Low budget setup inc monitor for under £500?

GhostWKD

GhostWKD

GhostWKD

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Banbury, Oxfordshire
Hi guys,

Dad's asked me to build him a computer which he can play games on - probably wont end up using it much for the latest stuff as he'd be chuffed enough with older games really although ability to play stuff like BF4 on Lowest settings may be a bonus... Spent ages reading up when I built my computer but not sure what stuff is like at the lower end of the spectrum.

I've thrown together a rough spec below but would appreciate any feedback/input. Stuck to intel just because it's what I know but gather AMD is worth a look for budget systems?

Need everything inc a monitor but giving him my old KB and mouse, should be able to scavenge Windows 7 from his old laptop. Budget was £400 but i'm already contributing beyond that and am up to about £450 atm...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2278HD 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £99.95
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 750 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N750-1GD5/OC) £89.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £83.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G1600HC9DC01) £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £41.99
1 x MSI H81M-E33 Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £34.99
1 x OcUK Value Quartz Micro Black Interior 500W 12cm Black Psu £31.99
Total : £452.99 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Edit: Other option is of course second hand but everything on ebay and the like seems to go for pretty much what it cost new but without having any warranty etc? Maybe i'm just looking at stuff that's too new without being aware of older components which would still be a good buy.

Edit2: This Week Only changes tomorrow so may be worth looking at that too :)
 
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ThaReaperGuy said:
Stretch?!

Also, is the windows 7 key from the laptop OEM or retail?
Click to expand...

Potentially doable - especially once you factor in the free shipping I forgot about (hadn't logged in) :) Although missing HDD on second glance?

What's the benefit of the AMD vs Intel? Quick look had the two on par pretty much. Not sure about the Windows 7 key, knowing my dad he's probably picked up the laptop from generic PC World or similar - guessing this means OEM with attached limitations?

Also should have said that I could potentially give my dad the Z87-G43 from my build and use it as an opportunity to upgrade my MB (although where the weakest point in my build lies is another subject all together i'd imagine)
 
 
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Cheers for the input guys, have been having a good look at your specs along with a few others but really struggling to pull myself away from Intel just because of all the stuff I saw when I was doing my research for my own build showing how far behind AMD were.

I've put together a couple of builds making use of some This Week Only deals and inspiration from advise above, one being a cheap case/psu and the other being seperates. Would be good to hear thoughts on these...

Build one;

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R7 265 Dual-X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2278HD 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £95.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** HDD £43.99
1 x MSI H81M-E33 Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £34.99
1 x **B Grade** OcUK Imp MicroATX Tower Cas (CA-063-OP) £15.00
Total : £435.95 (includes shipping : ).




And build 2 - with Seperate case/PSU;


YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R7 265 Dual-X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2278HD 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £95.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** HDD £43.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £35.99
1 x MSI H81M-E33 Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £34.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £29.99
Total : £486.92 (includes shipping : ).



I do understand that a good (read seperate) PSU will last a lot longer but in the short term it makes a massive difference to how far over budget it's going. I'm putting in about £100 towards the build to get it to the £400 budget so extra will also come from me.

Still haven't ruled out buying myself a G1 Sniper Mobo and free up my Z87-G43 Mobo mind, just not sure what the benefit of that would be for either system.
 
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Problem is it's going well over budget (admittedly knew I would) and also requires me to get another Mobo for myself that way - would only really do the Mobo swap as a way of spending the budget differently rather than adding too much to it (i.e. view it as spending £35 of the budget on my Z87-G43 as i've still then got to add more money for the new Motherboard for me) but might be overly complicating things :)

What would the general feeling be for the below - uses this week only, daily deal and clearance to try and get the most for the budget heh - Not sure how the 7850 compares to the R7 265 mind for £20 less (also watching some 7870's on ebay atm)


YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £89.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x Asus VS228DE 22" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** HDD £43.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £35.99
1 x MSI H81M-E33 Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £34.99
1 x BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower - Black £29.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £467.92 (includes shipping : ).



Edit: Unfortunately monitor only has analogue input though so probably have to go for a more expensive one...
 
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Sorry one last question before I start ordering a few bits... Would it be worth sacrificing the I3 in favour of a pentium and a better graphics card? Not sure where the bottleneck would be.
 
i would get this instead:

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £79.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x Asus VS228DE 22" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £79.99
1 x Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £71.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £35.99
1 x BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower - Black £29.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM £17.99
1 x OcUK Tech Labs Zaward OEM 120mm Golf Ball Fan £2.99
Total : £498.90 (includes shipping : ).



the h81 chipset is severely nerfed, at least get the h87
same with the wd greens, depending on use, it may fail prematurely...ideally the wd blue is the best, but you missed the TWO on the blues last week...the seagate is a compromise
 
Cool, will give this a look from home and probably get it ordered, looks strong for the money :) 7850 dropping by an extra £10 is a bonus too :)

Friend mentioned a while ago he might have a new WD blue going spare so might enquire about that if he's still got it about :)

Edit: Meant to say thanks for your help :)
 
Slight Update...

For my own rig I've bought a Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z87 which has free'd up my Z87-G43 Mobo for this build.

Also, bought from a friend:
(Used) 22" Iiyama screen - £40
(New) WD Blue 1TB drive - £40

Have ordered/ordering:
MSI HD 7850 TF3 OC £80
Samsung DVD-RW drive £12
EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze £36
Patriot Viper 2x4GB DDR3 1600mhz memory £60

Just leaves a case and CPU unless i've forgotten something. That said my dad could probably do with keeping spend to a minimum so might stick to initial thoughts for an i3-4130 anyway. Or say what the heck and get myself a 4770k to free up a 4670k from my build. Don't think it'll really make much difference to my system though.

Will get the last bits ordered tomorrow probably, get some use out of TWO on intel chips :)
 
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