Help with new build £500 budget - non gaming pc

leftfield121

leftfield121

leftfield121

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24 Mar 2012
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11
Hi guys, I'm looking for ideas on a complete build including OS on a budget of around £450 - 500. It will not be a gaming pc - it will mostly be used for graphics manipulation in photoshop (no video or 3D work) and similar so I figure I could skimp on the graphics card and gear towards a more powerful cpu instead.

The only other requirement I have is that I will need to factor in a wireless network adapter or card into this price.

Many thanks in advanced!
 
Idleman said:
Have you any components from an existing PC that you can reuse.
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Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately not. I'm building for a friend who has a 10 year old computer with specs to cry about because they's so bad. It would all be IDE and severely outdated.

I can skimp on the graphics card and hard drive size as they're an older guy who doesn't need it to do gaming or store a lot - purely for photshopping, web browsing and word processing. They want to use a tablet with photoshop and just have a system that's not 10 years old. Not needing top of the line gear.

As fast as we can get without a super graphics card and hard drive would be top notch for their needs.

Edit: no need for any mouse/keyboard or monitor. Just the system - mobo, hd, cd drive, ram, cpu, OS, psu, graphics card, case etc. Sorry I wasn't clear on that.
 
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Many thanks for the build!

I would actually be able to take the SSD drive out of there as I'm sure they wouldn't even know how to use it. A 500gb drive would be more space than they'd ever use and simple enough for them to understand.

I'm probably going to make myself look stupid here, but would it be a wise decision to swap the SSD for a low end graphics card to take some strain off the cpu or would the i5 be enough as-is for graphics capability?
 
This is better, LucidLogic MVP to boost the graphics. Use the SSD for OS and software and hdd for all other storage.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3450 3.10GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £154.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) £44.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38192M1600HC11DC) £29.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x MSI HD 5450 1024MB GDDR5 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £25.99
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps High-Gain Wireless-N USB Adapter (TL-WN822N) £17.99
Total : £483.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
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Seems pretty solid and along the lines of what I was thinking to do. Always better to ask here instead of wondering if parts are compatable or a good idea to use together or not. Thank you very much, I really appreciate the time you took on this for me. I'm going to need to explain to them what a SSD drive is for haha, but since I'm going to be building and installing they wont have to worry about it so much.

Thank you again!
 
leftfield121 said:
Seems pretty solid and along the lines of what I was thinking to do. Always better to ask here instead of wondering if parts are compatable or a good idea to use together or not. Thank you very much, I really appreciate the time you took on this for me. I'm going to need to explain to them what a SSD drive is for haha, but since I'm going to be building and installing they wont have to worry about it so much.

Thank you again!
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I took the SSD out because it was over budget(was getting it mixed up with another thread £550) but if you don`t mind going over, you can always put it back.
 
Idleman said:
I took the SSD out because it was over budget(was getting it mixed up with another thread £550) but if you don`t mind going over, you can always put it back.
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Yeah it's no big deal, I'll ask them if they want to include it or not in their price for a bit of an extra kick or keep it on budget. Thanks again!
 
leftfield121 said:
Yeah it's no big deal, I'll ask them if they want to include it or not in their price for a bit of an extra kick or keep it on budget. Thanks again!
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As i don`t know much about photoshop, can you tell me if the work they are doing is very cpu intensive. If not, an i3 cpu might be enough and still keep the ssd within budget.
 
Idleman said:
As i don`t know much about photoshop, can you tell me if the work they are doing is very cpu intensive. If not, an i3 cpu might be enough and still keep the ssd within budget.
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I'm really not sure what exactly they want to do with it but they telling me their friend was doing CAD work on a dual core 2.4ghz CPU and it wasn't up to scratch so I figured I'd throw in the best cpu at that price range just to be sure; even if it's overkill you can't really go wrong with a nice CPU. I'd imagine it would be fairly CPU intensive if they wanted to do hi-res work. They could sell it and downgrade if they really feel like it I guess but why would you want to if you can afford a nicer one?

I'm fairly sure they'll let me go a little over budget as they didn't specifically ask me to factor in the wireless adaptor on the main system price - that with shipping took it over £500 but the actual system is £500 so I'm sure they'll be happy to go over a little for a complete build.

I'll bounce it off them anyway and see if they'd consider the i3 instead of the i5 if they were iffy about the SSD bringing it over price.

Thank you for all the help, I really appreciate it :)
 
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I have an HD5450 in my server, and I think that HD4000 graphics are much much better. That 5450 is utterly useless...
 
Idleman said:
Yes the HD4000 is better than the 5450, but the i5 3450 does`nt have HD4000.
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Oh yes, sorry. Well the HD5450 is close to HD3000 graphics, and the i5 mentioned has HD2500 graphics... Im not sure how HD3000 and HD2500 compare, but i am inclined to say that adding the HD5450 is a waste of money.
After a little research, it seems that HD2500 and HD3000 are very nearly the same, and HD3000 and the HD5450 are very nearly the same.
 
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