Spec me a budget build please

Devrij · 22 Sep 2009 at 18:53

I'm currently running the system in my sig, which needless to say leaves me wanting more

, but being a poor student am limited severely on my budget, but don't mind upgrading components in the future when more cash comes about. I mainly use it for gaming and general use, nothing particularly extreme. Basically, all I have that's worth keeping is my case, a fan, monitor, mouse and keyboard. My HDD and dvd drives are IDE so no go there. With a budget of between £300-£350 what could I get (with potential to upgrade)? Thanks!

95thrifles · 22 Sep 2009 at 18:54

Did this for someone yesterday

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £99.98 (£86.94)
Asus M4A785D-M Pro AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £57.99 (£50.43)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £50.99 (£44.34)
Coolermaster eXtreme Power 650W Power Supply £43.99 (£38.25)
OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel £39.99 (£34.77)
Asus TM-261 Case - Black/Silver (No PSU) £25.99 (£22.60)
Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive (Black) - OEM £18.99 (£16.51)
Sub Total : £293.84
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £45.84
Total : £351.43

Devrij · 22 Sep 2009 at 18:56

Rock on, cheers for the quick reply

Kennysevenfold · 22 Sep 2009 at 18:57

How about something like this, use onboard graphics for now.?

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £97.99
(£85.21) £97.99
(£85.21)

Asus M4A785TD-V Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £70.99
(£61.73) £70.99
(£61.73)

OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P13334GK) £65.99
(£57.38) £65.99
(£57.38)

Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD5001AALS) £44.99
(£39.12) £44.99
(£39.12)

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 420W Power Supply £39.99
(£34.77) £39.99
(£34.77)

Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£14.77) £16.99
(£14.77) Sub Total : £292.98 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 15% VAT : £45.45 Total : £348.43

95thrifles · 22 Sep 2009 at 18:57

Actually I made similar build for my dad, not with gfx mind, and discovered that the case has crappy front anel connectors which dont fit the mobo, so dont get that case, sry should have ammended, a 335 works well

Devrij · 22 Sep 2009 at 19:38

Just discovered the online finance options

Might go with your suggestion Kenny, and stick a gfx card in the mix as that's pretty important to me. Might as well get a case then flog my old rig to make up some cash, so you say the 335 for that?

Devrij · 22 Sep 2009 at 19:41

Agh, need cpu cooler as well just remembered. Suggestions? Would like to OC a bit so something decent, but again cheap please!

Kennysevenfold · 22 Sep 2009 at 19:54

Case

CPU Cooler

Nor · 22 Sep 2009 at 20:04

Will the Sunbeam fit into that Asus board?

Kennysevenfold · 22 Sep 2009 at 20:10

Nor said:
Will the Sunbeam fit into that Asus board?

with the fan a push, i cant see why not.

Devrij · 22 Sep 2009 at 20:21

This has turned into a £500 build! AGH!

So far it looks something like this:

Are there any compatibility issues that anyone can see?

RJC · 22 Sep 2009 at 20:22

One you will need to watch on the cooler is the bracket which holds it onto the retension bracket, it can interfere with the chipset heatsink. I had the problem on the Gigabyte EP45-DS3P and EX38-DS5.

zsolmanz · 22 Sep 2009 at 21:01

Lol - you seem to have turned your 'potential to upgrade' into an 'I want it now' type thing

There's certainly room for more graphics power in the future though, and RAM. The only thing missing for future proofing (from my point of view) is Sata 6Mbps. Since you're on a budget, and SSDs aren't quite hitting 300Mbps yet, it's not going to be a problem for a long while.

I'm not an AMD man - so can't advise there, for what there is remaining it gets my vote.

And be optimistic - it's not a £500 build, it's not even £100 over your budget (which is good going, I usually find

)

And what's the problem with IDE? It works, even if it's not the fastest anymore.

Devrij · 22 Sep 2009 at 21:56

Yeah I figured if I was gonna go the finance route I might as well get everything lol. I just meant that both my optical and hard disk drives were IDE and most mobos only have one IDE nowadays. Besides, legacy components are more expensive for some reason. What other cooler might you guys suggest to avoid issues?

LittleChimp · 22 Sep 2009 at 23:26

You might be cutting it abit fine with that psu i think 500w is reccomended for that card.

LittleChimp · 23 Sep 2009 at 23:19

Maybe better? on offer this week.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-111-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

AnDyR0o · 24 Sep 2009 at 09:15

I think you should probably have a look at a more powerfull PSU, 420w will probably be ok but its better to be safe

Devrij · 27 Sep 2009 at 21:20

Was having a think about this and tweaked it a bit with current offers/out of stock etc. What do you guys think? Changed psu to cope with upgrades, cpu cooler cuz I was worried about board compatibility, and ram cuz I'm skint and can always upgrade later on. Gonna run IDE HDD as well until payday lol. Sorry to keep flip-flopping and thanks for all the advice!