New rig needed - still on 2009 hardware

snadge

snadge

snadge

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11 Oct 2010
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Hi all

I wondered if anyone could help, I used to DIY my PCs usually, but it seems the prices seem to have skyrocketed, and wonder if an AIO/ready-build would do?

I'm not a PC gamer (XBOX), but I couldn't afford it anyway... I mean over £1000 just for a decent GPU...wow!
my budget is around £600- I would like PCIe NVMe storage options, DDR4/5 16GB RAM, and at least 8 physical cores on the CPU, I would prefer Intel but I know AMD has some good options.
a dedicated GPU isn't really a need but would be very nice. and of course a decent cooler and PSU - I can repurpose my HDDs and 1TB SATA3 SSD

I am just getting too old to keep up with the many, many new parts that come out every other week.

any advice would be great

thanks in advance
 
What exactly will you be using the PC for? If I've read your post right, you aren't a PC gamer but are looking to make a decently gaming spec'd PC here for £600? If you aren't gaming on your machine, would a nice laptop like a MS Surface be a better fit or?
 
Hutchy said:
What exactly will you be using the PC for?
Click to expand...

This is an excellent question. If you are not going to be gaming do you need a decent cpu for productivety tasks? Or are you just going to be using it for general web browsing and office tasks? If the later is the case then we have gone beyond the singularity point with PCs and even low end current hardware is far more than you will need for that use case, you certainly do not need 8 physical cores and a 4 core 12100 will be absolutely fine.

Here is some components to think about. Case is just a placeholder and you can pick any you like.

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £499.12 (Includes shipping: £12.30)​



​
 
As @Haz123 mentioned, what is this PC for? The 8-core CPU requirement seems a little odd for what, a..., browsing PC? It sounds like you want a workstation? But, if that's the case, why only a paltry 16GB?

An AIO or SFF PC is perfectly decent for just a low-key office machine that has lower power requirements and doesn't take up much space, but they often have weak CPUs and poor expandability/upgradability.

You can get mini or occasionally mid-tower systems with a 5600G/5650G/5700G, which offer decent performance and reasonably high core counts, without sacrificing upgradability too much, but they do love to put 8GB of memory and tiny SSDs (like, 250GB) in them.
 
Oddly enough I've also been looking at a mostly prebuilt PC without drives or a graphics card. With 32GB in my case, but with DDR4 that's not a big difference in price. Different story with DDR5, but that's still too expensive for my intended budget. With a decent case and cooler and PSU (you explicitly mentioned wanting the last two) I'm looking at a little over £700 and that's with a 6 core CPU (i5 12400). A bit over £800 with the cheapest 8 core CPU I could find that was available (Ryzen 5800X). That's with someone else building it for me because I no longer want to do that. Although since you're not gaming Ryzen 5700G would be a cheaper 8 core CPU that might suit your uses. Depending on what your uses are. Most uses other than gaming will be well served by almost any PC from the last 5 years. Or even older for basic office work and web browsing.

Ready built will do, but getting one with the parts you want is the issue. Some places allow you to configure a prebuilt to some extent, but how much varies a lot. Also, they tend to skimp on what they can because the key selling points are price, price, price, model name of CPU and model name of graphics card or iGPU. And, of course, as much lighting as possible if it's being marketed as a gaming PC because that's fashionable nowadays.
 
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thanks for the replies guys, i'll have a look through them,
its just this machine is Ancient (2009) but has had RAM, SSD and PSU upgraded since - its an old SandyBridge unit, I just want something newer that will only be used for browsing and a music workstation (I like to produce music)

edit: as for more than 4 cores, its something I would like, it would help in my music production, I wouldn't want to spend on an upgrade for the same Core count
 
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I assume you're aware that a 4-core i3-12100 would hammer a 4-core i7-2700K in single-thread and multi-thread, right? It has similar performance to a 6 core from the previous gen.

But, anyhow, this is an 8 core self-build spec for comparison:

AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Eight Core 3.8GHz (Socket AM4) APU with RX Vega Graphics - Retail - £209.99
Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard - £139.99
Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey - £85.99
WD Blue SN570 500GB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS500G3B0C) - £44.99
Super Flower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black - £64.99
Lian Li Lancool 205 Midi-Tower Case - Black Window - £64.99
Alpenfohn Brocken 3 CPU Cooler - 140mm - £32.99

Grand Total: £657.13

You can get nearer budget by cutting the memory to 16GB (-£39) and the SSD to the 250GB (-£10).

FYI: You could play old/light games with the 5700G, but I don't think a decent DGP build is possible for this budget with a modern 8-core CPU.
 
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Tetras said:
I assume you're aware that a 4-core i3-12100 would hammer a 4-core i7-2700K in single-thread and multi-thread, right? It has similar performance to a 6 core from the previous gen.

But, anyhow, this is an 8 core self-build spec for comparison:

AMD Ryzen 7 5700G Eight Core 3.8GHz (Socket AM4) APU with RX Vega Graphics - Retail - £209.99
Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard - £139.99
Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey - £85.99
WD Blue SN570 500GB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS500G3B0C) - £44.99
Super Flower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black - £64.99
Lian Li Lancool 205 Midi-Tower Case - Black Window - £64.99
Alpenfohn Brocken 3 CPU Cooler - 140mm - £32.99

Grand Total: £657.13

You can get nearer budget by cutting the memory to 16GB (-£39) and the SSD to the 250GB (-£10).

FYI: You could play old/light games with the 5700G, but I don't think a decent DGP build is possible for this budget with a modern 8-core CPU.
Click to expand...
Brocken 3 (165mm) is to tall for that case (160mm).
 
Yes to the above post - that's what I meant, I can't afford new ones every year (Wished I could), but I keep them as long as I can with upgrades during their life, etc, for example, this was one I have now was originally:
4GB DDR3@1333Mhz / 3.3Ghz Core-i5 Quad / MSI GTX460N / H66 Chipset mobo / 250GB SATA SSD with 1 x 500GB Seagate HD drive - but now over the years it has had upgrades, like 14GB DDR3@1600MHZ / CPU OC'd up to 4Ghz / 1TB Samsung 860 SATA SSD replaced the older 250GB EVO, and I replaced the MSI GTX460N with a Gigabyte GTX650, as it was newer and was very cheap at the time, but I'm still on DDR3, PCIe Gen2, ALL SATA drives
(1 x 1TB Samsug EVO 860 TLC / 1 x 2TB Western Digital (SMR) / 1 x 2TB Seagate (CMR) / 1 x 500GB Seagate (that's dying - but have everything I need on backups)

as I say its not a gaming rig, I use my Xbox for that, but id love to have a gaming PC with 1440p@144hz capable GPU and monitor (too much money for me so stuck at 60Hz lol)

thanks for the list soldato, i will take a look
 
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