Budget build with some reused parts

avrc

avrc

avrc

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Joined
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Location
Cannock
Our son needs a newer pc as it's struggling to cope with games. It's an aging Phenom X3 with a hard drive that's constantly full.

The budget is around £300 including the use of some spare hardware that I have.

I want to reuse a spare Corsair Obsidian 250D mITX case
I want to reuse his current corsair PSU, I think it's 500 - 550w which is less than a year old.
GFX - I've got a spare 460 GTX 1GB or a Radion 5870 1GB
He's got Windows 7 retail so we can use that.

So I need an mITX board with built in WIFI, CPU, 8GB RAM and probably a 2TB HDD.

Really it's the CPU I'm struggling with at the moment.

He doesn't play majorly demanding games. At the moment he's playing Minecraft, Roblox, Garry's Mod, CS:GO, Americas Army and occasionally some of the COD games. Only other uses are Facebook and Skype. Screen resolution is 1280x1024

Any help gratefully appreciated.
 
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What about something like this.

YOUR BASKET
1 x ASRock Z97E-ITX/AC Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £114.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CML8GX3M2B1600C11) £55.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003) £41.99
Total : £268.92 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



Under budget so you could increase the HDD to 2TB (although i think that's overkill) or get a decent cooler for that pentium K so you can boost it to 4/4.5Ghz
 
Thanks guys. Not sure about the SSD. He'd try and install all his games on it as well. Considering he's grown up with a PC (he's 13 now) and does some sort of computing class at school he knows bugger all about them and has no interest in learning. He just wants to turn it on and start playing and chatting to his mates.

I don't think a 2TB is overkill. He records himself playing various games so has folders full of those!

Is the 2 core Intel better than a 4 core AMD? Originally I looked at the A10 APUs and got a build in on budget but thought I better ask on here before committing to anything.
 
avrc said:
Thanks guys. Not sure about the SSD. He'd try and install all his games on it as well. Considering he's grown up with a PC (he's 13 now) and does some sort of computing class at school he knows bugger all about them and has no interest in learning. He just wants to turn it on and start playing and chatting to his mates.

I don't think a 2TB is overkill. He records himself playing various games so has folders full of those!

Is the 2 core Intel better than a 4 core AMD? Originally I looked at the A10 APUs and got a build in on budget but thought I better ask on here before committing to anything.
Click to expand...

The Pentium K when overclocked is a pretty good chip for low/mid end gaming. AMD chips tend to suffer on core performance because of their architecture.

However if he's recording (what is he recording with?) that might not be a brilliant idea with the Pentium K.
I had one, brilliant chip i found for gaming, but while gaming it didn't like multi tasking.
 
avrc said:
Thanks guys. Not sure about the SSD. He'd try and install all his games on it as well.
Click to expand...

An SSD makes such a great imporvement. It's like night and day in performance.

I assume he uses Steam for games? You just make the Steam library on the HDD, easy as that!
 
Hi, how about a 6 core, overclockable, Amd build with a wireless card and a 2TB drive for £278 inc. delivery?

AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £83 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-338-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=1825

MSI 970A-G43 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £47 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-277-MS&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2046

Kingston HyperX Fury White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FWK2/8) £44 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-172-KS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler £15 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-002-RT&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2666

Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter £19 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-043-AS&groupid=46&catid=1597

Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM001) £60 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-255-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1955

*cpu cooler out of stock but they say it's due soon.
 
I'd go to the members market for i5 sandy/ivy for £100 with cheap mobo. 8GB RAM can be had along with a cheap 2TB drive and a 256GB SSD. Shouldn't cost more than £230.
 
Get posting op! or perhaps...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel Core i5 DIY Micro ATX Motherboard, CPU & RAM Bundle £227.93
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £46.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA100) £35.99
Total : £310.91 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



I know its "only" a 1tb drive; you could drop the 120gb ssd in favour of more spinny storage, but I could not allow myself to advise someone to use a modern system without an SSD.
 
Ahh well i thought it was 1000 posts, maybe it's different for you as you've been a member for so long?

If you can buy from there, if people are selling what you want then you're sorted :)
 
I have two sons, 9 and 11, sharing a PC, currently an old LGA775, they have had E8500 and Q9550 in there.

They are getting a G3258 next, because I have not seen anything they do that requires more than two cores or 8gb of memory. Anything more for a child is throwing pennies after pounds.

They currently have a 120gb SSD and 1.5tb WD Green, and never put anything on the green, so I am contemplating a single SSD. But that said, previous to this SSD they had a standard 500gb HDD only and it never got any complaints.

I would consider a single SSD or single HDD.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial BX100 500GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT500BX100SSD1) £139.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x Toshiba 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA200) £53.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £44.99
1 x TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter (TL-WDN4800) £26.99
1 x **B Grade** Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £25.00
Total : £346.94 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



Just some examples.

Another option to Wireless would be Homeplugs.

YOUR BASKET
1 x TP-Link AV500 Nano Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (TL-PA411KIT) £26.99
Total : £26.99 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



As my home has so many wireless devices I gave something similar a try and it worked very well.

Though I see you state mini ITX due to your case!

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI H97I AC Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Asus USB-N53 Wireless-N Network Adapter £23.99
Total : £162.97 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

 
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Are the i5 4460 cpu's any good? I had a look on ebay and notice a lot of new pc's with this cpu at roughly the £300 budget.
 
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