£500 pc spec check

jonny109

jonny109

jonny109

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Hi all,

I am helping a friend out who wants to build his first computer. The budget is approx £500. This is the spec I have come up with so far:


  • Intel Core i5-2500K
  • Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
  • Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
  • Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1066 Memory
  • Seagate Barracuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hard Drive
  • Asus GeForce 650 1GB GPU
  • Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Reader
  • Coolermaster Elite 430 All Black Case With Elite 500W PSU


That comes to a total of £537.13

- I used a website called ************ to construct this spec so some of the components are not available from overclockers
- Monitor is not required

Just wandering if anybody had any comments on this spec and if I need to make any changes

Thanks in advance
Jonny
 
The D3H is the best budget Z77 board on the market, it has better OC features within the BIOS to get the most out of the CPU.

Reviews.

Kitguru.
Hexus.
eteknix.
Madshrimps.
Windwithme.
tbreak.
Click to expand...

Kitguru even gave it the budget board for 2012 award - http://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/zardon/kitguru-annual-awards-2012/5/

You might find that 1600Mhz RAM is cheaper or the same price as its more commonly used and more available.


I've just quickly knocked this up below,


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 650 Black Knight OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) HDD £42.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £39.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX16C9T3K2/8X) £37.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £534.96 (includes shipping : £11.75).



So there are some better items for the same price and some not so good items.
 
Last edited:
Pretty similar to Stulids build but a different change of case, b-grade HDD and a better GPU:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x MSI HD 7770 GHz Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £39.98
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - White £39.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX16C9T3K2/8X) £37.99
1 x **B Grade** Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM £30
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £535.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Edit: The PSU in your first post is a very misrable pile of donkey doo really. You'd be much better of with a rebranded one, even its a CWT one or something.
 
My last try,


YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £92.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** HDD £53.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £39.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX16C9T3K2/8X) £37.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £504.96 (includes shipping : £11.75).




Sacrificed the CPU for a stronger GFX card, but the quality board is still there should he want to upgrade to a "K" CPU later and overclock it.

If this is a gaming rig?
 
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Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM is faster and cheaper
Elite 500W PSU are very low end and are normally bundled with cases, i'd swap it and get case without then add your own,

Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply

etc, something that will last longer

agree with above on m/b

nvidia cost more than amd cards, but for same price amd ones tend to be faster so you could do better with video

and you could do loads better with ram, geil or Samsung Green etc

this is for you jonny109 as there was only one other post when i started this :)
 
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Im guessing this is a gaming rig considering he wants a GPU, hopefully he replies soon.

First off you have 2 cases in that build Stulid ;) Take one off and it drops down to around £510.

However I really wouldnt use a "Green" HDD for the primary drive, as its slower than a standard 7200 RPM drive.
 
quote " The Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB is an energy-efficient 1TB hard disk, designed to save power using Western Digital's Intellipower technology, which uses a variety of caching algorithms to get the best possible performance from the disk's 5,400rpm spin speed.

It's only to be expected that a low-power disk won't perform quite as well as its more power-hungry equivalents, but the Caviar Green did rather well, all things considered. Its performance in our large file transfer tests was particularly good, with an average of 139.2MB/s based on a 132.1MB/s write speed and 146.3MB/s read speed.

It was in our small file test that the slow spin speed had a detrimental impact, dropping average throughput to 47.5MB/s, with a 38.4MB/s write and 56.6MB/s read speed. These aren't bad for a low-power disk, but make it better suited as a data disk than your main system disk. " end quote
 
Just read it.

Looks good for large files but me wonders how well it works for small files and apps like Word, Chrome etc.
 
Hi all thanks for replying. Just to confirm yes it is a gaming rig and this computer is not for myself its for a friend who I am helping. Thanks all for your suggestions I will change the MB to the one recommended, I did not know that bundled PSU where not that good so that I will change. Overall I quite like Bacon? build as it has the same processor that my friend wants. Anything else?
 
What sort of resolution does he play games at? what games does he want to play?

I ask because a dual core such as the i3 (it also has Hyperthreading) is still a decent gaming CPU, examples below,


http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/far-cry-3-performance-benchmark,3379-7.html
i3 3220 vs 3500K - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/677?vs=288

7850 2GB vs 650 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=681


So as you can hopefully see, a little compromise in the CPU department, but the gain in GFX card performance is significant.
 
Last edited:
jonny109 said:
Hi all thanks for replying. Just to confirm yes it is a gaming rig and this computer is not for myself its for a friend who I am helping. Thanks all for your suggestions I will change the MB to the one recommended, I did not know that bundled PSU where not that good so that I will change. Overall I quite like Bacon? build as it has the same processor that my friend wants. Anything else?
Click to expand...

I'd probably suggest something like.......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £187.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Zalman Z9 USB 3.0 Midi Tower Case - Black £54.98
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) HDD £42.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £39.98
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £37.99
1 x Xigmatek Achilles II SD1284 CPU-Cooler - 120mm (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366 AMD AM2/AM3/FM1) £23.98
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £504.95 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Case is packed with kit for the price (3 fans, fan controller, digital temp display, P4/8 extension), is a great starters case. PSU is modular which really helps with the cable management.

Ivybridge i5K has a better IGP and does more clock for clock than Sandy. I used the OEM as it's cheaper and the saving goes towards a heatsink so we can overclock if he wants to.

Mobo is very good, that's already been discussed. I've used 8GB of low profile RAM, the beast stuff is quite tall so can be an issue with heatsinks especially if he wanted to add more RAM.

You'll notice there is no GPU but that's because I would look for a 2nd hand 1GB 460 or a 6850 (~£50). These "old" GPUs actually perform better than the current budget gaming GPUs until you start looking at something like the 7850.

Hope this helps
 
Hi stulid,

Thanks for your reply. I belive he wants to plays on his sony 40" TV at full 1080p. The games he wants to be able to play Max Payne 3, Battlefield 3 and he really just wants a computer that can cope with most of the games out on the market.

Hi honosuseri,

Thanks for your spec it looks very good. The only problem is my friend wants a bigger hard drive (1TB) and a Blu-Ray drive. I will take a look at second hand GPU that you recommended.

Thanks
Jonny109
 
a blu-ray drive is going to severely reduce the pc spec in that price range. Decent blu-ray drives cost £50+. That takes a huge amount of money better off spent on a GPU.

The i3 3220 & 7850 seems the way to go, though you may struggle budget wise, will let stulid, hono or zakk handle the exact spec. :)
 
Like Doom said, i3 and 7850 would be best. Unless he wants to add £50 extra to the budget forget the blu-ray idea.

Stulids is the build you want with the i3 plus 7850. I'd change the case and HDD but nothing else.
 
Hi Guys I’m the guy that Johnny109 was looking for the £500 spec build for thanks for all the help I have had a wee look at what use have said and this this what I have come up with

1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x Intel core I5 3470 3.20GHz socket 1155 8mb L3 cash retail boxed processor £146.32
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** HDD £53.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £39.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX16C9T3K2/8X) £37.99
1 x Zalman Z9 USB 3.0 Midi Tower Case - Black £54.98
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £584.18
 
Last edited:
Changed it slightly:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £39.98
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - White £39.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX16C9T3K2/8X) £37.99
1 x **B Grade** Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM £30
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £574.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
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