£500 Spec Check

Namak

Namak

Namak

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15 Aug 2009
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Hoping all you fine chaps (and fillys) might help me with a spec check. Been about 2 years since I researched my build so I'm not as up to date as I used to be, especially with AMD based builds, and I've been asked to knock together a pc for my father.

PC may be used for website design, general usage such as skype and internet browsing, watching films and maybe equity trading. Possibly very light gaming. Quietness and reliability is a big plus but £500 budget for the base is the biggest restriction. Periperals like screen, mouse, speakers etc will be taken from old pc so this is only for the base unit. An additional HDD of 1.5tb is already purchased and I have a spare windows license.

Current screen is fairly low resolution but graphics card must be able to cope with running a couple of 24inch screens incase he want to use it for trading and the motherboard needs to be upgradeable to stick a second graphics card in to take that up to 4 if he wants to. It won't ineed to play crysis at that resolution or anything graphic intensive but shouldn't stuggle running a couple of high resolution screens during normal usage.

Tv card may be added at a later date and possibly, although unlikely, a sound card so need at least one PCI spare after two graphics cards added. No overclocking will be done but the motherboard should have "future proof" tech like USB3 so that it should last a while.

It would probably be out of budget anyway but I've avoided SDD as my father is not the best at maintaining a PC. Desktop full of junk and pointless software and toolbars are likely to be installed everywhere :rolleyes:

Gone for a quality case that I thought should be sturdy and quiet instead of a £30 cheapy but like the rest open to suggestions. Memory I just picked what seemed like good value.

Any thoughts on the following? fully compatible? Any money being wasted anywhere? Any obvious improvements? Anything stupid I've missed out?

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) £111.61

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H AMD 890GX (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £105.99

Corsair Dominator 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMD4GX3M2A1600C9) £76.36

Be Quiet! Straight Power E7 600W Power Supply £58.99

HIS ATI Radeon HD 5570 1024MB GDDR3 SILENT PCI-Express Graphics Card (H557HO1G) £58.74

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £48.99

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £32.99

Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99

Sub Total : £432.05
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 17.50% VAT : £77.67
Total : £521.47
 
Thanks Guys!

So Cat.... Do you think that the onboard would be able to cope with 2x 24inch screens? and if so do I not need a graphics card? Or on the other hand could I save money by going with a cheaper motherboard that doesn't have onboard? I couldn't find an AMD one that has two PCI 2 ports and USB 3 that seemed cheaper/better though.

Also will onboard hamper performance at all by using up resources?
 
The 890GX has 128MB of dedicated DDR3 RAM on the motherboard for the IGP.

I know someones who runs a 30" Apple Studio display and a 20" Apple Studio display off a pair of 7300GT 128MB graphics cards in their Mac Pro so you don't need a very powerful graphics card.

The main issue is that the second monitor has to use VGA connection.

There is this 880G based motherboard which the slightly slower HD4250 IGP which also has 128MB of dedicated DDR3 RAM:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-280-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

It lacks the symmetrical Crossfire ability of the 890GX motherboards although it should be able to run a pair of low end graphics cards fine as it has a pair of PCI-E slots. One slot will run at PCI-E 2.0 16X and the other PCI-E 2.0 4X but for non-gaming purposes this makes no difference.

These 870 based motherboards lack the IGP of the 880G based motherboards but also have a pair of PCI-E slots too in the same configuration as the 880G motherboards:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-283-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-408-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

Even if you do get a dedicated graphics card an HD5450 should be fine IMHO:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-118-HT

You should be able to run the HD5450 in hybrid Crossfire mode in 880G and 890GX based motherboards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Hybrid_Graphics

This means that you can run 4 monitors - 3 with a DVI connection and a single one with a VGA connection.

The HD5570 would be a better bet though if any modern games are to be run on the computer. AFAIK,the IGP will be switched off but I am uncertain about this!
 
Last edited:
Namak said:
  • PC may be used for website design, general usage such as skype and internet browsing, watching films and maybe equity trading
  • Possibly very light gaming
  • £500 budget for the base
  • Current screen is fairly low resolution but graphics card must be able to cope with running a couple of 24inch screens incase he want to use it for trading
  • the motherboard needs to be upgradeable to stick a second graphics card in to take that up to 4 if he wants to.
  • Tv card may be added at a later date and possibly, although unlikely, a sound card so need at least one PCI spare after two graphics cards added
  • No overclocking will be done
  • the motherboard should have "future proof" tech like USB3
  • I've avoided SDD
  • a quality case
  • open to suggestions
  • Memory I just picked what seemed like good value
Click to expand...
namak.gif


GA-880GMA-UD2H Product Page

Board is DualDisplay IGP that can run two 24" monitors . . it also comes with two PCI-E X16 slots (X16/X4) which you can use for adding dedicated multi-display GPU's (IGP is disabled when GPU installed) . . . only thing left out is the question of gaming! :cool:
 
hay big.wayne
just wanted to ask what is the difference between the GA-880GM-UD2H and the GA-880GMA-UD2H
 
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Think I'd also suggest the full ATX motherboard, if he does end up with 4 PCI(E) cards then it'll be somewhat crowded on the micro board (although it's just about doable).
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
dedicated RAM for the IGP
Click to expand...
Hey Cat,

I'm not sure if I'm reading this right but this "dedicated RAM" thing is a non issue? . . . AM3 has SidePort memory which is a kinda graphics "cache" that helps speed up gaming? . . . It also has the option of using 128MB/256MB/512MB/1024MB of system ram . . .

The AM2+ board I am using doesn't have SidePort memory and I have set the IGP to 512MB in the BIOS . . . with 4GB of system ram this doesn't seem to be an issue? . . . I can't envision the scenario outside of gaming (benchmarks?) where having or not having SidePort would be noticable?
 
Hi Redmint,

Redmint said:
Think I'd also suggest the full ATX motherboard, if he does end up with 4 PCI(E) cards then it'll be somewhat crowded on the micro board (although it's just about doable).
Click to expand...
I don't think Namek is wanting to install four PCI-E cards but instead two GPU's that can support up to "four" displays . . .

Namak said:
Current screen is fairly low resolution but graphics card must be able to cope with running a couple of 24inch screens incase he want to use it for trading and the motherboard needs to be upgradeable to stick a second graphics card in to take that up to 4 if he wants to
Click to expand...

It's fair enough if he wants to go ATX instead of uATX, little more expansion potential for PCI cards etc(?) . . . the only disadvantage I can think of is that a ATX board can never be fitted into a uATX case . . . may not be a problem now at all . . . could be handy in a few years if the mobo is swapped out and the new owner wants to build a HTPC in a micro chassis . . . yes I do actually think that far ahead! ;)
 
what about potential sound and TV card purchase?

and yes I know the motherboard has a sound chip, but what if he needs a card that does more/has certain outputs?
 
Also, the 6000 series cards are rumoured to be able to support up to four screens. 4 screens on a single card... mmm... ;)
 
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