Spec me a basic tower £350-£400

[DiscoDave]

Hi Everyone,

My younger cousin needs a new PC to replace his 5 year old one, budget is between £350-£400 for just the tower unit, including OS.

He'll be mainly using it for Intenet/email and the odd bit of gaming. I'd probably prefer an Intel build.

If people could post some suitable specs I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

David

 

[Frozennova]

Under budget, capable and intel.

However at that pricepoint, AMD give you a whole lot more bang for your buck

EDIT, Im assuming you have free shipping to so both come to around £394

 

[Redmint]

On that budget Intel is a pretty bad idea, any chance you or he can get a student copy of Windows 7?

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
(£72.33)
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM) £84.59
(£71.99) £84.59
(£71.99)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £68.14
(£57.99) £68.14
(£57.99)
Asus M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £51.99
(£44.25) £51.99
(£44.25)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £47.99
(£40.84) £47.99
(£40.84)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £31.71
(£26.99) £31.71
(£26.99)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
(£25.52)
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
(£22.97) £26.99
(£22.97)
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £374.79
Shipping cost based on delivery to Credit/debit card billing address, GU2 8AU with:
FREE SHIPPING (DPD Next Day)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £65.59
Total : £440.38

You can probably get that in budget if so.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-180-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1009 That card is still fine for 'light gaming' if you want to cut another 10 quid off.

 

[Cycrow]

i think the main question is what kind of gaming are you thinking of.

onboard gpu would be cheaper and allow you to get in budget, but it wont work with all games, and the ones it doesn't wont be that great, depending on what games you are planning to play.

if your thinking some fairly old, less graphicalyl demanding games, then u should be fine with onboard

 

[shadow_boxer]

+1 for going for an AMD build. Worth that little bit extra for getting a dedicated gpu.

 

[macfanuk]

Just out of curiosity, are the SKT1156 Pentium Dual Cores any better than the Skt775 ones?

 

[Redmint]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/123?vs=94

Not massively TBH, closest comparison I could find, the LGA775 chip there is the e6300 (2.8GHz) however you can also get an e6700 (3.2GHz) which I assume would be pretty close to the scores of the G6950 going by that comparison.

 

[w1llyg]

The g6950 got really good reviews from custom pc magazine, they OCed to 4.2ghz easily and got it up to 4.6ghz :O

 

[Redmint]

They're pretty good overclockers, trouble is it's only a bit more for an i3.

 

[w1llyg]

I suppose. But when on a tight budget and extra £10 here n there soon adds up. it also depends on how much u like your cousin ^^

 

[Fras]

They're pretty good overclockers, trouble is it's only a bit more for an i3.

i3 Is only a bit more and clocks way better, Well worth the investment.