£400 - Budget Spec Me!

paddy

paddy

paddy

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Sorry for another of these threads but I am woefully out of touch.

I have ~£400 to spent on a machine.

It will be used for Internet/Office and (fairly heavy) photo management/editing, no gaming at all.

I already have a monitor and an OS (windows 7), so just the tower is required.

My only requirement is that it's rock solid stable - I am never going to get round to overclocking the system though.

I was initially looking at the OCuk pre-builds:

but wondered if you guys could spec something better?

A 500GB HDD is plenty and I do have a soft spot for the "Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache" drive in the above builds.

Thanks in advance :)
 
Ah ha, I was looking for a thread like that - it's hiding on page 6 - I stopped looking at 5 :$

I'll give it a read, initial thoughts are if I remove the GFX card what mobo & CPU should I upgrade to?
 
Id swap the mobo for the 785G with onboard gfx, very capable gfx too, then you can up the cpu as far as you like, you might even be able to squeeze in the Phenom 955BE which is on This Week Only

In fact having done quick re-spec the 955 would put you 35 over budget, your call, the 720 tri core keeps you on budget

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £97.99 (£85.21)
Patriot Sector 5 G Series 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel (PGV34G1600ELK) £70.99 (£61.73)
Asus M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £67.99 (£59.12)
Corsair VX 450W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-450VXUK) £54.99 (£47.82)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £39.99 (£34.77)
Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £34.99 (£30.43)
LG GH22NS50 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - Retail £21.99 (£19.12)
Sub Total : £338.20
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £52.49
Total : £402.44
 
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Thanks for that - I'll take a look at that in a second.

I spec'd this up a moment ago:

pc_spec_1.jpg


Not totally sure what I'm doing tbh :)

I can get free delivery through the forum offer, and I can probably reuse the DVD drive I have from my current PC to save some £ in the short term, I'll have a look over that spec you just posted now

Cheers
 
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Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Patriot Sector 5 Viper II 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel + 3D Mark Vantage (PVV34G1600LLKB) £80.99
(£70.43) £80.99
(£70.43)
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 620 2.60GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £79.99
(£69.56) £79.99
(£69.56)
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £74.99
(£65.21) £74.99
(£65.21)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £39.99
(£34.77) £39.99
(£34.77)
**B Grade** PC Power & Cooling Silencer 420W Power Supply (BG-000-PP) £39.99
(£34.77) £39.99
(£34.77)
Akasa AK-968 X4 CPU Cooler (Socket 939/AM2/AM3/775/1156/1366) £19.99
(£17.38) £19.99
(£17.38)
LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£16.51) £18.99
(£16.51)
Akasa Genesis AK-5004 Midi Tower Case - Black £16.99
(£14.77) £16.99
(£14.77)
Sub Total : £323.40
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £50.01
Total : £383.41
 
Thanks for your help guys, think I'll bite the bullet and get the Phenom 955BE.

Looked at the cheaper case but girlfriend didn't like the lights...:rolleyes:

Here is how the basket sits with my CC ready:

pc_spec_2.jpg
 
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You sure you really need the 955 over the 620 for what you're doing? The only really cache intensive thing is gaming...

I'd go for the RAM i selected, £10 more for lower CAS... you could always get the 1333MHz CL6 Patriot one's for the same price. But to be honest, CL9 is a bit too high.

PSU i chose is cheaper for about the same stuff, it's open box but it's near silent.

If i'm not much mistaken there are lights on the CM Elite 335's fan?
 
Ah ok, wasn't thinking about cache - only cores and clock to be honest.

I'll look back at that PSU and RAM.

As for the case the front fan with the lights isn't included, you only get a rear 120mm
 
The 620 has four cores... and some have unlockable L3 cache. For pretty much half the price i don't see why you would need more.

Mobo's, since you're not gaming then it's pointless getting a graphics card, but a motherboard (780G, 785G or 790GX) with integrated graphics helps a lot with HD movies and whatnot.
 
Your right regarding the price, think I'll save the £55 quid difference and put that towards an upgrade in the future.

The choice of motherboard still eludes me, looking for something stable, however the difference between the Asus and the Gigabyte seem negligible. Does the Gigabyte support 1600Mhz RAM without overclocking (guess from the detailed spec list)?
 
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