Cheap build for a friend

harvey1 · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:58

cheap build for about £300. He is going to be using it mainly guild wars 2 and the like. any suggestions? cheers

Sparx · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:59

What do you need? Case and all internals? Monitor? OS? Keyboard? Mouse? Speakers?

£300 you are going to struggle for anything decent...

Idleman · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:05

Might help if you have some spare components you could use, like sat hdd/odd, an old case, etc,.

harvey1 · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:05

nope no peripherals needed, just the case and internals for now

cmndr_andi · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:12

I can get it down to ~£360 (including OS) - below that I couldn't really do as you would be comprimising so much on performance/quality.

+ a £50 second-hand graphics card (like a HD 5770).

If he already had a retail copy of windows then it would be achievable within budget - as by far the biggest single cost is the OS license.

Sparx · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:16

Assuming you can grab yourself an OS and either make do without or re-use an old DVD drive - I can't see it getting much better!

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7750 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
1 x Intel Pentium G640 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £53.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) £43.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046) £36.98
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 (MB-364-GI) £35.00
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £25.99
Total : £312.94 (includes shipping : FREE).

cmndr_andi · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:19

That B grade Z68 board for £35 does look mighty nice. I would probably go for that one over the H61 in my spec (though bear in mind the warranty is only 90 days).

harvey1 · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:27

thanks for the suggestions guys

Idleman · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:33

And enough left over for a couple of pints. Use Win8 preview, that will give you a couple of months to save enough to buy an OS.

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7750 iCooler 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H775FN1G) £83.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-252-SE) £40
1 x Intel Celeron G540 2.50GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £34.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
1 x **B Grade** MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £30
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black ** OcUK Exclusive ** £24.98
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
2 x TeamGroup Elite 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Single Channel Module (TED32GM1600C1101) £9.95 (£19.90)
Total : £293.44 (includes shipping : £10.50).

honosuseri · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:42

Use windows 8 DE for free as Idleman suggested

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A8-5600K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD560KWOHJBOX) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A55M-DS2 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £47.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) £43.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.99
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB2133C11DC) £39.95
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black ** OcUK Exclusive ** £24.98
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £307.49 (includes shipping : £10.50).