CPU/Mobo/Case/PSU/RAM for £300?

aquous

aquous

aquous

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14 Jan 2005
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477
Greetings all.

Just following up on an earlier thread I made here, asking whether to go dedicated download box or Atom PC + NAS, which I didn't follow up on due to various work/family committments and a general lack of time to do anything else.

However, I have now decided to go down the route of building a dedicated machine which offers greatest flexibility. Need some suggestions on suitable components. Main uses will be as follows.

1. Machine will be left on 24x7 as the main fileserver with network printer also attached, so something low power would definitely be better in the long run.
2. Case needs to have space for at least 6-7 internal HDDs, as will be filled up with 1/2 TB HDDs.
3. Initial thoughts were going with an SSD for the boot drive, but having tried an SSD in a work laptop over the last couple of months - I have to say it's left me completely overwhelmed. I was expecting a huge jump in performance and loading times for different programs, and as far as my personal experience has gone - it's either the same or even marginally slower in some cases. Planning to use a 74GB Raptor as the boot drive, which I have lying around from a previous build.
4. Streaming 1080p videos over 802.11n /wired Gigabit ethernet to the PS3 and a couple of laptops.

Stuff I need for the new box:
1. Case - the 2 options I've come up with so far are the Coolermaster Elite 335 or the Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case. Not looking for anything too flash or with windows. Just a big, reliable case with lots of space for putting HDDs in. I've used Antec in the past and found them to be good, no idea which cases they make these days with the requirements I have in mind?
2. PSU - No idea what's good these days.
3. CPU + Cooler - will not be overclocked at all, left running at stock settings but could do with a silent/good cooler for it.
4. Motherboard - preferably something with onboard video processing/HD audio output, and ideally an HDMI port as well - to connect it to a Full HD TV in the lounge.
5. RAM - 2-4GB should be enough?

Everything else I already have - drives, KB, mouse, OS, monitor etc. As you can tell, it's been a while since I've actually built my own desktop and could really do with some pointers as to which parts offer best bang for buck these days. Budget-wise, trying to keep it as low as possible - hopefully around the £250-£300 mark as a maximum limit.

As always, any help is much appreciated :)
 
AMD Athlon II X2 235e (45W low power version) £55
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 (8 SATA ports) £85
Patriot 4GB DDR3 £89
Corsair CX 400W £39
Xigmatek Asgard £27 (if you're using 7 HDDs you might need to convert one of the 5.25" bays.)
Graphics card - pick up something cheap 2nd hand for £20 or so, most cards will play HD media quite happily, something like a GT 8500/9500/HD 4350 should be fine. You can always use a DVI -> HDMI converter if the card doesn't have HDMI.

Total comes to about £315.
 
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Thanks for the quick reply. Should have added, not totally opposed to AMD but I've always preferred to go Intel in the past and wouldn't mind doing the same again ;)

Also, hopefully looking for a mobo which offers both HDMI and DVI Out. A couple of advantages to me would be having Audio and Video going over the same link, and also having the ability to have a monitor and TV connected simultaneously. Don't know whether this is possible though ?

Although, having an SPDIF out on the Gigabyte is not such a bad idea, as I can feed it through to my AV receiver and have multi-channel audio.
 
Feel free to browse the motherboards on OCuk for one with 8 SATA ports + HDMI, think you'll struggle to find one. :p There's always the option of using a controller card for the extra SATA ports, but that'll just add to the budget...

edit - Intel is a (very) bad idea for budget builds.
 
Not necessarily going to need 8 SATA ports to begin with. I plan to have 6 drives in there to begin with (including the boot drive), and can always add in the extra controller as needed, in the future.

What I meant was, I'm not sure whether there is a suitable mobo that even exists which does Video and multi-channel audio over HDMI/SPDIF and offers a parallel connection via DVI to a normal PC monitor (though most of the time, the machine will be run remotely or just via the TV interface anyway).
 
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Thanks for that link, just checked the spec on Gigabyte's website - and it specifically does mention HDMI/DVI-D are not supported simultaneously. Guess it was too much to ask for :(

Apart from that, the motherboard does look good. Any recommendations on lowering the cost of the memory - so I can fit the cost in under £300 ideally.
 
Try the bay/MM if you don't mind buying 2nd hand? Else you could probably get away with 2GB for a file/media server.
 
infernox said:
intel is a bad idea for a budget that low it would just be awful, be happy with amd you little fanboy you:)
Click to expand...

:p

Unless you want to go completely 2nd hand you're almost certainly not going to get an Intel build with all the features you need in the 300 budget.
 
Thread resurrection!

For people who can be bothered to read the first post (thanks btw :) ), I've still not managed to convince myself to go AMD and have come up with the following spec.

Comments.... Good/Bad?



A few questions:

1. Will the CPU/Mobo combo allow me to use the onboard graphics?
2. Stock cooling enough for 24x7 use? If not, any suggestions on a silent cooler/fan combo ?
 
aquous said:
Thread resurrection!

For people who can be bothered to read the first post (thanks btw :) ), I've still not managed to convince myself to go AMD and have come up with the following spec.

Comments.... Good/Bad?



A few questions:

1. Will the CPU/Mobo combo allow me to use the onboard graphics?
2. Stock cooling enough for 24x7 use? If not, any suggestions on a silent cooler/fan combo ?
Click to expand...


looks fine to me.
1. yes *EDIT* just read you first post the onboard might struggle, but i'm not 100% sure.
2. yes but the stock fan is noisy but not unbearable definitely get some other cooler if you can fit it into your budget
 
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Any recommendations on the cooler?

Also, budget is a little more flexible since I decided to stop being stingy and get what I wanted in the first place, rather than fiddling about later ;)
 
I don't find intel stock loud at all! AMD though is another ball game. I'd stay with stock, but all is good if you don't :)
 
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