I am going to build a PC for my dad's birthday next March (March 2014) and wanted to get a rough idea of the kind of components we should get. It is going to be a PC for business so no flashing lights, windows or anything (like I have on my rig, hehe).

He wants a silent case, a good quality 27" (approx.) screen and the rest is up to the budget. The PC is going to be used mainly for database applications, using Visual Studio for coding (specifically, Visual Basic) and for other generic business stuff. So, it should be very quick to load programs like VS and just basically needs to be fast.

I would suggest a build below but I am a bit out of the loop with computer components since building my own computer in July (specs in signature) so I am unsure of what is new out there and what great deals you can get now.

However, I guess the following are a good starting point:

- Quad Core i7 processor (does not need to be K edition)
- 1 TB (possibly lower to reduce cost) Samsung EVO SSD
- A good quality but not too expensive GPU (computer will not be used for gaming, rendering or any other GPU intensive tasks)


Thanks for any help. Let the veteran computer builders commence with posting brilliant baskets!
 
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So like a workstation? :)

How about a Xeon rig?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Xeon E5-2620W 2.00GHz (Socket 2011) - Retail £329.99
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £289.99
1 x Asus VX279Q 27" Widescreen Super-Slim Bezel LED Monitor - Black £269.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Quad CHannel Kit (PV332G160C0QK) £239.99
1 x Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £169.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black £119.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 650 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P4-2650-KR) £89.99
2 x Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA300) HDD £81.95 (£163.90)
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £67.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 412S CPU Cooler £28.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £1,811.44 (includes shipping : £22.20).



500Gb SSD should be enough and 2 x 3tb drives for RAID1 (mirror) storage. :)
 
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Oooh, a Xeon rig - I hadn't considered that. I'm not sure how fast that would be compared to a quad core i7 processor though as I'm not sure if the work he'll be doing will utilise all the cores on the Xeon processor; but I'm not sure, I won't pretend to know how Xeons work compared to standard i-series CPUs.

Also, I forgot to mention that using an Ethernet cable would be impractical so we'll need a network card or a motherboard with inbuilt Wi-Fi.

Rest of the build looks pretty good, but I think 32GB of RAM may be a bit overkill - he won't be doing any work which requires a huge amount of memory. 8GB will probably be enough but I'll probably go with 16GB just to be "future proof".

Cheers.
 
Yeah, went a bit mad with the whole worksttion thing:

Dropping to a 4770/4771 you can even get a 1TB SSD in, though i think its a bit OTT:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 1TB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE1T0BW) £479.99
1 x Asus VX279Q 27" Widescreen Super-Slim Bezel LED Monitor - Black £269.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4771 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black £119.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 650 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P4-2650-KR) £89.99
2 x Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA300) HDD £81.95 (£163.90)
1 x Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £80.99
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £67.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £61.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 412S CPU Cooler £28.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £1,644.43 (includes shipping : £22.20).

 
PhysicsMan94 said:
Rest of the build looks pretty good, but I think 32GB of RAM may be a bit overkill - he won't be doing any work which requires a huge amount of memory. 8GB will probably be enough but I'll probably go with 16GB just to be "future proof".
Click to expand...

Developers never have enough RAM! I have guys on my floor working with dual processor Xeon work stations with 16GB RAM and they still scream for more :p

If I were building a workstation for myself, I'd get as much RAM as I could! You never know what caches you might want to play with in the RAM space.
 
Hehe, I do some programming myself but not so advanced as needing insane amounts of RAM! Although my rig is sure to take care of any of the basic programming I do on it!

Anyway, his work definitely won't require that much RAM - I'll probably get 16GB 2133MHz rather than 32GB 1600MHz; but, I'll see what everyone on here comes up with for builds and their corresponding costs, we've got a while to decide on a build yet so no rush.
 
1TB SSD, thats a huge waste of a significant portion of the budget(imho).. the cost is inline with some of the most expensive GPUs, heck it's more than the screen.

Is that super expensive SSD going to offer significant performance over a smaller more reasonably priced one? Heck you could buy two smaller ones and split them up into OS and Apps drives and get just as good performance for a fraction of the price.

I have a feeling doomed is just messing around with the spec though because it's a sizable budget to play with.. :)

EDIT: I assume you dad doesn't play games based on the opening post, is this accurate or is he likely to want to play the odd game here and there? And if so, what kind of games. A non-gamer won't even need a GPU, the onboard graphics should be ample for displaying 1080p movies and the like.

If you're determined to put a dedicated GPU into the system though, i'd head the passive route simply for silence(there's a passive GPU in the system i'm on and it's a god send).
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-090-GI&groupid=701&catid=56
 
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Went a little over the top, and didn't get a mouse selected(that's really a personal thing the owner needs to choose, because comfort is extremely important), nor did i squeeze any speakers into the build. I did choose a nice keyboard though, despite the fact i was unsure if the build even needed to include those things.

Your Basket »
1 x Dell UltraSharp U2913WM 29" Super-Widescreen LED Monitor - Midnight Grey £371.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4771 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £184.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX16C9K2/16X) £129.95
1 x Seasonic 520w FANLESS '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply £129.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black £119.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD128BW) £115.99
1 x Gigabyte HD 6770 PASSIVE 1024MB GDDR5 Graphics Card £89.99
1 x Logitech K800 Wireless Illuminated Keyboard (920-002382) £89.99
1 x Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £80.99
2 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £71.99 (£143.98)
1 x Thermalright Archon Rev. B CPU Cooler £49.99
4 x Be Quiet! Silent Wings 2 Fan - 140mm £21.98 (£87.92)



Total: £1,862.35 (includes shipping: £22.20)

You could drop either SSD to provide more wiggle room on budget to fit in a mouse and speakers, or come down further on the monitor.

Main focus was silence, hence the choice passive GPU and PSU, and some super quiet case fans. CPU cooler should be pretty quiet to, but will likely be the loudest component in there despite the 150mm fan(it won't be loud, just louder than the other selected components). Smallest SSD for windows(move your docs away from this drive to keep it nippy), larger one for Apps, then the mechanical ones(again choose WD Green for quieter operation) for storage.

P.S. Yes the cooler will fit just fine, that case provides 180mm clearance for coolers apparently, so it should be fine. My only concern(if any) would be whether there's any clearance issues with the memory, but a little googling should be able to clear that up if it's really any concern at all.
 
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Some nice builds, I will take everything here into consideration. The large SSD I mentioned is not necessarily required, a 500GB Samsung EVO SSD will probably be good - I'll ask my dad how much storage he is likely to need; although getting 2 (one for Windows OS and other for programs) is not a bad idea.

Also, yes sorry I forgot about peripherals - speakers are not required nor a mouse, but he does want a mechanical keyboard after trying out mine; preferably a "silent" version as mine is quite loud!

I think a fairly cheap dedicated GPU will be worth it over just integrated graphics - just in case; besides it doesn't cost that much to get a decent GPU these days.
 
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Hi OP, will your old man be running Squeal, Oracle, VM's etc? If he is then the more RAM the better as SQL and Oracle see RAM and eat it and cache its self there as that is the nature of the beast.

I'm a DBA/ BA so if your interested I can spec if you want for a workhorse.
 
What I would do is partition the SSD so that half of it was used for the "local" machine then the other partition for the VM's & their applications then use the HDD's as a RAID 1 storage and store the DB's etc on them.... think kinda like a SAN and you will not be a million miles off.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Xeon E5-2620W 2.00GHz (Socket 2011) - Retail £329.99
2 x Avexir MPower Yellow Series 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001008G-4CM) £229.99 (£459.98)
1 x Gigabyte X79-UP4 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £209.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £142.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-06949) £106.99
1 x Packard Bell Viseo 243D 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £99.95
2 x Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA300) HDD £89.99 (£179.98)
1 x Antec EA 550w '80 Plus Platinum' Power Supply £77.99
1 x BitFenix Ghost Silent Tower Case - Black £77.95
1 x NH-U12S Ultra-Quiet Slim CPU Cooler with NF-F12 Fan £52.99
1 x MSI HD 5450 1024MB GDDR5 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £19.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
1 x Gigabyte KM6150 Keyboard and Mouse Set £9.98
Total : £1,805.27 (includes shipping : £13.75).

 
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Cheers for the build advice, I shall take all of these into consideration. I will also ask my dad about the programs he'll be running with respect to RAM considerations etc.
 
Alright, I'm back with a possible build (but it could use some tweaking I reckon):

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus SonicMaster MX299Q 29" Ultra Widescreen Ultra Slim Bezel LED Monitor - Black with Bang & Olufsen ICEpower Speakers £399.95
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £269.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 32GB (4x8GB) PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (KHX16C9T3K4/32X) £259.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4771 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £227.99
1 x Asus Z87-PRO Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £149.99
1 x BeQuiet Dark Power Pro P10 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £139.99
1 x OcUK Tech Labs - Anidees AI-6B Midi-Tower Case - Black - Noise Dampened £113.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £109.99
1 x Cherry G80-3000 Mechanical Keyboard - Blue Switch £64.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £61.99
1 x Asus HD 6450 SILENT EDITION 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £39.95
1 x Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Pro SR1 CPU Cooler £39.95
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
Total : £1,929.29 (includes shipping : £25.45).




I'm fairly sure that it'd be better to have just a quad core Haswell i7 build rather than a Xeon as the work my dad does is not optimised for the huge amounts of cores (and thus, threads) that a Xeon has.

One of my main concerns with the build above is the GPU - one of the reasons I selected that one is due to it being a silent edition, but I can't help but think it might be a crappy quality graphics card due to the price; that or I have been brainwashed by my GTX-780 :D

Anyway, any further suggestions are more than welcome and I shall also consider further options with the hard drives concerning RAID storage types which could come in handy for his computer.

Cheers!
 
Also, I should note that, of course, the keyboard is down to personal preference and we will probably go over to the Overclockers shop for my dad to test out some mechanical keyboards.
 
lee32uk said:
Nicer case imo

YOUR BASKET
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £99.95
Total : £109.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Also that RAM is huge and I doubt it will fit under that cooler. Might be best to get some low profile, or a different cooler.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I should've known that'd be a problem - I guess low profile RAM will be easier to find. Possibly Samsung Green however it seems OcUK only does 16GB and this build should have 32GB (quad channel as motherboard I suggested only has 4 DIMM slots).

Also, the case needs to be pre-noise dampened which is why I went for that one. However, if anyone can suggest a great quality, professional, noise dampened case then please do :)
 
Alright, I have another build specced out below - any more suggestions?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus SonicMaster MX299Q 29" Ultra Widescreen Ultra Slim Bezel LED Monitor - Black with Bang & Olufsen ICEpower Speakers £399.95
1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE500BW) £289.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (PVI332G160C9QK) £259.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4771 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x Asus Z87-PRO Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £166.99
1 x BeQuiet Dark Power Pro P10 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £139.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black (CC-9011015-WW) £119.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £109.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £65.99
1 x Cherry G80-3000 Mechanical Keyboard - Blue Switch £64.99
1 x Asus HD 6450 SILENT EDITION 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £39.95
1 x Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Pro SR1 CPU Cooler £39.95
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
Total : £1,990.81 (includes shipping : £27.55).

 
Utterly no need to spend that much on a motherboard if you aren't intending to game or overclock. The Gigabyte boards sped'd by Doomedspeed and others will be perfectly adequate
 
Understood. He won't be overclocking nor gaming, I just chose that one because I have good experience with ASUS motherboards and there's also a Wi-fi module connected to it. Guess we could get one of those Gigabyte boards and stick a PCIE network card on. Should bring the price down a bit too which is probably needed.
 
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