Girlfriend wants a £400 Computer

davycookie

davycookie

davycookie

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29 Jul 2012
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Hey guys, my girlfriend has asked me to build a £400 computer for her, her only real requirements are:

Case included
ready to use when built
Doesn't need a monitor or any peripherals
Needs a rewritable dvd drive
Doesn't need a graphics card included in the £400 as she will be buying it in a few months
Taking the graphics card out of the equation, it needs to run Skyrim lag free with decent settings(she is sick of playing it on her xbox and not being able to mod)
Needs on board graphics/cheap graphics card to run basic for the first few months
Needs at least 120GB HDD included in the £400
Needs Windows 7 Home

So anyone that has the time or would be a touch on the smarter side than me, go wild :D
Cheers guys, you make my life easier ;)
 
You can either get an i3 build, which means better performance when a graphics card is bought, or a AMD Trinity build which means better performance now, but will be worse than the i3 when a graphics card is bought. I would spec right now but I can't.
 
 
CinderzFTW said:
this is all you need for skyrim and a basic system:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £86.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x ASRock FM2A75 Pro4 AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £68.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £41.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £29.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite Power 500W Power Supply £29.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
Total : £400.42 (includes shipping : £17.10).

Click to expand...

You need faster RAM to get the best out of the integrated graphics, along with more of it.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-076-PA&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

PSU is rather poor, get this one instead.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-146-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1088
 
CinderzFTW said:
this is all you need for skyrim and a basic system:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £86.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x ASRock FM2A75 Pro4 AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £68.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £41.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £29.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite Power 500W Power Supply £29.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
Total : £400.42 (includes shipping : £17.10).

Click to expand...

Fire_fly said:
You need faster RAM to get the best out of the integrated graphics, along with more of it.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-076-PA&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

PSU is rather poor, get this one instead.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-146-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1088
Click to expand...

I agree with you Firefly, The RAM needs to be faster and that is set is great.

Though the PSU isn't the best it'll be more than adequate for that use. My mate has one and he has had no problems and would recoomend it. :)
 
Here, an AMD build:
YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £86.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £41.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual CHannel Kit (PV38G213C1K) £39.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £36.98
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
Total : £409.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).


You will want the fastest RAM you can get, also included a A85X chipset motherboard.

For Intel, you will want something like this:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £83.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - FREE Alpenföhn Civetta Cooler!! £69.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £41.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £36.98
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £34.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
Total : £413.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).



As I mentioned above, the AMD system will be better at gaming now, but when a graphics card is added there will be quite a noticeable difference between the performance of the AMD system and the Intel one.
 
Intels IGP will be no good for gaming initially

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £86.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £54.98
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G213C1K) £39.95
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black £17.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
Total : £413.47 (includes shipping : £10.50).



Little over the £400, however.....

The mobo is by gigabyte has a good 3 year uk based warranty, can overclock the AMD APU and has HDMI onboard. RAM is nice and fast to keep the IGP happy and I colour coded it to the mobo. Case is cheap and basically disposable should you want to get a better one later, or hand down your own one if you upgrade. That CM Elite power (name makes me laugh everytime) is pants, it's not 80% efficient (only 70) so is costing you more money in the long run. This XFX has enough power and is made by seasonic (they do awesome PSUs) it has a 5 year warranty.

Hope this helps....kindly note the 1TB HDD ;)
 
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