£400 base unit spec

This is the one I m going for http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-426-GI

A friend is collecting it for me this morning.

My buddy is talking about the matx version he used in his spec. You could use that put being a smaller sized mobo it has fewer PCI slots and I hate the blue PCB (that might not bother you).

Just out of interest, how come the amd richland APUs get recommended over a Pentium or i3 for a completely non gaming build? I thought the amd APUs traded CPU performance for graphical performance. For an entirely non gaming build I would have thought ivy 3rd gen integrated graphics would have been sufficient and the faster CPU performance would have been worth it?

We try to balance specs out to the budget to make the best all round rig. The A8K makes for a very good all round general use home PC. It uses a bit more power than the Ivy i3 but it is cheaper. The FM2 mobos we used are well spec'd being comparable to Z77 mobos but cheaper, the intel H61 and B75 you'll note have fewer SataIII ports too.

So for £400ish he has a decent home PC with the gaming capabilities of current gen consoles. Granted he said he didn't game but it's nice to know the rig is capable of doing more than he wants it to ;)


That's just the lowly A6K Dual core (with an even weaker IGP) on 1600Mhz RAM and you can see it's actually pretty impressive. He could have got away with using that most likely but as I said we try to balance things to the price, he could afford the quad core A8K so that's what we spec'd :)
 
Hi guys,

Im using the finished pc to type this on.:cool:

I cant believe how good this is for the money. :D

A big thank you to all of you that contributed to the build.

Final price minus postage because I collected £401.81

Cheers
Jim

The final spec

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD120BW) £74.99
1 x AMD A8-5600K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor **FREE SIMCITY PC GAME** (AD560KWOHJBOX) £67.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual CHannel Kit (PV38G213C1K) £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £48.95
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black £47.95
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
Total : £414.41 (includes shipping : £10.50).

 
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It's a good case. Makes it look like it's a really high end PC.

Be sure to give Sim City a try too. You might end up spending ridiculous amounts in the Steam sales like the rest of us ;)

Edit: or sell it, as above!
 
Still got cable tidying to do! :) Its a really nice case to work on.

That's why I spec'd the Corsair 430W Modular as it would have made cable management easier for you. Once you use a modular PSU anything else looks like a nest of snakes ;)

I'm glad you love the rig. I've done several builds basically identical to that (even with the XFX 450W). When you consider the SSD is THE most expensive component in the basket it's amazing what the rig is capable of for the cash :D

Would have been nice if you had done a build log with some pics. This would help your post count and get you closer to the free P&P. An aftermarket cooler would be nice but you can add one much later on when you don't have to pay the postage ;)

Pleasure to help, so glad you got it up and going with zero hassle :)
 
Would be good to see photos anyway once the build is tidied.

To think that you get a fast PC with tons of memory, SSD *and* hard drive, capable of xbox 360 style gaming for £400 is pretty amazing really.
 
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