£400 Build - Can it be done?

[gradyhawks]

So, having finally decided what I wanted PC wise, I'm getting all my mates sorted so we can all play some games together. This particular friend's laptop recently died (got crushed!) and instead of replacing it with another £400 piece of tat, he was wondering if he could get a small desktop instead.

Now, its not much of a budget and this fellow has recently got a taste for playing PC games (finally!). He won't get much for £400, but £400 on a desktop > £400 on a laptop! He won't need an OS, DVD drive or a monitor. Can't go over £400 as I need to throw in a screen as well (he can have my old one for £50 or so).

I've thrown the 20th unlocked K CPU in there as I can sell him that as well for £30. Best I've managed to do knowing this is £10 over... then the screen. So £60 over.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 270 TurboDUO 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £93.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £59.99
1 x Crucial MX100 128GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT128MX100SSD1) £54.98
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £49.99
1 x Raijintek Metis*- Black Mini ITX Case £35.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 300W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £31.99
Total : £446.48 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Not sure on AMD side of things. As I said, would be great if it could at least do medium at 1080 on a few games.

Cheers,

Grady

 

[stulid]

AMD AM3+ dont have any good small boards and zero itx ones, so skip that.

There are AMD APUs and mATX boards, but if you add a gfx card to this to enable it to play games well, then that defeats the point of buying an APU i think.

Does it have to be that small?

 

[gradyhawks]

Doesn't have to be that small, but smaller the better. I just liked the look of the case is all. Bigger just means I have to carry it up the 3 flights of stairs to his flat.... >_>

if it gets it in budget, then sure can go bigger!

 

[stulid]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 270 TurboDUO 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £61.99
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** SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £46.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £39.95
1 x Silverstone Redline RL01 Gaming Case - Black (SST-RL01B USB 3.0) £29.99
Total : £408.49 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 

[gradyhawks]

Ah nice, probs best to go for a HDD due to budget. Why the 550w over the 300w? Or will it need it?

Would anything other than a Z97 be able to overclock the K?

 

[stulid]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18611462

That thread has various success results.

But Z97 is guaranteed to oc it and more future proof.

 

[gradyhawks]

Ah I see, yeah I agree, rather a guaranteed OC.

Thanks again Stulid!

 

[AthlonXP1800]

Why the 550w over the 300w? Or will it need it?

I checked SuperFlower Amazon 300W spec, it has only combined 25A +12V for the whole system! Not enough to power Radeon 270 alone which need minimum 500W PSU with 24A +12V.

 

[fat4l]

yeah. at least get some "medium" quality 400-500w... 300w not nuff. It also doenst mean it will consume the whole 500w, just the Watts ur system is using

 

[PurplePhoenix]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 285 Dual-X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £175.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit £59.99
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £49.99
1 x **B Grade** SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £46.99
1 x AMD Athlon 5150 1.60GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) £35.99
1 x Gigabyte GA-AM1M-S2H AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Mirco ATX Motherboard £23.99
1 x **B Grade** Aerocool Qs-101 Micro-ATX Case - Black £17.00
Total : £419.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).



something from the AMD side of things, I used this as a reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgyI8bfrYt4.

You can swap the SSD out for a normal hard drive and lower the graphics card if needed.

 

[stulid]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 285 Dual-X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £175.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit £59.99
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £49.99
1 x **B Grade** SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £46.99
1 x AMD Athlon 5150 1.60GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) £35.99
1 x Gigabyte GA-AM1M-S2H AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Mirco ATX Motherboard £23.99
1 x **B Grade** Aerocool Qs-101 Micro-ATX Case - Black £17.00
Total : £419.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).



somehing from the ADM side of things, I used this as a reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgyI8bfrYt4.

The GFX card is too long for the case.

http://www.aerocool.com.tw/index.php/pgs/pgs-q/37-case/pgs-q/1107-qs-101-white-edition-specs

Max length space available for PCI slots 240mm (if ODD not installed)

http://www.sapphiretech.com/present...d=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2442&psn=000101&lid=1

264(L)X113(W)X34(H) mm Size.

 

[PurplePhoenix]

The GFX card is too long for the case.

http://www.aerocool.com.tw/index.php/pgs/pgs-q/37-case/pgs-q/1107-qs-101-white-edition-specs


http://www.sapphiretech.com/present...d=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2442&psn=000101&lid=1

opps, my bad, I was trying keep the cost down.

 

[tamzzy]

my 2p:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 270 TurboDUO 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Seagate SSHD ST500LM000 500GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM £49.99
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £34.99
2 x TeamGroup Elite 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single Channel Module (TED34GM1333C901) £26.99 (£53.98)
1 x Zalman T3 Micro -ATX Case USB 3.0 - Black £20.99
Total : £407.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).



hybrid sshd for the best of both worlds - large capacity of a hdd and snappiness of a ssd
i think you should forgo the oc-ing bit, if you're building for your friend, just saves the hassle tbh. the i3 non-oc is just as good/slightly better than an oc-ed pentium AE (especially with games that can take advantage of hyperthreading)

 

[WalderX]

Can't improve on Stulid's build tbh. Clock that CPU to 4GHz, +100mhz to the 270 and the system will be pretty pretty darn good for £400.

BF4 on high settings 1080p @ ~50-60fps should be achievable.

 

[Sandycheeks]

My attempt, you can drop the SSHD for a standard HDD and save around £17.00. and you could also save another £7 by going with the Powercolor GPU so not bad really.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11220-00-20G) £115.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit £59.99
1 x AMD Athlon X4 760K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) Richland Quad Core Processor (AD760KWOHLBOX) £59.99
1 x Seagate SSHD 7200RPM 3.5" 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DX001) SSHD Hybrid Drive £57.98
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H AMD A88X Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £53.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £41.99
1 x **B Grade** Aerocool Qs-101 Micro-ATX Case - Black £17.00
Total : £416.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 

[Sandycheeks]

or
YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 270 TurboDUO 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
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 Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £39.95
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0500-KR) £39.95
1 x Zalman Z1 Midi-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £30.95
Total : £399.81 (includes shipping : £11.25).

 

[Goody_GTI]

or
YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 270 TurboDUO 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
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 Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £39.95
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0500-KR) £39.95
1 x Zalman Z1 Midi-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £30.95
Total : £399.81 (includes shipping : £11.25).

This and stulid's build look pretty decent to me for the money. Is the 270 the best card for ~ £110 ?

 

[stulid]

It is the best card, but keep an eye on the Bgrade section as a few days ago there was a Gigabyte windforce 7950 for a £100'ish.

 

[David Bisset]

I like the i3 option tamzzy went for personally, given the difference in mobo prices you're looking at about £10 more for the i3 over the Pentium K and the i3 is well worth that in my eyes.

I only like pentiums as cheap chips - which when spending more on the mobo stops making sense to me. That's why I don't like the K edition personally.

 

[Goody_GTI]

It is the best card, but keep an eye on the Bgrade section as a few days ago there was a Gigabyte windforce 7950 for a £100'ish.

Yes I've done a quick search and something like the 750 ti just isn't quite as good.