Sound/Graphics PC, £300

alien.46.uk

alien.46.uk

alien.46.uk

Associate
Joined
3 Jan 2009
Posts
63
Location
Derbyshire, UK
Hi All,

I'm looking for advice on literally a tower and that's it, no OS, Monitor, Kb, Mouse etc ...

Basically it's for my Brothers 21st and he's only ever had ex-office PC's and always been frustrated.

He's quite into sound engineering and some graphics work (photoshop mainly) and I'm trying to put this PC together for his birthday, but I'm strugaling to keep it on budget. It's quite tight, can't go over by much, if any.

Doesn't HAVE to even be complete, but it would be nice to have everything.

I was going along the lines of Athlon X2 250 and Arctic Freezer, on an ASUS M4A78LT-M LE as the backbone, but after that I just cant get it low enough ...

I would be happy on advice on all of it, it doesn't have to use the above,

All help appreciated.

Many Thanks.
 
that's probably a good choice of processor for your budget... how about using the stock heatsink to start off with? If it's too loud, or he wants to overclock it, he can upgrade it then.

Built-in graphics on that is probably OK if not used for gaming, and can always be upgraded later.

Probably needs a good sound card though... maybe an Asus DX?

400W should power that, definitely worth going for a good brand though... a Corsair CX 400W would do great.

Cheapish case, like the Xigmatek Asguard.

That would total £232. If you can salvage a HDD or DVD-RW drive, that would all fit in budget.
 
£15 over budget. And last year tech... Put hay something to work with. And quad core

315.png


sorry croped bottom.... Total is £315
 
If he's into sound engineering then you want a Soundcard with a MIDI input. I would look at the M-Audio range of cards. Very highly sought after for people doing music production and editing :)
 
If he is serious about music reproduction/engineering then the above spec may not produce the best results as a DAW?

An overclocked quad core with lots of memory and the likes of an M-Audio 192 would be worthwhile, keeping things quiet is worth looking into to.
 
Like the above if he is very serious about it you could just buy him the barebones such as a AMD 800 chipset motherboard and a AMD X6 1055T processor and a case. Music editing uses as many cores as it can and a lot of RAM. On board graphics will be fine for photoshop.
 
Hate to throw this in to the mix but quite a few producers and sound guys I know love their Mac's. Me being a Microsoft fan boi means we simply don't discuss anything to do with computers whilst having a few beers. Proper order too. Mac's seem to be the choice of the studio engineer although I could build a lethal PC for the same $$ a Mac would cost.
 
Last edited:
sastusbulbas said:
If he is serious about music reproduction/engineering then the above spec may not produce the best results as a DAW?

An overclocked quad core with lots of memory and the likes of an M-Audio 192 would be worthwhile, keeping things quiet is worth looking into to.
Click to expand...

I agree thats why i used a quad core in the spec. Been a black edition it will be ripe for a overclock. though will need a better cooler.
Also the nvidia gpu in the motherboard will be fine for photoshop. All he will have to buy himself is a sound card
 
AMD Athlon II X3 435 - £61.43
AsRock A790GMH/128M - £64.12
Kingston 2gb Ddr3 1600mhz Hyperx CL9 - £48.12
Corsair CX 400W - £34.20
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA II 16MB Cache HDD - £35.49
Samsung SH-S223L - £13.83
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 - £16.24
Sunbeam Quarterback - £22.82

Total: £296.25 (Free Delivery)

Could change the case to a Coolermaster Elite 330 or xClio Propeller, i was just trying to keep delivery costs down. Might want to change the motherboard to a M3A770DE and go a bit over for a dedicated graphics card, but that's probably easily good enough anyway. But yeah, with this budget you're looking to get a sound card later. The motherboard has a VIA® VT1708S looks quite good for an integrated chip.

And i just realized that motherboard is AM2+, so change the RAM to DDR2, of which you could probably get 3GB (2GB+1GB) for roughly the same price.
 
Last edited:
philtorrens said:
Hate to throw this in to the mix but quite a few producers and sound guys I know love their Mac's. Me being a Microsoft fan boi means we simply don't discuss anything to do with computers whilst having a few beers. Proper order too. Mac's seem to be the choice of the studio engineer although I could build a lethal PC for the same $$ a Mac would cost.
Click to expand...

I personally wonder if the whole mac phenomenon when it comes to sound/ graphics isn't just a 'well, everyone else has one for it..' thing.

I do a lot of photoshopping and such but stick to windows and can't see how it could be any different with a mac running the same software :rolleyes:

For the £300 system maybe you should think about how serious he is with his line of work/ hobby? As you may build a nice budget pc for £300 but it just won't be snappy enough and buying the barebones may be what he would prefer to start from and put something to it himself :) Theres nothing worse than a computer which feels too slow! (although saying that snaggsters build looks tasty for 315 quid!)
 
Last edited:
Hi All,

Many Thanks for the replys. I've managed to wangle another £50 (Overtime is quite handy atm).

So budget it up to £350 if that would make it easier?
 
Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £99.99
(£85.10) £99.99
(£85.10)
Patriot G Series 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel (PGS34G1333ELK) Patriot G Series 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel (PGS34G1333ELK) £88.99
(£75.74) £88.99
(£75.74)
Asus P7H55-M Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard Asus P7H55-M Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £65.99
(£56.16) £65.99
(£56.16)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £38.99
(£33.18) £38.99
(£33.18)
OcUK 450W Dual-Rail High Efficiency Power Supply OcUK 450W Dual-Rail High Efficiency Power Supply £34.99
(£29.78) £34.99
(£29.78)
Asus TA-8H3 Black Midi Tower Case - Black Asus TA-8H3 Black Midi Tower Case - Black £19.99
(£17.01) £19.99
(£17.01)
Sub Total : £296.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £53.72
Total : £360.69

There's that, but with no decent sound card, so pretty much the I3 route's out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom