New build for friend around £600

Associate
Joined
30 May 2012
Posts
2,482
Location
Bristol
A friend of mine is looking to build a new computer. He has a budget of around £600 (though this can be increased if need be) and will need everything including a monitor, minus the OS and optical drive. I was hoping to squeeze an IB/Haswell i5 (probably locked multi on this budget) and a HD 7850 if possible. Thanks :)
 
Associate
Joined
20 Jun 2012
Posts
2,428
Location
Polegate, East Sussex
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £149.99
1 x BenQ GL2055 20" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £79.99
1 x MSI B75A-G43 Intel B75 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £68.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £43.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £43.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £39.95
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
Total : £631.30 (includes shipping : £17.85).




I am new to speccing, so await someone with more knowledge to give their suggestions, but this could be around what you want, as it gives you the I5 & the 7850, but as you mentioned, it is not a K version. Comes in slightly a touch over budget.

Perhaps a cheaper motherboard could be attained if you go for a matx board, but I prefer the full size ones personally, make it a bit easier to work on putting it together. Perhaps a i3 would be more suited, with a higher clock rate, or even looking at the other team, as the same CPU cost would net you a FX8350 & the motherboard would probably be cheaper too.
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Jan 2010
Posts
3,188
Location
Guildford
The above looks like a decent starting build to me for that kind of budget, however if the budget is a little flexible I'd maybe suggested trying to squeeze an unlocked k chip and a cooler in there in case he decides to go for anything more CPU intensive, gaming or otherwise. The 3GHz 3330 chip will handle most things quite fine but being able to overclock to 4.3GHz+ (possible with most 3570k or 4670k chips) will give the build a little more 'future proofing' as they say.

Affordable Sandy/Ivy bridge mobo with decent overclocking options: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-391-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261
Haswell mobo if you decide to go that route: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-005-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2574
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
12 Feb 2013
Posts
1,092
Location
East Mids
AMD alternative, 760 is a faster card than the 7850 and you also gain the benifits from CUDA cores and physx.
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-7850-vs-GeForce-GTX-760

PSU is made by seasonic, which is the best OEM for psu's
http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/psu_manufacturers

CPU wise for gaming there isn't much in it between the AMD 6300 and the 8320
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/699?vs=698

Motherboard also supports SLI, so an upgrade later down the line you can add a second gtx760.

And you are getting a 24inch monitor for the same price as the 20inch. Which looking around the net has some good reviews on it.

You did mention you had room to move in your budget, but not by how much. Also what is the main use of the system? gaming, video editing etc.

YOUR BASKET
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 670 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with a free copy of 3DMark advanced edition £239.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £83.99
1 x **B Grade** BenQ GL2450 24" Widescreen LED Mon (MO-057-BQ) £79.99
1 x MSI 970A-G46 AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £64.99
1 x Zalman Z9 USB 3.0 Midi Tower Case - Black £54.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £49.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £43.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper T4 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £20.99
Total : £706.61 (includes shipping : £14.75).

 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom