£400 on base unit components for net, HD videos, youtube etc (no case, storage HD or PSU needed)

Stormster

Stormster

Stormster

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Hi guys, I think it's about time I did something about my PC. It's 10 years old now (P4 3.2GHz, 7600GT, Asus sound card, was all good kit in it's day lol).

It's running on XP and to be fair it's been really solid and still remained quick up until the current advert heavy websites and HD videos out there have become forefront to daily tinternet browsing.

All I use it for is general net browsing... facebook, twitter, research onto stuff I am interested in or going to buy etc, youtube and general videos like vimeo, iplayer/4od etc. This machine of mine struggles even on youtube now, within a min or two it's ready to overheat and the temp is @ 75 deg C so the warning buzzer goes mad. Doing my head in now, it doesn't play HD smooth at all either. I can have a few tabs over and it's beeping at me all the time. It is just struggling now, as you would expect.

So. I have a decent ATX Coolermaster case and cooling I can re-use, plus the PSU is a decent OCZ unit which will be fine. I am gonna carry over my 500GB HDD for now with music/videos/backups and chuck out the old IDE HDD's in my current set up. An SSD will do as my boot drive.

I am thinking £400 on hardware which will do the above. Video card... to be fair if I can get good on board for now I can add one later. I sometimes play Live For Speed but maybe if I have a better machine again I can see what new driving sims are out there. Will probably buy Windows 8.1 for this new build too. Hence keeping hardware budget @ £400. If a video card really is needed for the best video playback then factor in approx £80-£100. But I aren't really a gamer now. Monitor for now is an old square 17" one so it's not like I run huge resolutions either. Just want web based, iplayer, vimeo, youtube videos to play smoothly at "high resolution" in their own right.

So I am after:

Motherboard. Micro ATX, ATX, not fussed. Won't be expanding much!
CPU (quad core?)
Some very very quiet but decent CPU cooler
RAM. What's best, 8GB? 16GB?
128GB SSD
New decent DVDRW
Decent onboard sound on motherboard
Decent onboard video for now
May as well chuck a WiFi card in for what they cost :)

Looking for strong reliability and longetivity mainly. Performance to be very good but reliability is paramount.

What do you guys reckon? :D
 
I picked an APU as it would suit you perfectly. It will easily handle what you want from it. HD movies, streaming, browsing etc. Basically a GPU and CPU on one chip which means you don't need a graphics card. It has onboard sound too. Let me know what you think. Add about £10 for shipping to that and it'll cost just over £400.


YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £139.99
1 x Crucial M550 128GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M550SSD1) £68.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX316C10FBK2/8) £65.99
1 x Asus A88XM-PLUS AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £56.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £24.97
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24F1ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £18.95
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter (TL-WN851ND) £14.99
Total : £390.86 (includes shipping : ).

 
for what you do i think the dualcore Pentium K is perfect. learn to overclock brother its easy, and take it for a spin. the board has more upgrade paths than you will ever need, who doesn't want "options" in an unknown future right!

the DVDRW is on offer this week, down from 19.99 to 9.95

Awesome for £261 eh!

Add: i think you need a monitor upgrade. since your budget was £400 get yourself one with the change. Youtube looks better on a new LED 22" :)

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For even less money Kabini is great for this kind of thing. The integrated graphics is much faster than the 7600GT you have now! In a £44 CPU! :D

The price is less than jakesnake's G3258 build and it has better "extras" (cooler, SSD, wifi, DVD). However if there's a chance you'll keep this machine for a long time and want to upgrade it, IMHO go for the G3258, you can stick a powerful CPU in there if need be.

The 5350 and G3258 score about the same in graphics terms (link).

thebennyboy's Kaveri spec is the most powerful of the lot if you aren't going to buy a GPU.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £60.98
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £59.99
1 x AMD Athlon 5350 2.05GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) £43.99
1 x Asus AM1M-A AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £25.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £24.97
1 x Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter £19.99
1 x LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £249.91 (includes shipping : ).

 
This is what I have in my HTPC and have no problems web browsing or watching Youtube vids. I also have a 60GB ssd for OS(Windows 10 Technical Preview), an oldish 500W psu, 1TB hdd for movies and TV series. And just got a cheap HD 6450 for better BluRay playback. All in a nice little Lian Li mITX case.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £41.99
1 x AMD Sempron 3850 1.30GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) £26.99
1 x MSI AM1I AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) Mini ITX Motherboard £24.95
Total : £93.92 (includes shipping : ).



4GB ram is enough. Then if you need something more powerful, just source it from the MM.
 
joeyjojo said:
For even less money Kabini is great for this kind of thing. The integrated graphics is much faster than the 7600GT you have now! In a £44 CPU! :D

The price is less than jakesnake's G3258 build and it has better "extras" (cooler, SSD, wifi, DVD). However if there's a chance you'll keep this machine for a long time and want to upgrade it, IMHO go for the G3258, you can stick a powerful CPU in there if need be.

The 5350 and G3258 score about the same in graphics terms (link).

thebennyboy's Kaveri spec is the most powerful of the lot if you aren't going to buy a GPU.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £60.98
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £59.99
1 x AMD Athlon 5350 2.05GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) £43.99
1 x Asus AM1M-A AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £25.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £24.97
1 x Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter £19.99
1 x LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £249.91 (includes shipping : ).

Click to expand...

Aftermarket coolers wont fit the Kabini boards. There are only 2 holes set diagonally, besides, the stock cooler is more than sufficient and quiet.
 
joeyjojo said:
The price is less than jakesnake's G3258 build and it has better "extras" (cooler, SSD, wifi, DVD). However if there's a chance you'll keep this machine for a long time and want to upgrade it, IMHO go for the G3258, you can stick a powerful CPU in there if need be.
Click to expand...

Well considering hes had his current rig for 10years im thinking there is a good chance. Thats why i put him on the bottom end of Z98 so he can pick up a quality quad years from now for next to nothing.

Better extras? lol how do you work that one out pal? the cooler i picked is the best in its price range. the ocuk dvdrw drive is down from £20 on offer to £10. For general browsing around the net i think an SSD is overkill for him but i "DID" include one if you look. I thought better visuals would be well, better for him. He needs a monitor upgrade. Im just not feeling his 17" square non-widescreen.
 
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I like snappy performance. I've been impressed with machines I have built with SSD's, they make the whole user experience feel much snappier and urgent in it's delivery. Click, boom, loaded.

Now it's in my head I want stuff which will stand the test of time. Years ago I was well into it and before the days of Overclockers as a shop was selling overclocked CPU's and cooling products also :) Then all of a sudden you couldn't make any money so I lost interest in that side of it but worked in the trade for many years. Finally got out a short while ago but because of losing interest I also had no real need to keep up on the latest products for the work I was doing at the end.

I have been having a browse and I was looking at perhaps the Intel i5 4690.

I see there is a K version and notes of Haswell vs. Devils canyon. What's the deal here? Any core differences? Or is one overclockable and one not but identical/like for like at default settings?

Motherboard wise if I was to go down the i5 route... what is best for me? Obviously it seems Z97 may be of no benefit, but memory speed wise it seems odd the lesser boards only supporting 1600MHz stuff. Be nice if I could have a board supporting faster memory, assuming I can manipulate settings to run the memory faster despite not CPU overclocking?

I don't really know much about the lesser motherboard chipsets so any guidance would be brilliant :)

Otherwise, thank you all for the system ideas and suggestions. I'm in a mad rush today so I shall take a proper look in the morning and look into the offerings you guys have kindly picked out for me.

I've always been an intel man but to be fair for the last 5 years I've done nothing but push AMD based systems on to people personally! lol so maybe I should look into them.

Comments on the i5 choice over others gratefully received :)
 
I initially though this would cover what you needed :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel NUC DC3217BY Intel Core i3 Ivybridge Barebones Micro PC £129.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x Corsair ValueSelect "Low Voltage" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz 204 Pin SODIMM Kit (CMSO8GX3M2C1600C11) £65.99
1 x Crucial M500 120GB mSATA SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CT120M500SSD3) £56.99
Total : £330.91 (includes shipping : ).



And then realised l had not read your post properly so came up with this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** KFA2 GeForce GTX 760 EX OC 2048MB PCI-Express G (GX-049-KF) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z97M-DS3H Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £68.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit £59.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £49.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate 500GB SSHD Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" 5400RPM 64MB - ST500LM000 £39.98
1 x Asus PCE-N10 Network Adapter 150Mbps - PCI Express £12.98
1 x Raijintek Rhea Heatpipe CPU Cooler - PWM - 92mm £12.95
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £9.95
Total : £354.78 (includes shipping : ).



And finally this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £139.99
1 x **B Grade** KFA2 GeForce GTX 760 EX OC 2048MB PCI-Express G (GX-049-KF) £99.95
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit £59.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate 500GB SSHD Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" 5400RPM 64MB - ST500LM000 £39.98
1 x **B Grade** Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £25.99
1 x Asus PCE-N10 Network Adapter 150Mbps - PCI Express £12.98
1 x Raijintek Rhea Heatpipe CPU Cooler - PWM - 92mm £12.95
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £9.95
Total : £401.78 (includes shipping : ).

 
Hi mate, thanks for that, looks very good. Not sure how many amps the video card needs on 12v rail however as I'm sure my OCZ only does about 20 amps per rail (dual) @ 12v. Hence perhaps having a better CPU for now then a modern card which is not too power hungry for around that money if I feel I need one.

Always a little wary of things like B grade hard drives. But otherwise that looks a really well spec'd system (number 3) - thanks for taking the time to do that, tomorrow I'll be able to finally sit down properly and look at all options/ideas you guys have kindly looked at for me.

If anyone can help me understand which chipset would be best for my needs with the i5 (4690 I like the look of) Haswell CPU's if I am not overclocking that would be great too. A micro ATX board would be fine for my needs so that can help keep costs down, I won't need all singing and dancing with SLI/Crossfire support but need it to be reliable. I like Asus and Gigabyte mainly having dealt with both, Gigabyte UK have quick RMA turnarounds also which is good to know.

Ta :D
 
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Hi,

My tuppence worth is get the i5, fit an aftermarket cooler for £20, a Raijintek Themis, get a reasonable, robust motherboard, a Gigabyte Z97-HD3 ATX board for instance, get 8GB of ram (teamgroup elite 1600MHz, it's a good price) and get a Seagate Hybrid 1TB drive.
Add a WiFi network adapter and the cost will be about £398+ shipping.

I know you'd rather spend less but my thinking is that you want it to last a very long time and that generally, you get what you pay for.

Longevity is the payoff with a good 4 core cpu, latest chipset M/B, 8GB of ram and a 1TB Hybrid drive which is a reasonable middle ground for speed, size, cost and reliability.

As for a GPU, if you find you need one down the line if you start gaming again, something like a GTX 750 or equivalent should do. Some of them will play BF3 with no problems, so a GTX 950 etc when they finally make one should be right up your alley.

Hope i've given you something to think about.
 
Hi mate, no moneywise that is what I was thinking of. I think it'd make sense spend a little more on the CPU at this point then add in a video card of the caliber you mentioned also when/if necessary if I start doing a bit of gaming. I can also look into a new monitor a bit down the line.

Time to do some shopping around :)

With the Z97 boards... even though I am not OC'ing my CPU, can I manipulate memory speeds with these supporting over 1600MHz via OC'ing?
 
Hi, just a couple of more thoughts :)

You might consider getting 16 GB of ram and this was the type of card i was thinking about as it has 2GB of ram which might be need for when you get a bigger better monitor.

MSI GeForce GTX 750 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-261-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1854

The reason for the ram is that just before HL2 came out i got a new PC to be ready for it, it had 1GB of Ram, 7 years later 1GB of ram just wouldn't cut it for general computer use.
 
Certainly something to look at :) I aren't sure if I'd ever get back into gaming, time is always a limiting factor at the moment but it'd be nice to know it can as I used to like the odd racing sim :) That vid card does look good value!
 
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