£350 for a Base unit. Help

koolpc

koolpc

koolpc

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A mate wants a base unit as his old one has died. He has win 7 retail so no need tfor an OS. His budget is £350. He will be using it mainly for Photoshop / Lightroom.

Can guys suggest a PC base for £350 without the OS?

Maybe a 256GB SSD would be good and 8gb ram? Not sure on anything else

Cheers
 
Can you be a bit more specific on how his PC died. It may just be one or 2 components, which if so, could be replaced.
Also, can you list the components, so we can see what can be salvaged/reused.
 
Idleman said:
Can you be a bit more specific on how his PC died. It may just be one or 2 components, which if so, could be replaced.
Also, can you list the components, so we can see what can be salvaged/reused.
Click to expand...

He wants all new. Nothing worth salvaging as he had an old PSU in it that went bang and took out some other components. Ram and hard drive was low, 2gb and 256gb mech drive.

CPU and motherboard were off of the Ark!!
 
He will need a new case, cheap as possible will do as he is hiding it under the desk.

He needs:

Case, Probably MicroATX, Cheap and black!
CPU
Motherboard
Ram
SSD and 500gb Mech Drive
DVD Writer (Yes, he still uses one!)
Power supply

No dedicated GPU needed as he doesn't game at all. PC will be used for Photoshop and Lightroom and internet.

Cheers
 
hello, i have mocked up a amd side just because its a 6 core processor which would be very beneficial and also included 8gb as the more ram the better but 350 wont get you 16gb unless you go used, the motherboard should be enough for whats needed also.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £354.54
(includes shipping: £11.70)
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ps nothing is wrong with having an optical, most computers still have them and not everything can be downloaded from web or installed via usb.
 
Only 8GB of RAM as budget is tight, but has an SSD/HDD/Optical, MicroATX, reasonable PSU, and an I3 6100 which should be decent enough.



My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £362.54
(includes shipping: £11.70)
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​
 
(Note: talking about ExoMale's AMD rig here, Armageus added his while I was typing - I doubt you can get the Intel setup for under £350)

You're talking £25 more for 16GB of RAM. Is it possible to steal the DVD-RW out of the old rig? It's very unlikely to have been blown up by the PSU (they're pretty rugged), and that would free up £14

Save another £7 by swapping the SSD to this (he won't notice any real difference): https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...lid-state-drive-ct240bx200ssd1-hd-060-cr.html

And he just has to find £9 to get 16GB of RAM which Photoshop etc appreciate. I'd also suggest that the SSD can probably be found cheaper elsewhere - I got the one I linked for £45 recently, in which case he can come in under budget
 
Audigex said:
(Note: talking about ExoMale's AMD rig here, Armageus added his while I was typing - I doubt you can get the Intel setup for under £350)

You're talking £25 more for 16GB of RAM. Is it possible to steal the DVD-RW out of the old rig? It's very unlikely to have been blown up by the PSU (they're pretty rugged), and that would free up £14

Save another £7 by swapping the SSD to this (he won't notice any real difference): https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...lid-state-drive-ct240bx200ssd1-hd-060-cr.html

And he just has to find £9 to get 16GB of RAM which Photoshop etc appreciate. I'd also suggest that the SSD can probably be found cheaper elsewhere - I got the one I linked for £45 recently, in which case he can come in under budget
Click to expand...

yeah i didnt think i would mock a intel build thats quad to qualify, but brand is also preference, so it would depend what his mate would prefer, but i put in an optical and ssd just to get a final build look :)
 
intel build, skipping on the ssd if you have one and optical if you can reuse. i added a graphics card just because intel graphics are pretty weak and the 240 was cheapest full height, but other than the intel build above, i doubt you will get anything better for budget from intel.

the 4th gen i3 cpu's are great i have one, but i dont do rendering or anything, so i wouldnt know just how good they would be for that stuff, i just play reasonably intensive games

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £333.55
(includes shipping: £11.70)
​


​
 
Armageus said:
Only 8GB of RAM as budget is tight, but has an SSD/HDD/Optical, MicroATX, reasonable PSU, and an I3 6100 which should be decent enough.



My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £362.54
(includes shipping: £11.70)
​


​
Click to expand...

This looks really good, cheers
 
koolpc said:
Intel Core i3 4170

This any good?
Click to expand...

Little to no difference with the 6100.

Personally would get the newer platform and add some more ram later. Not worth buying old tech for such a small saving.

Skylakes (even I3 6100) can also be over clocked assuming a suitable BIOS is available which I would consider a little bonus
 
koolpc said:
Intel Core i3 4170

This any good?
Click to expand...

yes, it acts like a quad where needed because of hyper-threading, i have a very sightly slower speed one and probably the 2 most demanding games im playing(min suggest quads for both) are 'the evil within' and 'wolfenstein the new blood', while i set a lock of 60fps for evil i do get between high 20s- mid 50s depending on scene with the very odd dip below 27fps and a locked 60fps on new blood(smooth as butter) and this is coupled with a gtx 750 1gb, i do have 16gb ram, but whether that comes in to account i dont know.

but as i say the intel graphics are shocking, i can play BF4 at low 40s-high 80s fps with gtx, but hd4400 doesnt even touch 11fps.
 
yes i know, but this is my experience and i am sharing it so you got an understanding, games can be demanding just like rendering/photoshop and so on software to some extent
 
i havent used photoshop in ages and probably not as demanding, but it does depend what versions you use as like with games, every new edition requires more compute power be that more ram, quad cores, fancy graphical stuff or whatever, plus if you doing editing on anything but basic software and rendering your going to need the best you can get, thats why people spend fortunes on the hardware.

what your friend needs is an i7, but not going to happen unless you look on a complete system on gumtree or some other sales site if not this MM i hear about on here.
 
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