Spec me a pc for £600

1uke

1uke

1uke

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My brother needs a pc and is starting from scratch. He's a website developer but also wants to get more into game making. He also plays the odd game. I have tried telling him £600 is a very low budget for a pc especially for his needs.

Can you please spec me a pc near to that price and maybe a little more if the performance would be far greater. I personally suggested AMD would be better bang for buck but his workmates have told him intel is the route to go....
 
Are you sure there's nothing he could use from a previous computer, such as hard drive with Windows on it, and maybe a decent power supply if it's not too old?
 
Unfortunately he has nothing. He has been surviving at home using a apple mac mini and tablet etc.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £115.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £107.99
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G2400HC11CDC01) £65.99
1 x Seasonic S12II 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - Black £39.95
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler £19.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.39
Total : £589.26 (includes shipping : £12.50).



AMD spec with standard mechanical drive and mid range graphics card. Arctic cooling hsf as the oem is stupidly loud. Assumes he already has an O/S
 
If you qualify for free shipping this is £40 over but would give a nice balance in my opinion.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Boost OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card £146.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £139.99
1 x Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £77.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Sapphire Blue" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G186C9KBL) £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £65.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £63.95
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £49.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
Total : £664.39 (includes shipping : £17.10).



If you could convince him to push a little more to around 720 this would give better bang for your buck though. It's essentially the same spec but with a better motherboard and better CPU that can be overclocked. The mobo includes a free cooler that should give enough to put a nice overclock on that processor as well.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Boost OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card £146.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £107.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £65.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Sapphire Blue" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G186C9KBL) £65.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £63.95
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £49.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99
Total : £734.39 (includes shipping : £17.10).

 
Looks good to me. I really think he should up his budget for a SSD and a slightly better GPU.
Are there intel builds in the price category that will compete with this or is AMD far better performance for your money?
 
I think we posted about the same time. I think my first spec is probably good to consider against the AMD one.
 
Yes we did and thanks loads for the help.

My limited understanding was that AMD generally gave greater performance for your money at the moment but intel still rulez the roost, Just?

That BitFenix case looks nice for the money.

And yes I apply for free shipping :-D
 
£600 is the tipping point into acceptable Intel specs. Best idea is to get a final idea of budget and let us know. Knowing the software he uses will also be useful as that will drive the decision on how many cpu cores and amount of ram would provide the best balance.

The Bitfenix case does not have external USB 3.0, but is still a nice case.
 
Okay, so he needs Windows then unless he wants to go with Linux. You could tweak ExRayTed's (or other ones that have been posted while was making my suggestion) AMD basket to fit Windows in, or consider this Intel basket:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87M-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £89.99
1 x Avexir Blitz Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C9 2000MHz Dual Channel Kit (AVD3U20000904G-2GW) £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £71.99
1 x Seasonic G series 450w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £69.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x **B Grade** Bitfenix Raider Tower Case - Black £35
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.39
Total : £601.28 (includes shipping : £12.50).



What I'd do with that budget is leave the graphics card out, carry on light gaming for now with the integrated graphics, while I saved up for a graphics card a few months down the line and just pop it in when the time comes, and then start with game making and all that. So a two-stage build in order to get a solid foundation in place right now that will also allow for a better video card than would fit in this present budget.
 
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In fact, if I could go over budget a bit (£30-40), I'd remove the 1TB Barracuda and get a Samsung Evo 120GB SSD in, so I could put the OS on it straightaway. Then add a storage drive for under £50 later on when it becomes necessary.
 
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You'd want a higher watt psu unless you only plan on going with a low end GPU, not saying you need something silly like 1kw.
Would say go with the 550w version of the psu.
 
Great suggestions I've linked him to this as will be really useful to him!

I personally love my Amd 8350@5ghz which is custom watercooled. But he's keen on a intel build which I have very little knowledge on this time around.
 
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